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Mac GTX 680 5,1 Half of Games Half Performance

UPDATE -

So I had a hunch that Unity Engine games were properly and fully leveraging the 680 under OS X. So, I proceeded to buy Interstellar Marines on the Steam Sale and what do you know: It runs beautifully! I thought it would, but just seeing it do so in real time was awesome.

The GPU fan goes crazy, everything max'd out, and I'm getting 70-120 FPS while dong so.

Besides CoD there's not really any other Mac game I wish to play at the moment that has the GPU bug, besides maybe SCII, but that will get updated to Metal, and when Overwatch comes out I imagine that will run swell, as well.
 
Tucom said:
UPDATE -

So I had a hunch that Unity Engine games were properly and fully leveraging the 680 under OS X. So, I proceeded to buy Interstellar Marines on the Steam Sale and what do you know: It runs beautifully! I thought it would, but just seeing it do so in real time was awesome.

The GPU fan goes crazy, everything max'd out, and I'm getting 70-120 FPS while dong so.

Besides CoD there's not really any other Mac game I wish to play at the moment that has the GPU bug, besides maybe SCII, but that will get updated to Metal, and when Overwatch comes out I imagine that will run swell, as well.
Click to expand...


So, the conclusion is that it's actually the game engine on the other games simply don't fully support OS X and Win is fine tuned? Sounds like the game is the culprit, is that about right?
 
crjackson2134 said:
So, the conclusion is that it's actually the game engine on the other games simply don't fully support OS X and Win is fine tuned? Sounds like the game is the culprit, is that about right?
Click to expand...


Exactly, for some reason those select 'GPU Bug' games don't engage the 680 core properly, but the other games and benchmarks do.

What's odd is that even some open source games have this GPU Bug (I'll be calling it that), such as Xonotic and Nexuiz; both are 1/8th the performance they should be, at least.

For now I'm OK with this; the games I am playing run beautifully full force, and the odd game that doesn't properly engage the GPU core are still playable, just not the FPS they should be at.
 
Can you try the new 346.02.02f02 drivers? People are reporting some pretty large performance improvements over previous releases.
 
Asgorath said:
Can you try the new 346.02.02f02 drivers? People are reporting some pretty large performance improvements over previous releases.
Click to expand...

With CS GO and another Source Engine game it actually made the FPS worse; I was getting 120+ in both, now I'm getting 60-80 and more stuttering.

I'm content knowing that with the right supported Engine (Unity, certain Source games) this GPU screams, and as such I'll probably just get a console for games.
 
Tucom said:
With CS GO and another Source Engine game it actually made the FPS worse; I was getting 120+ in both, now I'm getting 60-80 and more stuttering.

I'm content knowing that with the right supported Engine (Unity, certain Source games) this GPU screams, and as such I'll probably just get a console for games.
Click to expand...

By other Source Engine games you mean Portal or Portal 2 for example? I'll plug my GTX 680 back in and take a look, they're running really well on my GTX 980. What resolution and settings are you using?
 
Asgorath said:
By other Source Engine games you mean Portal or Portal 2 for example? I'll plug my GTX 680 back in and take a look, they're running really well on my GTX 980. What resolution and settings are you using?
Click to expand...

CS GO and Fistful of Frags were the ones where the FPS became noticeable worse. Didn't try Portal and Portal 2, though with the default OS X drive I was getting about 200-300 FPS consistently in Portal 1, and Portal 2 about the same deal. So those games were running as they should, it would seem.

I also tried Half Life 2 Lost Coast and I got 279 FPS all settings maxed; right in line with Windows machines of identical and even slightly faster hardware.
 
Tucom said:
CS GO and Fistful of Frags were the ones where the FPS became noticeable worse. Didn't try Portal and Portal 2, though with the default OS X drive I was getting about 200-300 FPS consistently in Portal 1, and Portal 2 about the same deal. So those games were running as they should, it would seem.

I also tried Half Life 2 Lost Coast and I got 279 FPS all settings maxed; right in line with Windows machines of identical and even slightly faster hardware.
Click to expand...

Haven't heard of Fistful of Frags, will take a look at that. What resolution and settings are you using? Any specific maps in CS:GO? Just seems really strange that those games are so much worse than everything else.
 
Asgorath said:
Haven't heard of Fistful of Frags, will take a look at that. What resolution and settings are you using? Any specific maps in CS:GO? Just seems really strange that those games are so much worse than everything else.
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I was running everything at Max settings at 1680x1050. As for maps: Operation Bloodhound was horrible - like 40 FPS at times.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that resolution or shadow, texture, antialiasing and AF settings made *ZERO* difference to FPS; this is what's super baffling if anything. I would drop it to 1024x768 with all settings on Low of off, and I would get the *exact* same FPS as I would on 1680x1050 everything cranked.


It's definitely a bug of some kind because, as I mentioned previously, an *infinitely* more demanding game Interstellar Marines (superb graphics, very Battlefield 3/4ish level of detail etc.) runs flawlessly.

So knowing it's not OS X (at least not necessarily OS X's fault per se), my Mac Pro, or my GPU I'm fine knowing that my setup COULD game fine, thus I'm cool going with a console, if that makes any sense.
 
Maybe just record a demo and run timedemo afterwards, would make it easy for others to generate comparable results.
I think the newer CoD titles don't have such a feature, but other games do. Would be interesting to collect some reproducible results with different machines, GPUs and maybe even OSX vs. Win.

Barefeats does a good job at this, but I'm receiving the impression that he has a good talent to choose well-optimized games for his benchmarks. :D I don't think any of his GTX 680 reviews shows your results, which are IMO quite dramatic for such a powerful card. Even my tiny HD 7790 (45€ on ebay) pulls of ~100fps average at maxed out settings in CS:GO.
 
Fl0r!an said:
Even my tiny HD 7790 (45€ on ebay) pulls of ~100fps average at maxed out settings in CS:GO.
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In OS X or Windows? It's definitely a bug with 680 on OS X; well optimized engines gully engage the GPU core on OS X and I get stellar performance.

But games like CS GO or most Aspyr ports I get that bug and the GPU goes like 20%

It's kinda funny though - even at 20% the 680 is almost about as fast as the 5770 going full bore.

I'm not too concerned about it anymore, but I'd like to continue discussing.
 
MacVidCards said:
Massive increase with new Nvidia driver released today.

Give it a try
Click to expand...

I did, and as I said earlier - I actually found my FPS in CS GO and FoF decrease or be no different. Super weird.

I didn't try any other games, but I was getting Windows-like performance on newer games that run on the Unity Engine with the built in OS X drivers.
 
Fl0r!an said:
In Yosemite. Not Operation bloodhound though, I don't have this.
Click to expand...

In the regular non-Bloodhound maps I would average around 130-160, sometimes as high as 210 (like on cs_office). It's w/e though; if Valve doesn't want to fix CS GO for Mac then I'm not playing it. I'm not the biggest CS GO fan anyways (but that's for another thread.) - I was mostly playing it as a stop gap until I had the money for an Xbox One, which I now do.

Still glad I invested in this GPU though for the price I got for from EVGA, as it should be sweet under FCPX or any Adobe apps when Metal rolls round, or even now.

I don't have any NLE's to test it with atm, though :/
 
Tucom said:
In the regular non-Bloodhound maps I would average around 130-160, sometimes as high as 210 (like on cs_office). It's w/e though; if Valve doesn't want to fix CS GO for Mac then I'm not playing it. I'm not the biggest CS GO fan anyways (but that's for another thread.) - I was mostly playing it as a stop gap until I had the money for an Xbox One, which I now do.

Still glad I invested in this GPU though for the price I got for from EVGA, as it should be sweet under FCPX or any Adobe apps when Metal rolls round, or even now.

I don't have any NLE's to test it with atm, though :/
Click to expand...

Okay to clarify, you're suggesting this is a game bug not a driver or GPU issue? You're just complaining that it runs slowly when that particular map is used?
 
Asgorath said:
Okay to clarify, you're suggesting this is a game bug not a driver or GPU issue? You're just complaining that it runs slowly when that particular map is used?
Click to expand...


Absolutely. If it were a GPU or driver issue wouldn't it be like that with the other games that fully ramp up the GPU core?

I've had two 680's from EVGA do the exact same thing, I so think it's safe to rule out the GPU. I've tried the latest Nvidia drivers and those didn't change anything for the better.

Something's going on - It seems any game based on the Quake Engine (CoD, Nexuiz, Xonotic) or any Aspyr ports or CS GO and to an extent TF2 (both of these run well, just not nearly as well all the time as they should) have issues.

Where as Portal, Portal 2, and most Unity Engine games run WAY faster than the 5770 ever could hope to (and as I posted previously in this thread, fully utilize the GPU)
 
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By observing your symptoms I think it's quite safe to say that it's a combination both of a driver bug and a game bug: Your card is able to run some games extremely fast, and vice verse the games suffering from poor performance only have this issue on some specific GPUs.
Maybe just some specific API calls are really slow with the GTX 680 driver, and some games use them excessively while others avoid them. Maybe this could even be fixed on both ends (driver or game engine), but neither of them cares?
 
I just fired up F1 2013 and saw a pretty massive improvement with the latest drivers, especially at lower settings (which should be more CPU limited). Can you be more specific about which Aspyr games are running poorly for you?
 
Asgorath said:
I just fired up F1 2013 and saw a pretty massive improvement with the latest drivers, especially at lower settings (which should be more CPU limited). Can you be more specific about which Aspyr games are running poorly for you?
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MW1 2 and 3. Both Borderlands 2 and TPS. KOTOR. Also Feral's Arkham Asylum has issues.
 
Tucom said:
Something's going on - It seems any game based on the Quake Engine (CoD, Nexuiz, Xonotic) or any Aspyr ports or CS GO and to an extent TF2 (both of these run well, just not nearly as well all the time as they should) have issues.)
Click to expand...

I used to play Nexuiz on Linux once in a blue moon. I didn't realize it was available for OS X. Does it play decently with your AMD card?
 
crjackson2134 said:
I used to play Nexuiz on Linux once in a blue moon. I didn't realize it was available for OS X. Does it play decently with your AMD card?
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The 5770? I actually didn't try on this 2010 Mac Pro in particular, but I used to play it *ALL* the time a few years ago on a 2006 Mac Pro w/ 4870 - it played decently, but it had FPS drops like crazy vs. Windows or Linux. The Darkplaces Engine is pretty bad on OS X.

The 5770 is now sold and shipped off to a buyer on eBay, so there's no turning back from the 680 now.
 
Tucom said:
The 5770? I actually didn't try on this 2010 Mac Pro in particular, but I used to play it *ALL* the time a few years ago on a 2006 Mac Pro w/ 4870 - it played decently, but it had FPS drops like crazy vs. Windows or Linux. The Darkplaces Engine is pretty bad on OS X.

The 5770 is now sold and shipped off to a buyer on eBay, so there's no turning back from the 680 now.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I guess I'll try it out when I get a chance. It actually played quite well on Linux/8800GTX.
 
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