>>30% loss of gaming performance after 10.6.7

[Cerano]

Hey any guys facing the same issue?

Also this may be because OpenGL Graphics Scores in XBench have gone from

OpenGL Graphics Test 104.46
Spinning Squares 104.46 132.52 frames/sec

under 10.6.6

to

OpenGL Graphics Test 71.73
Spinning Squares 71.73 91.00 frames/sec

OSX performance is now slow even with an 11" ultimate

 

[iNotion]

CS5 photoshop + illustrator = Awfully Lagging!
(never happen to me on any OSX, it is like running on Windows)

Playing Call of Duty 4 on it is even WORSE!
Now i have a headache~

 

[untype]

Conspiracy or screw-up

I really hope that this is some kind of oversight and not an intentional crippling of the Air. I've heard all kinds of conspiracy theories regarding products that are too close in performance and price so the manufacturer slows one down/kills performance so it is somewhat worse. I haven't seen any proof so these remain urban legends but I would hate to think that the Air was slowed down since it was a little too close in performance/price to another recently launched or soon to be launched upgrade/product/refresh.

Most of you would remember how surprising the performance was post release. So many people were saying the processor is old, it won't have enough power, blah blah blah and then people started using them and were blown away.

Regardless, I hope this is fixed soon.

 

[KPOM]

It seems pretty clear that 10.6.7 is a dud. 10.6.8 (or 10.6.7.1) can't come quickly enough.

Hopefully "[addressing] various issues with performance" didn't mean that it was "too fast." I doubt it, though. Apple just put a Core i5 and i7 into the MacBook Pro, so they have no reason to dumb down the MacBook Air. It's also one of their best-selling models.

Note that the Rev D Air was prone to kernel panics (I know from personal experience), so perhaps they did throttle some things down a bit in hopes of reducing panics.

 

[DarwinOSX]

I really hope that this is some kind of oversight and not an intentional crippling of the Air.

Oh please...

 

[johnhalsted]

I have also noticed the awfull performance after 6.7 so im just gonna wipe and see if i can get it to 6.6 again until the problems fixed

no biggie

 

[57004]

I really hope that this is some kind of oversight and not an intentional crippling of the Air. I've heard all kinds of conspiracy theories regarding products that are too close in performance and price so the manufacturer slows one down/kills performance so it is somewhat worse. I haven't seen any proof so these remain urban legends but I would hate to think that the Air was slowed down since it was a little too close in performance/price to another recently launched or soon to be launched upgrade/product/refresh.

That would hardly be necessary, since the MacBook Pro was updated in Februari the gap is much bigger once again.

 

[untype]

That would hardly be necessary, since the MacBook Pro was updated in Februari the gap is much bigger once again.

Agreed, but what about a potential refresh/upgrade of the Macbook Air to a slightly faster processor and a somewhat worse GPU? Not that much of an upgrade so far as I have heard in these forums.

I hope it's just a screw-up. Only time will tell if the next OS update fixes the issues that ppl are experiencing. If the performance/benchmarks don't go back up, and ppl still can't play the games they could with the old OS, I will start worrying.

 

[solaris7]

Apple does not screw up....

 

[KPOM]

Apple does not screw up....

Yes. In fact, I just got an e-mail from Steve Jobs who said he was worried that MacBook Air owners were spending too much time on iTunes, so they released 10.6.7 to fix that.

 

[Susurs]

I couldn't find any discussion about this performance degradation on Apple discussion board...I think it should be brought there as well if not already.

Well I do not want to think about "degradation on purpose" but than again Intel gpu is such a garbage...

iTunes and not only iTunes "quality control" or something else in Apple has gone very wrong lately...

iTunes 10 broke visualizer performance and did not bring it back even until now (I know not a lot of you use it but anyway), later it broke startup times of MBA as well and now it seemingly freezes whole system in combination with 10.6.7. ...

Do not treat your customers like that Apple...

 

[ZipZap]

Apple does not screw up....

Neither does Microsoft...

 

[Susurs]

Ok, could somebody post more Xbench results (Open GL section). Either on 10.6.6. or 10.6.7. or both if you have the possibility to compare and your model of MBA.

My results for base MBA 11 1.4 (10.6.6) are:
OpenGL Graphics Test 89.28
Spinning Squares 89.28 113.25 frames/sec

 

[KPOM]

On an "Ultimate 11" running 10.6.7, I'm getting a score of 96.59 at 122.54 frames/sec.

 

[IngerMan]

First time I ran Xbench so I am not sure prior to 10.6.7

Open GL 111.18 141.04 frames/sec

MBA 13 1.86 4 Ram

 

[Scott6666]

10.6.6

11" Ultimate

105.27 first run
106.15 second run

 

[KPOM]

I think it's pretty safe to say that fears of a 30% drop in performance were overblown. XBench results can vary based on lots of factors. In general, we're getting pretty similar results as before.

I re-ran XBench after a fresh restart, and got 98.38 (124.81 frames/sec) on my Ultimate 11. I also checked my results from when I first got my Ultimate 13" back in November. In general, the disk benchmarks were the same, and the 13" was about 30% faster on the CPU and graphics tests, which is no surprise given that the processor, bus, and IGP run about that much faster on the Ultimate 13" model than the Ultimate 11" model.

 

[Susurs]

Thank you KPOM! You made me believe that situation is not so bad after all. Well, yes... It seems that the gap might not be so big...lets hope it is so.

Actually looking at those scores on thread for now I see that MBA 11 ultimate gets a score around 105 on 10.6.6. in two cases and what I want to believe is that it get's 96-98 on 10.6.7 as KPOM says and not 30% decrease but we would need more results to compare more MBA... so welcome to post them...

 

[KnightWRX]

Anyway guys, any of you having problems, just use your system restore USB key and then get 10.6.6 :

http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1349

Not like it's a big problem. Also, have some of you guys checked out activity monitor when you run the benchmarks and compare 10.6.6 and 10.6.7 ? Something goofy might be going on in the background while under 10.6.7 on your particular configuration.

 

[IngerMan]

Good call Knight. I was so enoyed with Itunes locking up every other day. I did a time machine restore back before March 21st when 10.6.7 came out.

I am running 10.6.6 at the moment and did the xbench test again.

117.83 (149.48) running 10.6.6 vs my 111.18 (141.04) running 10.6.7

Only a 5% difference and that could be many things. But the good news is I feel confident opening up iTunes.

MBA 13 1.86 4GB Ram Running 10.6.6

 

[Angra-mainju]

hot to turn back to 10.6.7?

 

[The-Pro]

2010, 2.66ghz i7. 512mb GT 330M, 10.6.7

292.42 frames/sec

average of 288 on 10.6.6

 

[GreyMatta]

after installing 10.6.7 I was getting around 40fps at medium settings in SC2 this was after going from 10.6.6 to 10.6.7.

I decided to do a bit of a clean up of my OS and do a clean install so I used my USB stick to reinstall everything and then did a software update to take me to 10.6.7 I now get 8-9fps in SC2 at medium settings.

any body have any ideas to rectify this?

 

[BlackMax]

after installing 10.6.7 I was getting around 40fps at medium settings in SC2 this was after going from 10.6.6 to 10.6.7.

I decided to do a bit of a clean up of my OS and do a clean install so I used my USB stick to reinstall everything and then did a software update to take me to 10.6.7 I now get 8-9fps in SC2 at medium settings.

any body have any ideas to rectify this?

Reading posts like this has me seriously considering skipping the 10.6.7 patch altogether on my 11" MBA. All I can figure is that Apple must have modified the NVIDIA GeForce 320M drivers for the worse. The much worse.

 

[GreyMatta]

Reading posts like this has me seriously considering skipping the 10.6.7 patch altogether on my 11" MBA. All I can figure is that Apple must have modified the NVIDIA GeForce 320M drivers for the worse. The much worse.

I have tried using Pacifist to extract and install the drivers from the 10.6.6 update but I was still only getting 8fps so I suspect its more than just the drivers that are at fault

also my Xbench OpenGL scores are still around 102 with 130fps so Xbench doesn't give a true picture of the problem