8 cores doesn't do much for a video game...AFAIK most games still run in a single thread. With 3GB of RAM, i think the only possible culprit is your vid card. Sorry I'm not a PC gamer I don't know which cards are good.
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Game performance is crap on my Mac Pro 8core
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8 cores doesn't do much for a video game...AFAIK most games still run in a single thread. With 3GB of RAM, i think the only possible culprit is your vid card. Sorry I'm not a PC gamer I don't know which cards are good.
You're going to need to find a PC X1900XT with 512 MB of RAM to flash to the Mac version. I'd check Google and eBay as well.
I play FEAR, Half Life 2, and Quake IV with full settings on and I have yet to lag my quad 3 Ghz Mac Pro. It's your GPU; like everyone else says, it's your GPU that's holding you back. Get an X1900 XT if you can. If you want, you could get a Windows GPU to play Window's games (it might be cheaper than getting another Mac specific GPU). You'll have to switch back to your old GPU to run OS X again though...
Uh...not meaning to be rude here, but this is actually a bit humorous. "I bought the most powerful computer out there, with the weakest GPU offered, and it's not good at games!"
For reference; in NVidia's naming scheme, the first number is the generation, the second is where in the lineup it is.
A 7300 is a 7th-generation card, but 300 is pretty much the bottom of the lineup (IIRC the 7200 is an integrated card and the 7300 is the weakest one you can buy).
Meanwhile, a 6800 is 6th-generation, but 800 is pretty much top of the 6-series.
The best card in the 6-series bests the worst card in the 7-series, obviously. Sadly, Apple does not offer NVidia's current top of the line (the Geforce 8800), but ATi's Radeon X1900 is still the second-best card on the market.
For reference; in NVidia's naming scheme, the first number is the generation, the second is where in the lineup it is.
A 7300 is a 7th-generation card, but 300 is pretty much the bottom of the lineup (IIRC the 7200 is an integrated card and the 7300 is the weakest one you can buy).
Meanwhile, a 6800 is 6th-generation, but 800 is pretty much top of the 6-series.
The best card in the 6-series bests the worst card in the 7-series, obviously. Sadly, Apple does not offer NVidia's current top of the line (the Geforce 8800), but ATi's Radeon X1900 is still the second-best card on the market.
I've got a similar setup as Redneck1089 and performance is not really an issue when in Windows or Mac.
While I have noticed that my card is rather loud when running games in XP (and a little on the warm side too), I haven't noticed this much doing graphics intensive tasks on the Mac side...which usually is test ripping DVD's in Handbrake. Of course I haven't had it for more than 6 months, but I don't think it's showing any signs of dying!
Just my humble opinion, but unless security is your #1 concern, I'd stay away from 64-bit Windows. Like, far far away. Driver compatibility is shockingly poor (and looks to remain that way, at least until MS forces users to 64, which I highly doubt).
I know this won't be a popular (or cheap) solution, but if you're okay with desktops, you might as well have (ideally, build yourself) a dedicated gaming machine, and then use your Mac Pro to do other hardcore things, like creating feature films or something. I know it's not what you want to hear, OP, but just my two cents. I love games, but I also don't play on the bleeding edge--the most cutting edge game I'm playing right now is Civ IV, and that's enough of a system hog for me.
lag1080 (or whatever 
) speaks the truth, you can buy a regular X1900XT and then flash it to work with a Mac, google it or someone like lordblackadder might be able to direct you to the website where these guys do mac cards flashing.
But yeah why did you spend so much money on a computer without knowing what it came with? The 7300GT is there to please users who won't need it as its a fanless solution meaning less noise and no performance drawbacks for people who were not even going to need the card, its obvious if you want better 3D, pony up for the X1900XT, if you need workstation 3D, pony up for the Quadro.
Now what Apple needs is another tower... maybe like an iMac except with no monitor and desktop parts (not the laptop parts iMacs use) and thus it would be much cheaper than an iMac and be upgreadable... I'd jump on that comp like instantly, my Mac Pro is nice and all but its not a gaming machine, at least not a cost effective one.
I still think the main reason OSX is not mainstream (at least not WinXP level) is because of how limiting Apple hardware was and to an extent, still is even today.
) speaks the truth, you can buy a regular X1900XT and then flash it to work with a Mac, google it or someone like lordblackadder might be able to direct you to the website where these guys do mac cards flashing.But yeah why did you spend so much money on a computer without knowing what it came with? The 7300GT is there to please users who won't need it as its a fanless solution meaning less noise and no performance drawbacks for people who were not even going to need the card, its obvious if you want better 3D, pony up for the X1900XT, if you need workstation 3D, pony up for the Quadro.
Now what Apple needs is another tower... maybe like an iMac except with no monitor and desktop parts (not the laptop parts iMacs use) and thus it would be much cheaper than an iMac and be upgreadable... I'd jump on that comp like instantly, my Mac Pro is nice and all but its not a gaming machine, at least not a cost effective one.
I still think the main reason OSX is not mainstream (at least not WinXP level) is because of how limiting Apple hardware was and to an extent, still is even today.
It's because your using 64 bit windows. 32-bit drivers and 64-bit ones are different. if you want the best support, roll back to XP PRO 32 bit. ..and you only have 3 gb of ram, why would you need a 64-bit os?
Emphasis on MOST. There are a few existing games that are multi-threaded and newer games like UT3 will be multi-threaded as the UT3 engine itself is multi-threaded. Gears of War should be multi-threaded (as it uses the UT3 engine). As well, I believe, OpenGL itself is now multi-threaded on Intel machines, so any game in a way is multi-threaded. Now that Intel has gone with processors with multiple cores, more and more games will be multi-threaded.
Specs are misleading or meaningless
On Apple's own website they tell us the NVidia GeForce 7300 GT card is a 128-bit card with 256 MB of GDDR2 SDRAM with a memory bandwidth of 10.7GB/s (amazing!) and 350 million vertices per second (that is fast), and a fill rate of 2.8 billion per second. (That is 2.8 billion with a "B").
Of course those are my marketing comments but still I wish it meant something to the buyer. How do you know if 350 million vertices per second is enough for your gaming needs? And actual performance of the other cards is much higher than their numbers show in the comparsion chart.
On Apple's own website they tell us the NVidia GeForce 7300 GT card is a 128-bit card with 256 MB of GDDR2 SDRAM with a memory bandwidth of 10.7GB/s (amazing!) and 350 million vertices per second (that is fast), and a fill rate of 2.8 billion per second. (That is 2.8 billion with a "B").
Of course those are my marketing comments but still I wish it meant something to the buyer. How do you know if 350 million vertices per second is enough for your gaming needs? And actual performance of the other cards is much higher than their numbers show in the comparsion chart.
I know you spend a lot of money on the mac pro, but it isn't meant to run any games. Its like buying a super computer and trying to play bejeweled on it. You "could" play games on it but its intended purpose is for hardcore graphic related work 'stuff'.
Alright. I worked it all out.
Haha...
I picked windows XP 64bitbecause later on(When I have more cash) I'm going to be upgrade more RAM into it.
As for the graphics card, I just ordered the 8800 GTS. I know I know.. I can't use the MacOS but I really don't use the MAC OS. I was a PC guy till Mac Pro came out with it's pretty good build comp. So Yeah, the graphics card is arriving tomorrow. =) If you guys want I'll post some Benchmarks on it.
8core running w/ 8800GTS 600GDDR... god I can't wait till I test it out.
I uninstalled FEAR by the way... that game freaks me out.
Haha...
I picked windows XP 64bitbecause later on(When I have more cash) I'm going to be upgrade more RAM into it.
As for the graphics card, I just ordered the 8800 GTS. I know I know.. I can't use the MacOS but I really don't use the MAC OS. I was a PC guy till Mac Pro came out with it's pretty good build comp. So Yeah, the graphics card is arriving tomorrow. =) If you guys want I'll post some Benchmarks on it.
8core running w/ 8800GTS 600GDDR... god I can't wait till I test it out.
I uninstalled FEAR by the way... that game freaks me out.
I guess there are no good options for Mac Pro users who want decent graphics. I was so disapointed with the stock 7300 card on my Mac Pro I went ahead and bought the ATI X1900. It was too loud. I replaced the cooling fan with the Accelero X2 and now it's quiet again and works great. Also, reviews of the X1900 on Apples website are rife with complaints about overheating, another reason to replace the cooling unit.
I wonder what logic apple used when they decided to go with the 7300GT in the 8 core machine... I would think something like a 7600GT should have been the absolute lowest thing offered in that box. Maybe it should have been
7600GT 256mb - good consumer card
X1900XT 512mb - fast consumer card
7950GX2 1024mb - fastest consumer card
QuadroFX 4500 512mb -pro apps
7600GT 256mb - good consumer card
X1900XT 512mb - fast consumer card
7950GX2 1024mb - fastest consumer card
QuadroFX 4500 512mb -pro apps
Mac Pro is a workstation, not a gaming machine.
I think when you buy something that expensive, you know exactly what it is and what it can do.
Obviously the OP has more money than brains. Every gamer should know that no game uses more than 2 cores (most use only 1) and that GeForce 7300GT is crap for high-end gaming.
I think when you buy something that expensive, you know exactly what it is and what it can do.
Obviously the OP has more money than brains. Every gamer should know that no game uses more than 2 cores (most use only 1) and that GeForce 7300GT is crap for high-end gaming.
Looooooooooooooooool.
bobber205 is right you could of just spent 500 for a decent gaming rig, for a 1g you could of gotten a full on haxorz 2 zillion fps watercooled beast.
Are you just using the Mac Pro for gaming or do you actually do intensive task?
bobber205 is right you could of just spent 500 for a decent gaming rig, for a 1g you could of gotten a full on haxorz 2 zillion fps watercooled beast.
Are you just using the Mac Pro for gaming or do you actually do intensive task?
AGAIN, read my email. That is already changing starting with UT3 and likely GoW. As well, OpenGL, which ALL games use is optimized for multiple cores, so your statement is incorrect. If your going to buy a machine now for gaming, it better be a Dual Core or better.
Your email?
Anyway, can you name a game that uses 2 cores at full capacity? What about games that use MORE than 2 cores? In Windows, where there is no multi-threaded OpenGL?
Also, the OP complained that the current games run like crap on what he thought was the absolutely best gaming computer on the market? (notice he uses the "8core"in the thread title, which signifies that he thinks 8 cores is super powerful in games
Kosh66: shouldn't opengl/direct3d be more concerned with the GPU cores and not with the cpu cores ? after all what of the control logic can you parallelize ? perhaps another thread for sound and AI ? and often it might not be even worth the hassle at the moment since you have to write fallback code if somebody has a different processor with only 1 or 2 codes
that said if you are very interested in buying a computer also for games the easy solution is always: buy the slower cpu and get a better graphics card for the saved money
which on the mac side simply isn't possible on a lot of models even made worse by the fact of limited amount of graphic cards for it: it's about god damn time for apple talking with nvidia/ati to finally get of-the-shelf cards working
that said if you are very interested in buying a computer also for games the easy solution is always: buy the slower cpu and get a better graphics card for the saved money
which on the mac side simply isn't possible on a lot of models even made worse by the fact of limited amount of graphic cards for it: it's about god damn time for apple talking with nvidia/ati to finally get of-the-shelf cards working
Mac Pro is a workstation, not a gaming machine.
I think when you buy something that expensive, you know exactly what it is and what it can do.
Obviously the OP has more money than brains. Every gamer should know that no game uses more than 2 cores (most use only 1) and that GeForce 7300GT is crap for high-end gaming.
If you read through this thread, you wouldn't be talking out of your ass. He said he's a 3D modeler, which is where the extra 6 to 7 cores come in to play, as well as the massively expansive memory banks.
Bored? Read.
Peace
I think exan said exactly what you're trying to say here. I dont believe he was implying that the machine was purchased for gaming...but he is suggesting that when a person spends this kind of money on a machine, they should research all aspects of its performance and not take assumptions. For example that games are generally not multithreaded (or not well) and also that the 7300GT really does suck for games - as well as modeling of any kind actually.
A 3D modeler would be better off with a 4 core machine and spend the extra on the Quadro video card.... Thats much more logical.
A 3D modeler would be better off with a 4 core machine and spend the extra on the Quadro video card.... Thats much more logical.
If you read through this thread, you wouldn't be talking out of your ass. He said he's a 3D modeler, which is where the extra 6 to 7 cores come in to play, as well as the massively expansive memory banks.
Bored? Read.
Peace
...on a side note, Crysis will be fully multithreaded and will look amazing.
I believe this demo was run on a Core 2 Quad with a 8800GTX video card
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22195.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22212.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22238.html
I believe this demo was run on a Core 2 Quad with a 8800GTX video card
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22195.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22212.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22238.html
I thought Maya 8.5 can not run with the nvidia card and that they want people using ati?