Same machine, same game, different OS: which one is faster?

[fstfrwrd]

let's say i got a full-spec MBP with OS X Leopard and Vista Ultimate 64bit.
I'll be using bootcamp.

I want to buy a game that's available for both the PC and Mac platform.

on which OS will the game have a better performance?
or will it be exactly the same?

thanks

 

[Tallest Skil]

OS X. Vista can't manage RAM worth pocket change.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

fair comperison would run vista at 32bit. Since more games these days are 32bit.

And the answer would be vista. Reason being is most games native to windows and ported over to OSX.

 

[Muncher]

OS X. Vista can't manage RAM worth pocket change.

fair comperison would run vista at 32bit. Since more games these days are 32bit.

And the answer would be vista. Reason being is most games native to windows and ported over to OSX.

Both you guys make fair points. My advice: With vista, do the downgrade thing to xp. If that isn't possible, I'd want to run my games under OS X if I could, so I wouldn't have to reboot into Windows mode.

 

[Chone]

OS X. Vista can't manage RAM worth pocket change.

All games will run faster on Windows, NO exception.

Sorry guys, I love OSX as much as the next guy but it's not a gaming OS.

 

[0098386]

Same. I've found OSX to be much better at memory management and just all round being better with my workflow but XP is much better for gaming. Vista demands too much during games.

 

[JNB]

You can't compare in the first place as the code base is completely different between the two; what makes this even more pointless is that is may not be truly coded from the ground up for one or the other OS, it may be a port (which are typically poor compared to the original).

It's like asking if Word or Photoshop or (insert any app here) faster in Windows or OS X, it all depends on which one it's native to, and how well it's been coded for the second OS.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Windows is always faster because of highly optimized drivers, Mac games are significantly slower and sometimes have really high system requirements compared to the windows version.

Vista is fine for games, its an old stale argument that its a lot slower than XP. People are basing their claims on hearsay or benchmarks from the first month that Vista was available. They are virtually identical in performance now, and with 4gbs of ram Vista 64 should be faster than XP 32.

 

[exabytes18]

OS X. Vista can't manage RAM worth pocket change.

Perhaps you don't understand how Vista's memory managment works?

I can only speak for Vista here, but I am able to play Crysis on Vista 32bit with only 2gb. The catch, NO virtual memory. Pretty unbelievable, huh?

 

[0098386]

Windows is always faster because of highly optimized drivers, Mac games are significantly slower and sometimes have really high system requirements compared to the windows version.

Vista is fine for games, its an old stale argument that its a lot slower than XP. People are basing their claims on hearsay or benchmarks from the first month that Vista was available. They are virtually identical in performance now, and with 4gbs of ram Vista 64 should be faster than XP 32.

Pretty much everything you said here is wrong.

It's not because of drivers and how optimised they are. It's actually due to games first and forthmostly being developed for DirectX. Any game developed for DirectX and subsequently ported is going to run badly. It's as simple as that, if Macs had DirectX then there would be no problem whatsoever. There would be no slowdown, infact a game might run faster considering the better memory management OSX has over XP (at least, but that's agiven since XP is from 2001, OSX Leopard from this year).

And Vista isn't fine for games. I have 2 iMacs with the exact same specs. Same size screen, same CPU/GPU/Memory. Bought at the same price at the same time. One has XP SP3, one has Vista Ultimate SP1.
With the same graphic and sound options set I do not get the same performance from each system. In Vista I need to either lower the resolution or turn off Bloom and HDR to hit the constant 30fps mark, else it flutters between 19-28fps.
This is after various formats, updated drivers etc.

 

[Cromulent]

All games will run faster on Windows, NO exception.

Sorry guys, I love OSX as much as the next guy but it's not a gaming OS.

That is bollocks. There is nothing that makes one OS better suited to games over another. A well written game on Mac OS X that makes full use of OpenGL, OpenAL and the other Mac OS X APIs has as much potential to run at the same speed as the same game in Windows.

The main problem with games on the Mac is that they use technology like Cider which is probably not the most effiecient method to run games on Mac OS X.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

That is bollocks. There is nothing that makes one OS better suited to games over another. A well written game on Mac OS X that makes full use of OpenGL, OpenAL and the other Mac OS X APIs has as much potential to run at the same speed as the same game in Windows.

The main problem with games on the Mac is that they use technology like Cider which is probably not the most effiecient method to run games on Mac OS X.

yeah a game written for OXS first and formost do not happen. Good part of that reason is Steve Jobs has pretty much given games then 1 finger salute. He has made it clear he does not care. Leaves everything short of a Pro line with crippled for gaming. The graphic cards in the iMacs do not even make it to mid grade. They are at best some where between low end and mid grade graphic card.

Add that to no ability to put a better on in....

 

[Xavier]

I much prefer buying the mac version of a game compared to the windows version for a few reasons.

Supporting Mac game developers so they stay in business and still produce my mac titles.

I don't like to have to boot into windows to play that 30 minutes of that game, and then boot back into OSX.

 

[Cromulent]

Leaves everything short of a Pro line with crippled for gaming. The graphic cards in the iMacs do not even make it to mid grade. They are at best some where between low end and mid grade graphic card.

What has this got to do with the point I was responding too? Your point is purely a hardware issue and has absolutely nothing to do with the ability of an operating system to run games at decent frame rates, versus another operating system on the same hardware.

 

[darkcurse]

Depends on the game. Like many have already pointed out, a lot of OSX games out there are basically DirectX based games which have been ported or wrapped with things like Cider to make it playable on OSX. In that case, you will find that performance will not compare to the native windows game. I'm not sure whats the deal right now, but when I was still using 10.4 Tiger, I used to get really good fps on WoW but now on Leopard, there seems to be a decrease in performance and its experiencing more lag spikes. Again, I don't know why.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

What has this got to do with the point I was responding too? Your point is purely a hardware issue and has absolutely nothing to do with the ability of an operating system to run games at decent frame rates, versus another operating system on the same hardware.

no but that is a huge issue why OSX will never have games for it. OSX is tied to a very limited range of hardware and when you have most of that hardware crippled there is Zero motivation to make games for it.

 

[MrMacMan]

Windows XP > Windows Vista > Mac Os X.

They always code Mac much later and there is a time crunch, not for a successful product.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Pretty much everything you said here is wrong.

It's not because of drivers and how optimised they are. It's actually due to games first and forthmostly being developed for DirectX. Any game developed for DirectX and subsequently ported is going to run badly. It's as simple as that, if Macs had DirectX then there would be no problem whatsoever. There would be no slowdown, infact a game might run faster considering the better memory management OSX has over XP (at least, but that's agiven since XP is from 2001, OSX Leopard from this year).

And Vista isn't fine for games. I have 2 iMacs with the exact same specs. Same size screen, same CPU/GPU/Memory. Bought at the same price at the same time. One has XP SP3, one has Vista Ultimate SP1.
With the same graphic and sound options set I do not get the same performance from each system. In Vista I need to either lower the resolution or turn off Bloom and HDR to hit the constant 30fps mark, else it flutters between 19-28fps.
This is after various formats, updated drivers etc.

Then youre doing something wrong, all the benchmarks out there point to Vista performing the same, better, or within a few fps of XP.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2304031,00.asp
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1390&page=2

And the opengl argument doesnt work. iD games prove that wrong, Quake 3 was extremely slow compared to the Windows version. Doom 3 isnt anything to brag about either.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050315-4704.html

And why would it matter anyways? Almost every game is DirectX. OS X doesnt have it so its always going to have to deal with ports. Coming up with ideal scenarios isnt going to change the reality.

 

[Chone]

That is bollocks. There is nothing that makes one OS better suited to games over another. A well written game on Mac OS X that makes full use of OpenGL, OpenAL and the other Mac OS X APIs has as much potential to run at the same speed as the same game in Windows.

The main problem with games on the Mac is that they use technology like Cider which is probably not the most effiecient method to run games on Mac OS X.

It's not a gaming OS because it doesn't have DirectX and Carmack is just about the only developer that still uses OpenGL and he is migrating to consoles anyway

But the real reason why it's not a gaming OS is because it has no userbase, you can argue all you want by bringing benchmarks, tech sheets or whatever other geek arguments you'd like and I'm not arguing, technically a game made for OSX first in mind might end up just as fast or faster than the same game made for Windows (and even that is debatable).

But let's face it, our grandchildren's grandchildren will be worm's food before that happens

 

[Boomhowler]

blizzard-games should make good benchmarks, they develop for both platforms and have done so for a long time

 

[0098386]

Then youre doing something wrong, all the benchmarks out there point to Vista performing the same, better, or within a few fps of XP.

Sorry, from my real world experience this isn't true. It's the reason why I'm still running XP and not Vista, since I only use Windows for gaming it's kind of important that I get the best performance from my system. And I'm not doing anything "wrong". Vista Ultimate SP1 against XP SP3 - both using the latest Omega drivers and XP is worlds faster. Games and the initial system boot also takes longer.

Also, of note, my previous Windows laptop couldn't run Doom 3 at anything but minimum quality in 800*600 (Gericom P4@3ghz with HT, FX Go5600, 512mb ram). Out of curiosity I tried the Doom 3 demo on my PowerBook when it was released (G4@1.5ghz, 5200, 512mb ram) and I could nudge the quality up to medium to get the same performance as the Gericom laptop.

For whatever reason D3 ran better on the PowerBook. Going off the lack of momentary pauses when a new creature or texture appeared I'd make an educated guess in that it's mostly down to better memory management rather than Open GL.

 

[whooleytoo]

There is nothing that makes one OS better suited to games over another.

If you're speaking in general, this bit isn't really true. Any modern application - including a game - is going to spend a considerable amount of time (I've heard an average figure of 80%, but it's probably wildly variable) in system API calls/frameworks. Hence even a well-written programme is heavily dependent on the quality of the implementation OpenGL, OpenAL etc.

Plus, every modern OS is going to have a multitude of other processes running; and the degree to which the game is going to have to compete with other processes for system resources has a major impact on game performance.

If you're speaking specifically about OSX v Vista, it's hard to say, since then the quality of the game implementation/port is variable, as you say.

As an aside: I remember looking at the 3D wireframe Java examples on an old IBM PowerPC workstation (AIX, 66MHz PPC 601) and the performance on them was only matched on any MacOS machine when the 300MHz+ G3 machines came out. This was with identical source code, hence the difference was OS + Java implementation. Gives you some idea how much difference the OS can make.

 

[Cromulent]

If you're speaking in general, this bit isn't really true. Any modern application - including a game - is going to spend a considerable amount of time (I've heard an average figure of 80%, but it's probably wildly variable) in system API calls/frameworks. Hence even a well-written programme is heavily dependent on the quality of the implementation OpenGL, OpenAL etc.

Plus, every modern OS is going to have a multitude of other processes running; and the degree to which the game is going to have to compete with other processes for system resources has a major impact on game performance.

If you're speaking specifically about OSX v Vista, it's hard to say, since then the quality of the game implementation/port is variable, as you say.

As an aside: I remember looking at the 3D wireframe Java examples on an old IBM PowerPC workstation (AIX, 66MHz PPC 601) and the performance on them was only matched on any MacOS machine when the 300MHz+ G3 machines came out. This was with identical source code, hence the difference was OS + Java implementation. Gives you some idea how much difference the OS can make.

Oh, of course. The major difference between the two though is that Mac OS X has thirty years of history behind its system calls. Optimisation of those is something that has been ongoing for years and years. Plus the fact that the kernel is open source and you are actually able to get an idea of the relative performance of certain system calls and you start to see that OS X has quite a few things going for it in this area.

Specialised systems have always been faster than consumer level machines. SGI machines were (in the past) 100s of times faster than a comparable consumer machine in terms of graphics ability.