Steam = Successful

[Dify]

I just think it is goinng to take some time, but in the end if Steam has sucess on the mac, I think every sane person would choose to update those drivers ect...
It just take some time, it hastn't been a month now that steam has been released and I have way more quality game than in a year without steam. Just be patient!

 

[uaecasher]

I've finished Portal in 3 hours, waiting for the orange box to come out for mac

 

[DesmoPilot]

Considering the fact that the current 512MB 330m on the MacBook Pro doesn't show any performance gains over the 256MB until you're running at a resolution as high as 2560x1600, I doubt the 1GB in that Dell will show any improvements either basing this solely on VRAM.

Oh, and for the record you CAN get 1GB cards for the Mac Pro:
NVIDIA GTX 285

That "test" of 256 vs 512 is laughable at best. Testing ancient games or games based on ancient engines is NOT the way to test 256 vs 512. When those games were released, 256MB was the high end. As far as the 330M not being fast enough to utilize the extra 256MB, StarCraft 2 would like a word (that statement comes from experience).

If you want to test 256 vs 512, would help to test games that aren't half a decade old plus.

 

[aiqw9182]

That "test" of 256 vs 512 is laughable at best. Testing ancient games or games based on ancient engines is NOT the way to test 256 vs 512. When those games were released, 256MB was the high end. As far as the 330M not being fast enough to utilize the extra 256MB, StarCraft 2 would like a word (that statement comes from experience).

If you want to test 256 vs 512, would help to test games that aren't half a decade old plus.

Enemy Territory Quake Wars Release Date:
October 2, 2007

Crysis Release date:
November 13, 2007

If you really want to complain about benchmarks from a reliable source then how about you make your own or find some other benchmarks? Because until you provide any evidence, your argument serves no purpose. You're just pissed because you bought a MBP with 512MB of VRAM that's useless.

Oh and Starcraft 2 doesn't say hello, the problem is on a hardware front, not a software front. If you want to show your "experience" then post a video comparison or don't bother responding.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Enemy Territory Quake Wars Release Date:
October 2, 2007

Built from an engine released in 2004. It's Doom 3 with a *maybe* tweak here and there.

Crysis Release date:
November 13, 2007

barefeats didn't test Crysis.

If you really want to complain about benchmarks from a reliable source then how about you make your own or find some other benchmarks? Because until you provide any evidence, your argument serves no purpose. You're just pissed because you bought a MBP with 512MB of VRAM that's useless.

Oh and Starcraft 2 doesn't say hello, the problem is on a hardware front, not a software front. If you want to show your "experience" then post a video comparison or don't bother responding.

My my you sure seem to of woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Sure for a second I'll play along and agree barefeats is "reliable"; even then, fact is testing old games like that is NOT the way to test 256 vs 512.

Regarding SC2, there have been posts in the SC2 beta forum along with a few posts towards the end of the MBP gaming thread in the MBP forum. People have reported sub-par performance with the 256 330M in both OS X and Windows. While people with the 512 didn't (though it's still a Beta client, come july 27th we'll see). Cute little assumption; why would I be pissed? I purchased this computer for work, and for that it's done an amazing job thus far (I have the PC in my sig for gaming). Not that I intend to use it for gaming regularly, but what little gaming I've done in BootCamp has been great (sc2 and bad company 2 on low/medium).

 

[aiqw9182]

Built from an engine released in 2004. It's Doom 3 with a *maybe* tweak here and there.

Doesn't mean they haven't made any optimizations to the engine to take advantage of it.
Example: Valve updated the Suurce engine to allow multicore support.

Oh and look at Wolfenstein 2009 and their upcoming game, Brink.

barefeats didn't test Crysis.

It was your "5 year old+ game" remark, not mine. You were wrong.

My my you sure seem to of woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Sure for a second I'll play along and agree barefeats is "reliable"; even then, fact is testing old games like that is NOT the way to test 256 vs 512.

Regarding SC2, there have been posts in the SC2 beta forum along with a few posts towards the end of the MBP gaming thread in the MBP forum. People have reported sub-par performance with the 256 330M in both OS X and Windows. While people with the 512 didn't (though it's still a Beta client, come july 27th we'll see). Cute little assumption; why would I be pissed? I purchased this computer for work, and for that it's done an amazing job thus far (I have the PC in my sig for gaming). Not that I intend to use it for gaming regularly, but what little gaming I've done in BootCamp has been great (sc2 and bad company 2 on low/medium).

Cute, using forum posts to judge your results instead of sites that do benchmarks for every Mac released. Why would you be pissed? Because you payed $350 more for a 5-10% improvement across both the processor and GPU. Anyone with any idea as to what they were getting into should've/would've spent that money on two 4GB modules of RAM.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Doesn't mean they haven't made any optimizations to the engine to take advantage of it.

Look at Wolfenstein 2009 and their upcoming game, Brink.

It was your "5 year old+ game" remark, not mine. You were wrong.

That mess of a game?
I was referring to the barefeats test.

Cute, using forum posts to judge your results instead of sites that do benchmarks for every Mac released. Why would you be pissed? Because you payed $350 more for a 5-10% improvement across both the processor and GPU. Anyone with any idea as to what they were getting into should've/would've spent that money on two 4GB modules of RAM.

Forum posts from people who have been with the client since the beginning of beta with acknowledgments from the blizzard staff; yeah I don't mind giving credibility to that thread. $350? Difference between the low end i5 and the i7 I purchased was $200 through the education store with the screen change. $200 isn't that much at all; in my line of work the machine will pay for itself in a couple months anyway.

 

[aiqw9182]

That mess of a game?
I was referring to the barefeats test.

Yeah, that barefeats tests in which you are just assuming **** with no real evidence. You have yet to post any source of information.

Forum posts from people who have been with the client since the beginning of beta with acknowledgments from the blizzard staff; yeah I don't mind giving credibility to that thread. $350? Difference between the low end i5 and the i7 I purchased was $200 through the education store with the screen change. $200 isn't that much at all; in my line of work the machine will pay for itself in a couple months anyway.

You don't mind giving a couple of random people on a forum credit but you ignore a source that has been doing benchmarks since 2005? HAHAHAH!

And I'd really love to know where you pulled that number out of your ass from. The low end 15" when bumped to the same 500GB 5400-RPM harddrive in the high-end, is 1899, the high end 15-inch is 2199, $300 difference. Which should've been spent on a 200% ram increase over a 5-10% processor and GPU increase.

 

[Cougarcat]

Tom's Hardware did a great performance analysis on SC2, including a frame buffer test. Not much of a difference between 512 MB and 1 GB. Didn't test 256 MB cards, though. Makes me wonder why Blizzard chose to delineate med settings for 256, high for 512, 1 GB for ultra in their settings.

Edit: Barefeats posted this on the forums recently:

I've been running timedemos with Portal on Steam beta.

Anything higher than 1440x900on the MacBook Pro Core i5 with 256M VRAM and the avg FPS drop to unplayable (10-12 fps). That's at "recommended" medium quality settings.

The MacBook Pro Core i7 with 512M VRAM kept cranking along at 30+ FPS even at 1920x1200, max settings, 4X multisampling, and 8X Aniso.

So it looks like the extra $300 is worth it.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Yeah, that barefeats tests in which you are just assuming **** with no real evidence. You have yet to post any source of information.

You don't mind giving a couple of random people on a forum credit but you ignore a source that has been doing benchmarks since 2005? HAHAHAH!

You're beginning to make less and less sense; you're just coming off as a bad angry troll who's taking this just a touch to seriously. How am I assuming anything with the barefeats test? The games barefeats tested are very dated games, or games based on very dated engines. That is FACT. You're the one that pulled a supposed barefeats Crysis benchmark out of your ass.

How long he's been doing benchmarks doesn't matter; fact is his chosen games for this benchmark are poor examples.

And I'd really love to know where you pulled that number out of your ass from. The low end 15" when bumped to the same 500GB 5400-RPM harddrive in the high-end, is 1899, the high end 15-inch is 2199, $300 difference. Which should've been spent on a 200% ram increase over a 5-10% processor and GPU increase.

Should of mentioned I'm in Canada, but anyway you're slightly wrong. On the Canadian education store the difference between the i7 15" with the upgraded screen and the low end 15" with the 500GB 5400RPM and upgraded screen is $205. either way I don't mind paying for the 10-15% speed advantage over the low end (not 5-10% like you say, as anandtech has shown). Like I said, no matter which machine I bought; it would pay for itself in a few months anyway.

 

[aiqw9182]

You're beginning to make less and less sense; you're just coming off as a bad angry troll who's taking this just a touch to seriously. How am I assuming anything with the barefeats test? The games barefeats tested are very dated games, or games based on very dated engines. That is FACT. You're the one that pulled a supposed barefeats Crysis benchmark out of your ass.

How long he's been doing benchmarks doesn't matter; fact is his chosen games for this benchmark are poor examples.

The point of mentioning Crysis was to refute your 5+ year old game ******** claim. I never stated they did a benchmark on Crysis.

Should of mentioned I'm in Canada, but anyway you're slightly wrong. On the Canadian education store the difference between the i7 15" with the upgraded screen and the low end 15" with the 500GB 5400RPM and upgraded screen is $205. either way I don't mind paying for the 10-15% speed advantage over the low end (not 5-10% like you say, as anandtech has shown). Like I said, no matter which machine I bought; it would pay for itself in a few months anyway.

Wrong. I just checked the Canadian prices. With the 5400-RPM 500GB HDD in the low end, it's $1954, the i7 is 2249. 2249-1954=295. I just checked the education store as well in Canada and there's no difference there either except for the fact that you will be paying 10 bucks less for the hard drive.

Oh and it is 5-10% because benchmarks do not equal real application performance. Maybe a couple years down the line when all of these apps have GCD and OpenCL implemented it will, but at the way things are going right now, the machine will likely be outdated by the time that happens. What I'm saying is you could've spent that money on something that would show for the entire period of your computers usage, or you could've opted for the other choice which would be the 10-15% performance boost when every application actually starts to utilize it correctly. You chose the latter.

Tom's Hardware did a great performance analysis on SC2, including a frame buffer test. Not much of a difference between 512 MB and 1 GB. Didn't test 256 MB cards, though. Makes me wonder why Blizzard chose to delineate med settings for 256, high for 512, 1 GB for ultra in their settings.

Edit: Barefeats posted this on the forums recently:

So it looks like the extra $300 is worth it.

I'll wait for some final benchmarks. You posted one site that stated the VRAM didn't matter in SC2 then you posted another that stated it did matter in Portal. I'll gladly be proven wrong just so those that spent $300 can have it somewhat justified.

 

[Cougarcat]

Wrong. I just checked the Canadian prices. With the 5400-RPM 500GB HDD in the low end, it's $1954, the i7 is 2249. 2249-1954=295. I just checked the education store as well in Canada and there's no difference there either except for the fact that you will be paying 10 bucks less for the hard drive.

He is right, the difference is $205 in the EDU store.

Proof:

 

[aiqw9182]

Not sure where you are getting those prices from. He is right, the difference is $205 in the EDU store.

Proof:

You're right, my mistake. Forgot that Apple saves you $200 on the higher-end models. Still isn't worth it, regardless in my opinion. You're paying 100 for an extra meg of cache and 26 megahertz in the processor and the other 100 for 256MB of VRAM on the card. Without the discount you're paying 200 for the extra meg of cache and 26 megahertz.

 

[Cougarcat]

You're right, my mistake. Forgot that Apple saves you $200 on the higher-end models. Still isn't worth it, regardless in my opinion.

The barefeats results would say otherwise. Hopefully he will follow up on it and do more complete benchmarks soon.

 

[aiqw9182]

The barefeats results would say otherwise. Hopefully he will follow up on it and do more complete benchmarks soon.

I would hardly call a single forum post on a single game "results" hence why I said I'd wait for some final benchmarks.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Wrong. I just checked the Canadian prices. With the 5400-RPM 500GB HDD in the low end, it's $1954, the i7 is 2249. 2249-1954=295. I just checked the education store as well in Canada and there's no difference there either except for the fact that you will be paying 10 bucks less for the hard drive.

Where did you learn to do math? Difference between the low end 15" with upgraded screen and 500Gb 5400 drive and the i7 15" with the upgraded screen I chose is in fact $205 on the education store.

Might as well break the math down for you.
15" with upgraded screen and 500GB 5400RPM HD: $1986
15" i7 with upgraded screen: $2191
$2192 - $1986 = $205

How am I wrong?

Oh and it is 5-10% because benchmarks do not equal real application performance. Maybe a couple years down the line when all of these apps have GCD and OpenCL implemented it will, but at the way things are going right now, the machine will likely be outdated by the time that happens. What I'm saying is you could've spent that money on something that would show for the entire period of your computers usage, or you could've opted for the other choice which would be the 10-15% performance boost when every application actually starts to utilize it correctly. You chose the latter.

Weather it be 5-10% or 10-15% you forget to realize what I've basically said in my last couple posts: Money is not an issue; this machine will pay for itself in a few months with no problem. Due to that fact I have never had a problem with spending the extra money so I get the best available at the time of purchase (In this case 260MHz, faster turbo boost speed, more cache and 256MB VRAM). Also, a faster processor WILL show for the entire time I own this machine - RAM I can purchase as needed, it's not a huge deal.

 

[aiqw9182]

Where did you learn to do math? Difference between the low end 15" with upgraded screen and 500Gb 5400 drive and the i7 15" with the upgraded screen I chose is in fact $205 on the education store.

Might as well break the math down for you.
15" with upgraded screen and 500GB 5400RPM HD: $1986
15" i7 with upgraded screen: $2191
$2192 - $1986 = $205

How am I wrong?

Read above, rather wouldn't have to repeat myself.

Weather it be 5-10% or 10-15% you forget to realize what I've basically said in my last couple posts: Money is not an issue; this machine will pay for itself in a few months with no problem. Due to that fact I have never had a problem with spending the extra money so I get the best available at the time of purchase (In this case 260MHz, faster turbo boost speed, more cache and 256MB VRAM). Also, a faster processor WILL show for the entire time I own this machine - RAM I can purchase as needed, it's not a huge deal.

Good, I hope you enjoy the fact that you blew 200 bucks out the door based on a megahertz myth and some VRAM that has yet to be proven useful. I know money is clearly not an issue, as you spent two grand on the computer. I'm saying you could've put that money towards something that would actually effect real world performance, but I digress. It's pretty clear that you are just trying to justify things you've purchased.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Read above, rather wouldn't have to repeat myself.

Your post wasn't up when I started writing mine; ignore it.

Good, I hope you enjoy the fact that you blew 200 bucks out the door based on a megahertz myth and some VRAM that has yet to be proven useful. I know money is clearly not an issue, as you spent two grand on the computer. I'm saying you could've put that money towards something that would actually effect real world performance, but I digress. It's pretty clear that you are just trying to justify things you've purchased.

How is an extra 260MHz and faster turbo boost a megahertz myth? Though it isn't much it is something, the extra speed will effect real world performance - how can you say it won't? You almost sound jealous and determined to make me regret my purchase. I'm not trying to justify anything; you originally stated I'm just pissed I bought the model I did, I've been telling you why I'm not and have no reason to be.

 

[aiqw9182]

How is an extra 260MHz and faster turbo boost a megahertz myth? Though it isn't much it is something, the extra speed will effect real world performance - how can you say it won't?

How's an extra 260MHz and a faster turbo boost a megahertz myth? Well for one, 260MHz is a really pathetic difference. It's the reason I don't recommend the 2.66 13" or the even worse value than the i7 15", the 2.53 i5 15". The turbo boost falls under the same myth.

You almost sound jealous and determined to make me regret my purchase.

I'm jealous of what? I don't own either MacBook Pro so I fail to see where or how that statement falls into place.

I'm not trying to justify anything; you originally stated I'm just pissed I bought the model I did, I've been telling you why I'm not and have no reason to be.

Let's put it this way: If you weren't trying to justify anything, you wouldn't have posted.

 

[DesmoPilot]

How's an extra 260MHz and a faster turbo boost a megahertz myth? Well for one, 260MHz is a really pathetic difference. It's the reason I don't recommend the 2.66 13" or the even worse value than the i7 15", the 2.53 i5 15". The turbo boost falls under the same myth.

Though I see where you're coming; megahertz myth is a pretty poor choice of term for it.

I'm jealous of what? I don't own either MacBook Pro so I fail to see where or how that statement falls into place.

your overzealous attack posts toward me kinda put out the jealous vibe.

Let's put it this way: If you weren't trying to justify anything, you wouldn't have posted.

Again, see where you're coming from; but simply not the case.

 

[aiqw9182]

Though I see where you're coming; megahertz myth is a pretty poor choice of term for it.

I didn't make it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth

your overzealous attack posts toward me kinda put out the jealous vibe.

Again, see where you're coming from; but simply not the case.

Look, I'm not trying to say you purchased a bad computer. I think you purchased a great machine, but I think you could've spent some of the money in better places, that's all.
----------
and lol at how off-topic this thread has gone.

 

[Sargiel]

The Cube was way too expensive. It was also not expandable, which is the main attraction with a mid-range tower. It was an iMac without the screen, for the price of a high-end iMac. I think a tower with a few PCI slots would sell really well. iMac specs but with desktop-level, mid-high range graphics. A "Pro mini," if you will, but expandable.

Apple has in fact had real mid-range towers in the past (you could get a G4/400 for $1499, 300 less than a cube––another reason why it died) It was only until pretty recently, with the Mac Pros, that suddenly expandability cost you $2000+ .



Well, the problem was, Apple was dismissive even when developers expressed interest. See this article, where Gabe Newell is complaining about just that.

Totally. When Apple was PPC the Powermac's were HEAVILY upgradeable both in terms of processor and graphics card etc. so it's only since the move to Intel that we haven't had a non-Pro desktop price entry point. Before I got my iMac (2.33 Ghz C2D, 7600, 3GB RAM) I was running a Powermac with a 2Ghz G4, 9800 Pro graphics, SATA HDD, Wireless networking, maxed RAM etc etc. which was a lot faster than the 433Ghz or whatever it started out as ^_^ Of course those specs aren't hot now but my system was holding it's own very nicely at the time.

The upshot is that now I'm an iMac guy as for me the high spec iMac's will last me 3 years + and meet all my user/gaming requirements in that time. Compare that to an £2000 ($2900) UK entry point price for a Mac Pro that would need a graphics card upgrade from the current default spec as well as costing a pretty penny to get a similar 27" display ..

 

[roadbloc]

Built from an engine released in 2004. It's Doom 3 with a *maybe* tweak here and there.

Defiantly more than a tweak here and there. Have you even played that game? I couldn't tell what the engine was, and was very surprised to find out it was the Doom 3 engine.

 

[Sargiel]

As for gaming on the Mac - I love it

I've never been a lover of Windows and used to use RISC OS. Unfortunately that became less and less viable so having looked around at the OS market Mac OS X was the easiest transition for me and I've not looked back.

Apple has got a lot better at offering a decent card on their consumer desktop systems (iMac's) and my current iMac has lasted a good 3 years and it's only been the past few months that I'm finding her struggling occasionally with the latest Mac releases.

At the end of the day I'm not bothered with comparisons to Windows as I'm not gaming on that platform. What I want is for my Mac to be able to run with a decent frame-rate at the graphical quality level I expect. So if Mac OS X gives me 90FPS in a game I will be pleased - not looking at a comparison to windows having 150FPS and feel I've been hard done by. I wouldn't notice the difference anyway.

And something interesting that has come out of steam was Valve stating that Mac's are x5 more stable than PC's - even if we're not as fast at least we don't fall over so much If another side-effect of Steam & cross platform gaming is Apple working more closely with Valve & ATI to improve their drivers then that can only be a good thing.

In summary I don't think it's stupid to buy a Mac for all of your computing needs - including gaming - as that's what I've done with my last couple of systems. My experience has been good and I will be looking to buy another decent gaming Mac as my next purchase - probably an 27" iMac i5 unless the next update changes things

 

[AnDi86]

love steam on my Macbook Pro, can't wait for more source games to launch though