You said that, the original drivers got moved to a folder called extensions backup, where can i find this folder? I installed the kexts, and now when I try to start up it freezes, but I have successfully started it with shift hold in, so I need those original kexts, if anyone can post them, or tell me where that folder is.
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The ATI HD 5750 in the iMac is a mobility 5850.
- Thread starter TMRaven
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It's not really old... While Apple may not have full 3.0 support it has plenty of extensions which provide 3.0 functionality. You can roughly compare it to DX10-DX11. And there isn't that much new in the newer versions, the OpenGL just gets a bit more streamlined. Its really the bad drivers that hamper with the performance.
Complain all you want, but remember this. Drivers make the largest difference. I had a GeForce 7100 (IGP) card in a PC that wouldn't play Second Life. I installed the newest drivers, and was getting 20 FPS, on 1600x900.
Having the newest drivers does make a difference.
This is strange I think ...
I have in the Opengl extension viewer around 2300FPS but 3.0 135 FPS.
Hardware is:
Mac Pro 1,1 Quad core 2,66
11Gb RAM
Ati 4870 512
Display: 1680x1050x32bpp
And the most important thing
Mac OSX 10.6.3
I am surprised that an "OpenGL bench performance on Corei7 2.80 ghz iMac with 12 gigs of ram before the change:" is half performance than mine.
I don't get it. Is 10.6.4 so bad?
I have in the Opengl extension viewer around 2300FPS but 3.0 135 FPS.
Hardware is:
Mac Pro 1,1 Quad core 2,66
11Gb RAM
Ati 4870 512
Display: 1680x1050x32bpp
And the most important thing
Mac OSX 10.6.3
I am surprised that an "OpenGL bench performance on Corei7 2.80 ghz iMac with 12 gigs of ram before the change:" is half performance than mine.
I don't get it. Is 10.6.4 so bad?
There's some misunderstanding here that I can help clear up.
I don't agree with the idea that "optimization cannot proceed" without new API's or the latest core version of OpenGL. Experience has shown that in a majority of cases, optimization of the internal behavior of driver and hardware registers can have a huge impact on speed without a single API change.
The Apple drivers aren't really "just GL 2.1" drivers. As of 10.6.3 they are "3.0 ish" drivers, which is to say they implement just about everything in the 3.0 API set, but minus the latest GLSL revision and the MapBufferRange extension (however the latter has an Apple-specific equivalent that has been shipping since 2006).
All the game ports I have worked on in the last few years (WoW, SC2, Mac Steam games) are based on D3D9 and only use the API features that D3D9 exports. Those features are largely covered by the current Apple API set, with a couple of exceptions.
So while we look forward to those last bits getting filled in ("uniform buffer object" for example), the vast majority of tuning effort and results are stemming from work to make existing shipped API's perform better (and changes in game engine to make best of of those behavioral changes).
To sum up: progress is happening, you don't need GL4.x to make a D3D9 port run faster, stay tuned.
Um..
Here was my other "before" but it was at 2560x1440:
So not so great but I think it really was the ATI drivers for this specific hardware. Barefeats bears out that
significant improvements can be made via this in their testing and I'm not about to go back.
But part of what made it so slow is there's a hell of a lot of pixels to display at 2560x1440, moreso than your 1680x1050.
I'll cut my 4850 down to your resolution and we'll see how it does (this is with the new drivers mind you):
The higher the resolution the poorer the card will do. The lower the resolution the better:
Here's my lowest settings:
Impressive but on a 27" screen the images are the size of a postage stamp.
So there's a tradeoff.
I have to say: with the new drivers and running X-Plane it is impressively smooth and hugely screen filling at 2560x1440 - closest thing to flying a plane without having one in any computer I've owned.
Here was my other "before" but it was at 2560x1440:
So not so great but I think it really was the ATI drivers for this specific hardware. Barefeats bears out that
significant improvements can be made via this in their testing and I'm not about to go back.
But part of what made it so slow is there's a hell of a lot of pixels to display at 2560x1440, moreso than your 1680x1050.
I'll cut my 4850 down to your resolution and we'll see how it does (this is with the new drivers mind you):
The higher the resolution the poorer the card will do. The lower the resolution the better:
Here's my lowest settings:
Impressive but on a 27" screen the images are the size of a postage stamp.
So there's a tradeoff.
I have to say: with the new drivers and running X-Plane it is impressively smooth and hugely screen filling at 2560x1440 - closest thing to flying a plane without having one in any computer I've owned.
Ok
I've owned too. I should know better, didn't think of resolution ... my badSo, what I'm thinking now if I should try the new iMac 2010 ATI kexts in this snow leopard 10.6.3 machine to see if there is any improvement. Or is just that the 10.6.4 update has come with some s**** drivers for whatever reason.
Usually I do my dirty things
on the macbook I guess i'll be patient and watch what's going on ;P
Excuse my 'poor' and forgotten english
Which version of OpenGLView you use is very important !!!
The latest version of this program/benchmark gives WILDLY different nubers from past versions.
The only meaningful way to compare numbers from them is to popst version number as well.
You can try this yourself, newest version is 3.31. Run it and leave window open with results.
Then run an earlier one like 3.22. The difference in results is HUGE. (a factor of 5 to 7 !!!)
The latest version of this program/benchmark gives WILDLY different nubers from past versions.
The only meaningful way to compare numbers from them is to popst version number as well.
You can try this yourself, newest version is 3.31. Run it and leave window open with results.
Then run an earlier one like 3.22. The difference in results is HUGE. (a factor of 5 to 7 !!!)
I'm a bit of a noob. Why is it that games always run worse under OS X? Why does Apple only support OpenGL 2 instead of supporting the latest and greatest?
Is it their usual apathy towards gaming and graphics or do they just think its not important for users?
Guys,
Could you do me a favor and dumb this down for me. I just ordered an iMac i7 and am beginning to wonder if I should cancel the order.
I currently have a Windows 7 PC that is an i7 920 (2.66) with a Radeon 4890 1gb card.
Is the Video Card in the iMac i7 better, worse or comparable to the 4890 I currently own?
Thanks,
troutspinner
Could you do me a favor and dumb this down for me. I just ordered an iMac i7 and am beginning to wonder if I should cancel the order.
I currently have a Windows 7 PC that is an i7 920 (2.66) with a Radeon 4890 1gb card.
Is the Video Card in the iMac i7 better, worse or comparable to the 4890 I currently own?
Thanks,
troutspinner
I'd say worse, if you also consider the screen resolution of the 27" is 78% more than a 1920x1080 resolution screen, it'll probably provide even less performance.
I used to have a eight core Mac Pro with a GTX 285 1GB and a 23" 1920x1200 screen, I moved to the iMac 27" i7 and was actually quite pleased with it, the GPU was much better than I expected.
The 5850M 1GB should be a bit better than the 4850M in mine.
You will have better graphics performance if you stay on your current machine. But with the iMac you will first and foremost get a Mac (woho! \o/) but also a bigger, really nice, screen and a somewhat faster CPU.
It all comes down to if you want to get a mac, with a minor loss in graphics performance or if you want to stay on windows and game away for another generation. Perhaps the next iMac refresh will give you at least the same level of graphics performance.
Thanks Mythic and bolen.
I am not looking for a gaming rig but I do use AutoCAD every day of my life as it is my business. I typically use gaming performance as a comparison to what my graphics will be like while using CAD.
Now I am really curious if I should cancel this order. I want the convenience of having everything on 1 machine as I only have CAD on the PC, everything else is on my Macbook. I already knew that I would have to run through parallels but hoped the increased processor would compensate for the difference but if there is a graphic hit I would be going in reverse.
Ugh, I should have done my homework a little bit better. I know I could boot into Win7 with bootcamp and probably not see much of a performance diference but if I can't multitask with email, office apps and such it is counter-productive.
One the bright side, it is still not shipped so maybe I can cancel without penalty.
Thanks,
troutspinner
I am not looking for a gaming rig but I do use AutoCAD every day of my life as it is my business. I typically use gaming performance as a comparison to what my graphics will be like while using CAD.
Now I am really curious if I should cancel this order. I want the convenience of having everything on 1 machine as I only have CAD on the PC, everything else is on my Macbook. I already knew that I would have to run through parallels but hoped the increased processor would compensate for the difference but if there is a graphic hit I would be going in reverse.
Ugh, I should have done my homework a little bit better. I know I could boot into Win7 with bootcamp and probably not see much of a performance diference but if I can't multitask with email, office apps and such it is counter-productive.
One the bright side, it is still not shipped so maybe I can cancel without penalty.
Thanks,
troutspinner
Hmm.. running through Parallels will definitely have a negative impact on the graphic performance, through parallels/vmware it won't be anywhere near your current graphic performance. Parallels/VMWare is all good except for graphic performance. To get near the AutoCAD performance you currently have on your Windows machine you will most definitely have to dual boot (bootcamp).
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
My recommendation?
My recommendation is to give the machine a try.
The new machine should have decent performance but if you're finding your current setup too slow you might find that even though the graphics isn't technically faster graphics-wise you will find sometimes that the i7 is so fast it makes up for it in some respects.
My recommendation is to give the machine a try.
The new machine should have decent performance but if you're finding your current setup too slow you might find that even though the graphics isn't technically faster graphics-wise you will find sometimes that the i7 is so fast it makes up for it in some respects.
Did you at least back up your /System/Library/Extensions folder beforehand?
Another thing to try would be to install the 10.6.4 combo update.
I'll repost what i have from another forum:
Alright - here is a guide for the 2009 iMacs to install the new kexts (drivers) from the 2010.
WARNING: THIS IS FOR SNOW LEOPARD 10.6.4 AND ATI CHIPSETS ONLY! BE CAREFUL, YOU CAN SERIOUSLY SCREW UP SOMETHING
Tools -
Kext Helper b7
NOTE:If you use any other Kext Utility program, you will screw up your installation!!
This utilities are for hackintoshes ONLY.
Kext helper will work with both hackintoshes and real Macs.
1. Download the supplied ATI kexts from the 2010 update Here
2. Run Kext Utility b7 from any location. You will see a display like so:
3. To be safe, I updated all ATI video kexts and included them. Drag all the kexts to the Kext Utility window so it looks like this:
4. Put in your administrator password here and click EASY INSTALL like so:
5. It will say that the kext files are installed, cross your fingers and reboot. You can reboot then and the new drivers will be installed to the proper locations, and the old drivers will be placed in the /Backup Extensions folder. You now have the same driver that the new iMacs have!
Remember, be careful, if you update ANY other kext then the video kext, you might make your system inoperable.
Hey i'm ready to do this but i keep reading about Pacifist..
AM I SUPPOSE TO DO SOMETHING BEFORE I DO THIS STEP? or can i just go right to it?
i wanted to double check before i run the program.. thanx
n00b question:
I have a 2007 original aluminium iMac, 24" with the ATI radeon 2600 HD using EFI Driver Version: 01.00.219 (if that helps to know!).
All I see are references to people with 2009 and newer machines doing this kext update thing. Should i stay away from it? Is there anything I can do to ensure I've got the newest drivers for this card?
Cheers.
I have a 2007 original aluminium iMac, 24" with the ATI radeon 2600 HD using EFI Driver Version: 01.00.219 (if that helps to know!).
All I see are references to people with 2009 and newer machines doing this kext update thing. Should i stay away from it? Is there anything I can do to ensure I've got the newest drivers for this card?
Cheers.
I tried this on my 2009 27" i7, and after what seemed like a delayed reboot, got a very non-functional system.
3D acceleration couldn't be started, and kextHelper hadn't properly backed up my extensions (it had a hard freeze after the "cross your fingers" message) so I couldn't restore them selectively. Time Machine was also broken, due to its 3D interface, so I had to restore backup from DVD.
I installed all kexts in the .zip file, since they were all ATI-related. The filesystem did show all the kexts being updated before I restored, but obviously something went wrong somewhere. Anyone know if I should've been more selective, or what?
3D acceleration couldn't be started, and kextHelper hadn't properly backed up my extensions (it had a hard freeze after the "cross your fingers" message) so I couldn't restore them selectively. Time Machine was also broken, due to its 3D interface, so I had to restore backup from DVD.
I installed all kexts in the .zip file, since they were all ATI-related. The filesystem did show all the kexts being updated before I restored, but obviously something went wrong somewhere. Anyone know if I should've been more selective, or what?
Just tried it again, this time backed up the Extensions folder myself JIC. Kext Helper still froze shortly after cross your fingers, but all extensions had been copied to the backup folder and rebooting was normal. Must have been some weird glitch the first time. I did turn off Time Machine this time just to make sure it wasn't interfering somehow.
Unfortunately, my main WoW server is down, which is the one place I happen to know my exact 2009 frame rate. Trying a new character showed about 20-40FPS(!) more than the 80 or so I expected. I was able to jack up all settings considerably (nativex2AA, halfway for aniso filtering, medium shadows, everything else max) and still get 80-100FPS in the orc starting area.
Starcraft 2 on native/Ultra seems more or less playable, which is a big improvement--it was chunky even before battles. Half Life 2 played fine on native, highest settings, which is awesome. It definitely had some chunkiness issues before.
So yeah, great. Thanks so much for posting these! Hopefully these'll be folded into 10.6.5 for the 2009's--if not, hope someone might take pity and repost any updated drivers after the patch comes out.
Realm's up. I'd say I underestimated the 2009 orc starting FPS a bit. Looks like my actual benefit in WoW is about 15-20% faster. Still, that's a noticeable amount, and has significantly improved my ability to use native resolution in other games.