2600xt?

[marcg007]

Just out of curiousity...

Has anyone tried playing some of these so called "Windows Only" games using CodeWeavers Crossover Mac? I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my 2.8 iMac and am hoping I will not even need to bother installing Windows on it because there are only 2 applications that I need Windows for. I realize Codeweavers is only just out of beta the Monday before the new Apple stuff was announced, but they do seem to have a fairly impressive list of stuff that already works and that includes games.

Thanks,

Marc

 

[diamond.g]

I'm just looking to use the 3dmark score as a starting point for a comparison since I know what my current system scores
...snip...
but I am encouraged to see that the 3dmark06 score of the new iMac is BETTER than my current system... I will need to see more tests but I am very excited so far..

oh, yeah it will be better, but the issue is the optimization for 3dMark. So while the 2600XT has a higher score than the 8600GT in 3dMark, the 8600GT is actually faster in more games.

 

[EricG07]

Did you upgrade in the same mobo config? because I could weather the wait till Leopard / further BTO options if I got a budget card to fill the gap?

Thats what I have been doing.. I've been "waiting" myself for a year now for several things to occur before I switched over completely as it were.. since I heard about 10.5 ,, been in a holding pattern.. waiting for a fully 64bit os (10.5), waiting for 64bit intel dual core cpu's to be used in the iMac series, (waiting for Windows to be bootable on intel mac's - bootcamp) , (waiting for VM software to come into existence) .. then for Parallels to have support for 3d games .. so most of those things have come to pass, the last thing I am more or less waiting for now is 10.5 .. (it being a 64bit OS) .. yeah I know, a long list.. but I am patient and most of the things I wanted to see happen have some to pass now..

thats why I got the 7800gs .. to fill the gap till those things happened.. I suppose its up to you .. can you wait for Apple to add new BTO options for the mac? .. My guess is you wont see anything till spring at the earliest. .. though with Apple you never know..

yes, the mobo is the same ASUS P4P800 {AGP} as when I first built the PC .. (I hand built the system myself {been building custom windows systems for years}.. sadly after I made it, PCIE was announced . ) .. I don't plan on sinking any more money into it .. the Nvidia 7800GS was the last purchase I made for my windows machine - and that was because the 5200 croaked and the 6200 was too painful to use for Dark Age, i'm done with windows systems .. even cleaning up spyware and viruses for friends has lost its appeal now {see bored to tears {hint: use a bootable CD with spyware/virus removal tools makes it a trivial task - or put the infected drive into a external case and scan it from a good clean machine} , I need to expand my horizons, thats why I bought the mac mini , and well also because OSX is a better OS IMHO-- and its much like my dear departed Amiga was } ..lol .. saving for my dream iMac.. This is why Its important to me to see how the new iMacs compare to what I am using now.

 

[myery]

In case nobody has noticed yet, Barefeats has posted more test results, and it seems that driver issues are party to blame for the performance shown in their first round of testing. Additionally, the new iMac does seem to perform well in Cinebench and other benchmarks.

 

[wazgilbert]

In case nobody has noticed yet, Barefeats has posted more test results, and it seems that driver issues are party to blame for the performance shown in their first round of testing. Additionally, the new iMac does seem to perform well in Cinebench and other benchmarks.

Indeedy, and it makes for good reading!

INSIGHT: Yes, the Windows drivers are "more mature." Hopefully we will see the Mac drivers optimized to at least match the performance of the Windows drivers in the near future.

 

[shakastange]

In case nobody has noticed yet, Barefeats has posted more test results, and it seems that driver issues are party to blame for the performance shown in their first round of testing. Additionally, the new iMac does seem to perform well in Cinebench and other benchmarks.

The Prey tests were done using Bootcamp with Windows XP Pro. This is as good as it get with gaming. 42 F/ps is not that bad but it isn't spectacular. Hopefully they will give us some more tests with other games.

 

[ndriver182]

The Prey tests were done using Bootcamp with Windows XP Pro. This is as good as it get with gaming. 42 F/ps is not that bad but it isn't spectacular. Hopefully they will give us some more tests with other games.

But that was at a very high resolution. I guess I really don't care much because I'm mostly going to be using mostly older games. I think the most recent game I've got is Age of Empires 3.... I have a feeling the 2.4ghz should be able to handle that. We'll see. I'm still curious about more benchmarks though. I think things aren't looking as bleak as they were a day or so ago though.

 

[AlexisV]

Is anyone on a PC with 3dMark 06?

I eventually ran the test on my 20" 2.4Ghz iMac in WinXP (had to do a bit of tweaking to get it to run since it doesn't like the new Radeon cards until a patch comes out), but I can't see or submit the actual result. It just says submission failed when I try to upload.

Here's the 3D Mark file if anyone can open it:

http://www.violetmount.com/iMac.3dr

 

[EricG07]

Is anyone on a PC with 3dMark 06?

I eventually ran the test on my 20" 2.4Ghz iMac in WinXP (had to do a bit of tweaking to get it to run since it doesn't like the new Radeon cards until a patch comes out), but I can't see or submit the actual result. It just says submission failed when I try to upload.

Here's the 3D Mark file if anyone can open it:

http://www.violetmount.com/iMac.3dr

was your internet connection working under bootcamp..? Just had to ask..

to see the result, you must submit it to the website first then you can see it.. (in the free version).. so you need to have your networking functioning under bootcamp .. its also possible the site was offline at the time you tried.. it should be pretty simple, once you submit it, your web browser will open and your score is at the top of the page..

not sure what you mean by "tweaking"..

 

[fblack]

no i believed you!! i meant "link here to HL:2 was ther, i just took that out to save space.

Sorry, I misunderstood. Its easy to do that with text.

The Prey tests were done using Bootcamp with Windows XP Pro. This is as good as it get with gaming. 42 F/ps is not that bad but it isn't spectacular. Hopefully they will give us some more tests with other games.

Hmmm...the 7600 certainly holds its own against this underclocked 2600XT in a 2.33Ghz no less.

42fps is at very high rez, the 1200x800 is a reasonable rez at decent scores. I only wish the OSX drivers for both the 7600 and 2600 were better optimized.

 

[flipperanubi]

a

 

[Durmortec]

Just tried out Oblivion, and it runs pretty smoothely on native resolutions with most things turned down, I'll do some real benchmarking with it and Company of Heroes in a few hours or so.

 

[psingh01]

Just tried out Oblivion, and it runs pretty smoothely on native resolutions with most things turned down, I'll do some real benchmarking with it and Company of Heroes in a few hours or so.

This is what I'm waiting on! Put it through the paces. Bring it to it's knees! CoH performance may sway me to get an iMac!

 

[furious]

Just tried out Oblivion, and it runs pretty smoothely on native resolutions with most things turned down, I'll do some real benchmarking with it and Company of Heroes in a few hours or so.

Thank you . . . thank you . . . thank you. I am waiting for some CoH benchmarks. I want to know how well the game runs at the native res of the 20" 1680 x 1050 pixels. Also are you running XP or VISTA?

 

[Durmortec]

Thank you . . . thank you . . . thank you. I am waiting for some CoH benchmarks. I want to know how well the game runs at the native res of the 20" 1680 x 1050 pixels. Also are you running XP or VISTA?

I'm running Vista Home Premium, with the 20"er and 2 gigs of RAM. I'll release some BF2 benchmarks as well later on.

My plan is to benchmark only from the native resolution, first with everything cranked, and then I'll play around with the settings to get to what I feel is considered playable and tell you what the settings are.

Any other requests I'll try and do when I can get to them.

EDIT: Ok, so you have something to choke on for a bit in Company of Heroes while I figure FRAPS out, I cranked everything to max and got an average of 16 FPS on the performance test, however the stuttering wasn't bad at all, barely noticable except for explosions.

I altered the settings a bit keeping everything at maximum except Shadows (Medium) Texture Detail (High) Effects Fidelity (Medium) Effects Density (Medium) and Model Detail (Medium) and Anti Aliasing off and got a very impressive 30 fps average on the performance tests.

I was looking really hard for differences and I couldn't tell much between the two except the textures were more blurry up close, other than that the two settings are pretty close.

I'll play around with fraps now and get some real ingame benchmarks recorded.

 

[furious]

cheers. Just what I have been waiting for. I think around 60FPS is acceptable for CoH and 90FPS for BF2. I think if you could adjust the setting at native res to get close to that would be cool.

 

[Durmortec]

Just completed the first mission with everything cranked and it averaged 17 FPS so it looks like the the performance test was a pretty close indication of how the game would run. Again I thought it ran amazingly smoothe for such a low FPS score, I didn't have any problems playing the game and didn't notice many stutters. Maybe my eyes are bad but it barely detracted from the playing experience.

I'm gonna guess if I use the settings I used for the second performance test it'll hover around 30 FPs and be totally playable, at least for me. I'll try and see if I can get it to 60 FPS though, playing around with the settings some more.

 

[furious]

I was under the impression anything less than about 30FPS in CoH made for an unpalatable experience. I guess it depends on personal taste.

Thanks for the hard work you are putting in. I appreciate it and am sure many others do to.

 

[flopticalcube]

We sure do appreciate real world tests. Oblivion fully cranked with no AA/AF would be my favourite. AA/AF kills these cards, apparently (at least for now).

 

[DoFoT9]

Sorry, I misunderstood. Its easy to do that with text.

haha yea thats ok. its so hard to understand what people mean without tone in voice.

 

[Durmortec]

Last little bit of info I'll give and then I'm taking a break.

With the settings I mentioned before I was indeed able to get a steady 32 FPS in the first mission, with absolutely NO noticable hitches or stutters, completely playable imo.

With everything on low I managed to get an average of 55 FPS with as high as 89 FPS and as low as 35.

Again I think turning everything off is overkill and very unecessary, as at steady 32 FPS the game is fully playable not to mention it looks just about as pretty as it did when I cranked it save some slight jaggies (you have to look REAL hard) and slightly blurrier textures up close. The explosions and everything else look just as pretty imo, you'd have to be a real nitpicker to say otherwise.

I'd also like to add the game is BEAUTIFUL on this TN screen, I'm very happy with the purchase and the speed of this computer, I don't really plan on OCing since I'm happy with medium-high settings on native resolutions and 30 FPS averages. I can't really see how you could expect anymore out of the iMac really. A very pleasant surprise for all us naysayers out there.

 

[DoFoT9]

^^ just a quick question..

your running vista home premium, uumm BF2 is that DX10 compatible?? or is that running dx9??

just wondering because dx9 on vista isnt all that great, come to this ok it neither is dx10, not yet neways

 

[MindBrain]

Last little bit of info I'll give and then I'm taking a break.

With the settings I mentioned before I was indeed able to get a steady 32 FPS in the first mission, with absolutely NO noticable hitches or stutters, completely playable imo.

With everything on low I managed to get an average of 55 FPS with as high as 89 FPS and as low as 35.

Hey whats the FPS difference if any between DX 9 and DX 10 for CoH?

 

[soosy]

Last little bit of info I'll give and then I'm taking a break.

With the settings I mentioned before I was indeed able to get a steady 32 FPS in the first mission, with absolutely NO noticable hitches or stutters, completely playable imo.

With everything on low I managed to get an average of 55 FPS with as high as 89 FPS and as low as 35.

Again I think turning everything off is overkill and very unecessary, as at steady 32 FPS the game is fully playable not to mention it looks just about as pretty as it did when I cranked it save some slight jaggies (you have to look REAL hard) and slightly blurrier textures up close. The explosions and everything else look just as pretty imo, you'd have to be a real nitpicker to say otherwise.

I'd also like to add the game is BEAUTIFUL on this TN screen, I'm very happy with the purchase and the speed of this computer, I don't really plan on OCing since I'm happy with medium-high settings on native resolutions and 30 FPS averages. I can't really see how you could expect anymore out of the iMac really. A very pleasant surprise for all us naysayers out there.

Just wanted to say thanks for these tests! Look forward to hearing more...

 

[Durmortec]

Hey whats the FPS difference if any between DX 9 and DX 10 for CoH?

I haven't tried that yet. But guessing from the other benchmarks I've seen in DX10 I wouldn't expect more than 6-10 FPS with DX10, also, from what I've read it offers minimal gains in visuals for a HUGE hit in performance, not really worth it. I will give it a try though later. Right now I'm gonna run some Oblivion tests.