Gaming performance with the new 8800 GS?

[SaSaSushi]

Gaming is important to me although I am still battling the age old question of laptop versus desktop. I am about to buy either an MBP or iMAC in the next week as I need it for work. Would be nice to mix some pleasure in there too THANKS!

I don't think any Mac is going to be a good solution for the hardcore gamer.

At the moment the best recommendation for gaming would definitely be the 3.06GHz iMac with the nVidia 8800 though. Save the money left over that you would have spent for a Mac Pro for gaming and just build a Windows gaming box or buy a console.

 

[Jack Flash]

I don't think any Mac is going to be a good solution for the hardcore gamer.

At the moment the best recommendation for gaming would definitely be the 3.06GHz iMac with the nVidia 8800 though. Save the money left over that you would have spent for a Mac Pro for gaming and just build a Windows gaming box or buy a console.

I'd say the top model iMac is a powerful machine for most PC gamers. A "hardcore" PC gaming rig would cost just as much as a Mac Pro.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I'd say the top model iMac is a powerful machine for most PC gamers. A "hardcore" PC gaming rig would cost just as much as a Mac Pro.

Thanks for the clarification. Having never built one I did not know this. You'd have enough left over with the iMac to get a console for sure though.

 

[Jack Flash]

Thanks for the clarification. Having never built one I did not know this. You'd have enough left over with the iMac to get a console for sure though.

That's for sure, and it really might be the way to go. A console is a safe purchase when compared to PC games. You're getting 5 years of definite hardware support along with the first pick of big budget titles.

 

[Dartholomew]

Well, OK, how about as in will it play current games at reasonable frame rates? I would consider 30+fps reasonable, wouldn't you?

Now we've eliminated the GMA 950. Perhaps I should have been more specific for the benefit of the naive readers.

Thanks for your opinion though.

Well, it's all context, and in regards to gaming, the answer is highly variable. I'm not trying to be difficult or nitpicky SaSa, but I used to be a pretty hardcore FPS gamer, and for a competitive FPS, you would get a WIDE range of responses as to whether 30FPS is anywhere near reasonable. For me, 60fps was a bare minimum (and is one of the reason why some gamers took so long to finally move away from CRTs to 60hz flat panel displays). For WOW, 30fps is mostly fine, I'd say (and perhaps some hardcore WOW players would disagree). It's definitely a range, but I don't think it's off-base to think that 30-40fps would be considered *UN*reasonable for a machine with the cost and other component power of an iMac.

Because of the above, I'm not particularly offended with statements like "card A is the first reasonable solution to gaming," nor do I feel the need to argue against someone's personal preference, unless they're factually wrong (i.e., if card B came out earlier/same time and was just as fast or faster).

I'm with you on *eliminating* the GMA950 though-forever

 

[Sam Yikin]

My experience so far:
WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne (OSX)- Absolutely perfect. Everything maxed and it runs totally smoothly, and I've done some extreme things in the game...

Fable: The Lost Chapters- Everything ran perfectly, never saw any FPS issues or anything, all settings maxed, there is is an odd issue where snow and rain hung in the air but other than that it was perfect.

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind- Everything maxed, runs perfectly.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion- Very impressive. Everything maxed, and the game runs totally smooth except when I'm in any area with a @#$%load of grass, fighting an enemy. Nearby Oblivion gates also worsen the problem, but other than this it works wonderfully.

Oh yeah, and the Halo demo and Custom Edition under XP both work amazingly.

 

[mmccaskill]

in WoW in OSX max resolution all settings cranked up. Lowest I've gotten is 74 fps, the highest is 204fps.

 

[meta]

Age of Conan ran at about 50fps with settings on max except shadows, which I disabled, character shadows look like crap in the game, and setting it to everything eats your fps, antialiasing at 8xq, resolution at highest ofc, so pretty nice, that was without sp 1 tho, hoping with that new sp included i'll get better videodrivers to keep the game from running out of bloody memory.
There's a thread on it at the Conan forums with a LOT of ppl using nvidia grafx cards on any system, saying they all got the same problem, just wait and bleed till funcom fixes it i take it
Think all top notched imacs will run every latest game at very decent speed at very decent settings, 512mb vram is quite the standard now, let's just hope either apple or nvidia are comin up with updated drivers for the stuff!

spUn, have you tried this fix?

 

[theidoctor]

i wish i had one!!!!!

will anyone help me get one please?

i wish apple would try and stay ahead with their technology and start going with 9XXX series cards

 

[larryj]

in WoW in OSX max resolution all settings cranked up. Lowest I've gotten is 74 fps, the highest is 204fps.

Maybe I need to reinstall WoW. I have the settings at almost max (a couple are below max) but my FPS drops to the 40s here and there.

Not bad at all, but yours sounds better.

 

[spUn]

spUn, have you tried this fix?

Updated all my stuff, meaning windows vista, and bootcamp,
textures look stunning, game(Age of Conan) runs at about 50fps, quite constant, and haven't had a single crash since i'm up to date with all of my drivers.

 

[sir. mac]

Updated all my stuff, meaning windows vista, and bootcamp,
textures look stunning, game(Age of Conan) runs at about 50fps, quite constant, and haven't had a single crash since i'm up to date with all of my drivers.

What drivers did you use for Vista? I presume you have the 8800GS iMac?

 

[I am Sampson]

I've not updated any dirvers at all, just use the standard bootcamp ones in XP.
I play crysis at 1920x1200 (all my games run at that resolution) around 25-30fps with all settings maxed bar one (shader something I think). Tried it on ultra high but it was too slow and I wanted to avoid lowering resolution.
BF2 and BF2142 all maxed out including increasing AA and AF in nvidia control panel to 8xAA and 16xAF (beyond in-game settings). (8xAF for 2142, not bothered to try 16x, but it is more demanding). Not checked fps, but must be 40-50+
Supreme Commander maxed out everything, around 30 fps on performance test, though real gaming is far more demanding as I play very long games with many sides, though I play without AA as find it makes little visual improvements for that game, yet when you get to having 7 sides with an excess of 750 units each it makes a performance difference.
(as a side note, my iMac plays supreme commander smoother than my friends quad core 2.6Ghz 4Gb Ram 8800GTS SATA raid PC, and he runs at "only" 1280x1024, though he does max out AF and AA pointlessly)
Source games are all fine, though oddly portal seems slightly jerky with motion blur on, though TF2 doesn't.
Oh, and GTA2 runs crazy fast with the frame limiter off!!!

These frame rates are no doubt completely unacceptable to many (i.e. 25-30 for crysis), however I'm very much a person who likes pretty above smooth, and am used to frame rates more around 15, so its great for me.
I'm very impressed with it to be honest, just not sure if I should get updated drivers from nvidia or not.
Have people found that drivers from nvidia give better performance over the bootcamp ones? If so, are there any other drivers I should update? (XP, not vista).

 

[sir. mac]

I've not updated any dirvers at all, just use the standard bootcamp ones in XP.
I play crysis at 1920x1200 (all my games run at that resolution) around 25-30fps with all settings maxed bar one (shader something I think). Tried it on ultra high but it was too slow and I wanted to avoid lowering resolution.
BF2 and BF2142 all maxed out including increasing AA and AF in nvidia control panel to 8xAA and 16xAF (beyond in-game settings). (8xAF for 2142, not bothered to try 16x, but it is more demanding). Not checked fps, but must be 40-50+
Supreme Commander maxed out everything, around 30 fps on performance test, though real gaming is far more demanding as I play very long games with many sides, though I play without AA as find it makes little visual improvements for that game, yet when you get to having 7 sides with an excess of 750 units each it makes a performance difference.
(as a side note, my iMac plays supreme commander smoother than my friends quad core 2.6Ghz 4Gb Ram 8800GTS SATA raid PC, and he runs at "only" 1280x1024, though he does max out AF and AA pointlessly)
Source games are all fine, though oddly portal seems slightly jerky with motion blur on, though TF2 doesn't.
Oh, and GTA2 runs crazy fast with the frame limiter off!!!

These frame rates are no doubt completely unacceptable to many (i.e. 25-30 for crysis), however I'm very much a person who likes pretty above smooth, and am used to frame rates more around 15, so its great for me.
I'm very impressed with it to be honest, just not sure if I should get updated drivers from nvidia or not.
Have people found that drivers from nvidia give better performance over the bootcamp ones? If so, are there any other drivers I should update? (XP, not vista).

Some people use the Laptopvideo2go drivers for the iMac. There are both desktop and mobile drivers, I don´t know which would work best for the iMac. Someone got something to recommend?

 

[HiRez]

Maybe I need to reinstall WoW. I have the settings at almost max (a couple are below max) but my FPS drops to the 40s here and there.

That's my experience as well, on 24" 3.06 GHz, 1920x1200, I maxed everything including 4X AA, except turned off Full Screen Glow and I'm only getting in the 40-70 fps range. Which I'm thrilled with BTW, just not sure how the other dude is getting minimum 74 fps with all settings maxed. I'm measuring outside though, indoors you can definitely get much higher frame rates, especially zoomed in.

 

[aki]

Some people use the Laptopvideo2go drivers for the iMac. There are both desktop and mobile drivers, I don´t know which would work best for the iMac. Someone got something to recommend?

i have 306 imac and i try everything but i can never get any driver updates for the video card to work (vista32).....if any imac 8800gs user has updated video instructions 4 stupid people would be great!!!

 

[anubis]

iMac 3.06GHz 2GB RAM 8800GS.

I can run Unreal Tournament 2004 on maximum settings at about 50fps. Which is pretty sweet because when you try to set the graphics to maximum in UT2004, it pops up a dialog box that says something along the lines of "Are you sure you want to do that? Your computer will in all likelihood die."

 

[Bubba Satori]

The Aple Games forum is pretty slow.

Oh, the irony.

 

[eXan]

iMac 3.06GHz 2GB RAM 8800GS.

I can run Unreal Tournament 2004 on maximum settings at about 50fps. Which is pretty sweet because when you try to set the graphics to maximum in UT2004, it pops up a dialog box that says something along the lines of "Are you sure you want to do that? Your computer will in all likelihood die."

Seems rather low to me? You could download the SantaDuckToolpakV3 and run some benchmarks