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OS X Mavericks Games/Benchmarks

I

Irishman

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 2, 2006
3,477
870
I wanted to start a thread specifically speaking about any changes or preferably improvements gamers are noticing in updating to 10.9 Mavericks. So, maybe this thread can be that one spot to come to for info.

Like many Mac gamers, I was excited to get the 10.9 update ASAP! I installed it and ran the OpenGL Extensions Viewer, just to make sure it was running the updated version (4.1). I was pleased to learn that it was.

Then, just on a lark, I decided to see if Unigine's Heaven benchmark already had the hooks in it to do hardware tessellation (and had been waiting for OSX's graphics subsystem to catch up). Pleasantly, it had (no update needed...just running version 4 of Heaven)! Awesome!

The feature looks really good, and makes scenes with certain materials look much more natural and organic. I ran some benchmarks with settings turned on and off to see the differences in performance on my iMac (late 2012 21.5" w/ Nvidia GT 650M GPU).

Here are the results (default res for Heaven on my Mac is 1024 x 768)

Test one
Med qual
Tess Norm
All Options On
AA off
______________
32 FPS (11 min, 60.8 max)

Test two
Med qual
Tess disabled
All Options On
AA 4x
______________
33.7 FPS (11.9 min, 56.2 max)

This compares favorably to a benchmark I ran back in February of this year:

Med qual
Tess not available
All Options On
AA 4x
_____________
20.3 FPS

About a 60% improvement from ML to Mavericks, if my math is right! :)

_____________________________________________

So far, the Valley benchmark doesn't seem to have tessellation in it.

Test
Med qual
Tess unavailable
All Options On
AA 4x
______________
39.1 FPS (13.9 min, 61.0 max)

Back in March, I got these results in Valley:

Unigine Valley (default 1024 x 768)

18.5 FPS (with 4X AA)

A 47% improvement in performance (again, if my math is correct)
________________________________________

Rage showed no change from ML (Rage (transcode benchmark) - 70 MT/s)

Hopefully, this will serve as a good start for information regarding how well Mavericks is for 3D gaming.
 
game updates

hi thanks for you work,

as far as i know a lot of the games out there right now for osx will not have any improvements cause they are coded for an older OpenGL version.

we will have to wait and see if these games get patches or what ever to take advantage of OpenGL 4.1.

the problem i see is that if this happens maybe the support for older osx versions will expire. blizzard will drop support for wow if they switch to OpenGL 4 they told users in their forums.

i tried borderland 2 today it runs like it did under ML but the overall the graphics look differend it seems. (but i don't know this for sure i have to admit).

lets see ... i hope for improvements in D3 and other games.

cheers ...



ps. would be nice if some guy from Asypr and Feral could help us out with some infos depending on this switch and future patches...
 
fekimoki said:
Hello. Possible to benchmark popular Steam games? Counter striko GO, Dota 2, Max Payne 3, XCOM, Batman?

Thanks in adv.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is a Mac tool that does it. I'd do Arkham City, CS:GO, HL2, Dota 2, TF2, if it did. :)
 
fekimoki said:
Hello. Possible to benchmark popular Steam games? Counter striko GO, Dota 2, Max Payne 3, XCOM, Batman?

Thanks in adv.
Click to expand...
I measured the same performance between Lion and Maverick for Source games (at least portal). I believe the improvements only concern games using openGL 4.
 
syrinxx said:
blizzard will drop support for wow if they switch to OpenGL 4 they told users in their forums.
Click to expand...

Plutonius said:
I would be interested in reading about this. Do you have the link ?
Click to expand...

syrinxx said:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10312101288

blue post
Click to expand...

I don't play WoW anymore, but in the link, I saw a blurb about upgrading to 10.6.8, as they were no longer going to support 10.6, but nothing in the link about Blizzard dropping support if they (who?) switches to OpenGL4? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying.
 
Huntn said:
I don't play WoW anymore, but in the link, I saw a blurb about upgrading to 10.6.8, as they were no longer going to support 10.6, but nothing in the link about Blizzard dropping support if they (who?) switches to OpenGL4? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying.
Click to expand...

I think you are correct. In reading the link, it said that OSX 10.6 would not be supported in the near future (Blizzard has been warning people for the last year).
 
?????

ok i have to admit english is not my mother language
but what this statement is clear:

"We very strongly suggest to everybody who can update to do so.
If you are still on 10.6.8 then you should absolutely update since we will be dropping support for 10.6 completely soon. (WoW will not launch)"

so if you use 10.6.8 you should update ...

don´t see the problem. maybe there is some sort of special interpretation of using this combination of words but in my opinion it says - quit using 10.6!
(10.6. - 10.6.8)

cheers
 
syrinxx said:
hi thanks for you work,

as far as i know a lot of the games out there right now for osx will not have any improvements cause they are coded for an older OpenGL version.

we will have to wait and see if these games get patches or what ever to take advantage of OpenGL 4.1.
Click to expand...

Either Feral or Aspyr, I forget which one, said that they WILL do their best to update/patch several popular current games to take advantage of the latest OpenGL in Mavericks. The rep stated so in these MacRumors forums.
 
Huntn said:
I suppose that going from 10.6 to 10.6.8 would not be traumatic...
Click to expand...


The newest OS X is 10.9. Many people think 10.6 was the best version of OS X which is why they haven't upgraded. I liked OS X 10.6 but I think OS X 10.8 is great. I have no plans on upgrading to OS X 10.9 for awhile even if it's free.
 
syrinxx said:
ok i have to admit english is not my mother language
but what this statement is clear:

"We very strongly suggest to everybody who can update to do so.
If you are still on 10.6.8 then you should absolutely update since we will be dropping support for 10.6 completely soon. (WoW will not launch)"

so if you use 10.6.8 you should update ...

don´t see the problem. maybe there is some sort of special interpretation of using this combination of words but in my opinion it says - quit using 10.6!
(10.6. - 10.6.8)

cheers
Click to expand...

Something was mentioned about they (?) not supporting OpenGL 4. That was what I was asking about.
 
Huntn said:
Something was mentioned about they (?) not supporting OpenGL 4. That was what I was asking about.
Click to expand...

Though they don't support OGL4 indeed, stopping the 10.6 support means they can finally go from Compatibility to Core profile of OGL3.2, which definitely has its big advantages. I hope we'll get this change before the RoS release.
 
So, I've seen some games seem to be smoother now under Mavericks - Left 4 Dead 2 chiefly - but I don't know if it's a placebo effect because I'm not sure how to benchmark it in OSX.

I think maybe I'm not alone in wondering what games have already been optimized for 10.9, versus those who haven't. So, if you know, or have read somewhere that a title either has been, or is being worked on by its developer (Aspyr in the case of Bioshock Infinite).

I'm going to start by listing the games I have and play.

Bioshock 1
Left 4 Dead 2
Portal
Portal 2
Rage Campaign Edition
Shadowgun Deadzone
Batman: Arkham City
Half Life
Team Fortress 2
Counter Strike: Global Offensive
Dota 2
Borderlands 2

Does anyone have any additional titles you want to know about? Post em up here, and add them to the list.
 
mm I've noticed a big change with Counter Strike Global Offensive, it was running ok on high settings, something like 40-50fps, now it runs up to hundreds I don't get why it works much better btw capping fps to 60 works smooth I'm very happy with the upgrade, some games just get 2 or 3 more fps but when you are at the 25-26 fps margin it makes it run smoother so yep mavericks finally gets more juice out of graphics, we need to see titles updated to that benefits or new games released and see how do they work.

cya
 
diafebus said:
mm I've noticed a big change with Counter Strike Global Offensive, it was running ok on high settings, something like 40-50fps, now it runs up to hundreds I don't get why it works much better btw capping fps to 60 works smooth I'm very happy with the upgrade, some games just get 2 or 3 more fps but when you are at the 25-26 fps margin it makes it run smoother so yep mavericks finally gets more juice out of graphics, we need to see titles updated to that benefits or new games released and see how do they work.

cya
Click to expand...

What model Mac do you have? nVidia or AMD GPU?
 
I ran the built-in benchmark in Batman Arkham City, to find out the performance of my Mac. I did not, however, have this game to test BEFORE Mavericks, so keep that in mind. It's just a benchmarking, not a comparison.

I used maximum effects on each run. The only difference is the resolution:

1024 x 768
Min - 19
Max - 60
Ave - 48

1344 x 1008
Min - 6
Max - 59
Ave - 43

1600 x 900
Min -9
Max - 60
Ave - 41

1920 x 1080
Min - 7
Max - 56
Ave - 38

I was pleasantly surprised. Thoughts?
 
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