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The Gaming Benchmarks Thread

GyroFX said:
wonder how stable it would be to OC on the windows side, considering the gpu gets kinda hot already running natively in OSX.
Click to expand...

If you keep the fan up, it'll stay cooler than default specs. iMac doesn't have bad cooling, Apple just chooses to keep fans low.
 
All:

Will : Hi ! said:
Should be, using Pacifist.

I advise you to backup your entire /System/Library/Extensions folder beforehand, and to have a second Mac available in case you should have trouble booting the iMac after the procedure.

I never tried any such thing, but I believe selecting all the ATI files in System > Library > Extensions (in Pacifist) and choosing Install might be all that's required.

If you're already running 10.6.4, you might also try installing the whole update with Pacifist (in that case, make a full system backup first).
Click to expand...

I have tried this, I will report my results tomorrow - I am busy copying critical files over gigabit to a second system. If I don't return in 24 hours you'll know it blew up in my face and had to rebuild.
 
Triumph! Success!

Here we go guys.

You '09 iMac users with ATI cards might get away with something cool that doesn't require cloning a drive.

Disclaimer: You mess up your Mac, it's not my fault.

Thanks: To those who suggested how this could be done in the first place. Yes, Pacifist and the download for the new Imacs does it.
Thanks also to Barefeats who found out that these drivers really are the bees knees after all.

How: Exactly as suggested.

Highlight EVERY ATI entry in System / Library / Extensions of the file MacOSXUpd10.6.4foriMacMid2010.dmg and select install from the menu on the top left of the pacifist masthead.

But you want to see the results right?

First, Before:

2560x1440 framerates with the old ATI drivers:

A pitiful example. What the heck?
HD4850maxedout-Before1.jpg


The best I could manage after a few tries:
HD4850maxedout-Before.jpg


Trying it at HD resolution:

1920 x 1080 framerates with the old ATI drivers:
HD4850-HD-Before.JPG


You get the idea.. It's better but you have a 2560x1440 display, who wants to play a game at 1920x1080?

AFTER THE CHANGE TO THE NEW DRIVERS!

2560 x 1440 framerates with the new ATI drivers:
HD4850-After-MaxedOut.jpg


Okay, that's a lot better.

1920 x 1080 HD framerates with the new ATI drivers:
HD4850-After-HD.jpg


MUCH BETTER!

Better all around.

Thanks very much to whoever suggested this. It wasn't that hard and it was a bit nerve racking potentially bricking my new baby but...

Note: this applies ONLY so far as I am aware to the 2009 refresh iMac machines with ATI cards.

My machine is a Corei7 27" with 12 gigs of ram and stock 1 TB drive.

Your mileage may vary.

Your mileage might get better results than mine.

Your mileage might brick your machine.

Questions? Ask.

Disclaimer: Apple might push out an update rendering all of this scaryness unecessary very soon. Then again they may not.

One more just because:

stupid.jpg

Check it out! 5000 frames per second (at stupidly low resolution).
 
Anyone have numbers for the new base iMac model (4670)? Specifically for CS: Source in bootcamp and os x. Thanks.
 
World of Warcraft Benchmark

Just got the 3.6ghz i5, 8gig RAM, Radeon 5670.

Runs WoW on Ultra at a consistent 31 fps. Have had no lag problems at all- have been questing for 5 hours tonight.
 
Wow...here's my result on a late 2009 Imac i7 , 8Gb ram with the drivers from the MacOSXUpd10.6.4foriMacMid2010.pkg update:
 

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JHorstmann said:
Just got the 3.6ghz i5, 8gig RAM, Radeon 5670.

Runs WoW on Ultra at a consistent 31 fps. Have had no lag problems at all- have been questing for 5 hours tonight.
Click to expand...

31fps is considered bad. I think 50 would be nice, which is what I set to my maxfps.
 
does anyone know how the 27" 2.8 GHz quad-core i5 with ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB imac will do running FFXIV on Bootcamp everything on high i just want this game to be running smoothly and crisp and if its crap then i guess i would have to wait intill i buy a PS3
 
JHorstmann said:
Just got the 3.6ghz i5, 8gig RAM, Radeon 5670.

Runs WoW on Ultra at a consistent 31 fps. Have had no lag problems at all- have been questing for 5 hours tonight.
Click to expand...

Check out this review: http://mattgadient.com/2010/08/01/imac-21-5-i3-3-2ghz-with-the-radeon-5670-mid-2010-in-gaming/

The guy is using 3.2GhZ i3 iMac with 8gig RAM and Radeon 5670 and he seems to get about 50 fps from WoW in Ultra. That's pretty weird considering that's almost twice as good as your result even though he has a worse cpu.

EDIT: And check this out also:
MacOS X 10.6
3.06GHz Core 2 Duo
Radeon HD 4670 256MB
4GB RAM
7200RPM 1TB drive

With video settings on Ultra, FPS in Dalaran was about 32-35 FPS. I would occasionally drop to 17-18 FPS for just a beat if I turned a corner and ran into a knot of players, but it was back to the 30s almost immediately. On my 2007 MBP I often see player shadows (circular blobs) without players above them as I load textures - that didn't happen once.
Click to expand...

So a previous-gen iMac with a worse GPU is getting more fps in Ultra. You have to be doing something wrong.
 
Yep...

mogens said:
Wow...here's my result on a late 2009 Imac i7 , 8Gb ram with the drivers from the MacOSXUpd10.6.4foriMacMid2010.pkg update:
Click to expand...

I updated my version of GL View and got similar results. 1200fps is far better than 500 or 700.

Update: Crimeny. Ran X-Plane a little bit a few minutes ago and unbelievable. So smooth. Highly recommended.
 
I just tried updating the drivers for my 2009 iMac i7 as well, with great results. Here is a post with instructions on how to do it: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/978676/

It's quite simple, and the poster has prepared a zip with the needed files, so there is no need to extract them. On your own risk, as always..
 
I anticipate that after Apple runs through stock of refurb 2009 iMacs that magically a driver update for them will be released that puts performance on par with the 2010 iMacs.
 
Tigerman82 said:
Check out this review: http://mattgadient.com/2010/08/01/imac-21-5-i3-3-2ghz-with-the-radeon-5670-mid-2010-in-gaming/

The guy is using 3.2GhZ i3 iMac with 8gig RAM and Radeon 5670 and he seems to get about 50 fps from WoW in Ultra. That's pretty weird considering that's almost twice as good as your result even though he has a worse cpu.

EDIT: And check this out also:

So a previous-gen iMac with a worse GPU is getting more fps in Ultra. You have to be doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

I hope you're right.

I went in again this morning and I was running at like 42. Maybe the built in framerate counter is off?
 
JHorstmann said:
I hope you're right.

I went in again this morning and I was running at like 42. Maybe the built in framerate counter is off?
Click to expand...

Bear in mind it also depends on where you are. The zones for The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King are more intensive than vanilla WoW zones.

Here's a quick tip to knock your frames up a notch: turn shadows down by just one slider. Don't worry, they still look great! It's just that the shadows were implemented horribly, even on the Windows platform, which drains performance.
 
Tigerman82 said:
Check out this review: http://mattgadient.com/2010/08/01/imac-21-5-i3-3-2ghz-with-the-radeon-5670-mid-2010-in-gaming/

The guy is using 3.2GhZ i3 iMac with 8gig RAM and Radeon 5670 and he seems to get about 50 fps from WoW in Ultra. That's pretty weird considering that's almost twice as good as your result even though he has a worse cpu.

EDIT: And check this out also:

So a previous-gen iMac with a worse GPU is getting more fps in Ultra. You have to be doing something wrong.
Click to expand...



WoW benefits more from CPU than GPU. At least in its current live state, that will change in Cataclysm I'm pretty sure cause @ Max settings on my i5 2009 iMac w/ 4850 the system tries to eat itself.

This was of course running @ native res, but once I got it down to 1920x1080 windowed mode the game (Cataclysm) became playable @ max settings.

So, faster core speed of a processor currently help WoW run better, oh and said countless times, WoW doesn't benefit at all from multi-core processors. However, his lack luster video card won't be able to do much with the Cataclysm graphics update.
 
This thread was hijacked :D
I would love to see some new numbers for the new quad iMacs, puleease :)

Great job so far, guys. Tomorrow I will chime in with some own numbers for the 27 i5x4.
 
@Unfair:

I am not sure where you get this idea from at all. I have the same computer you say. And firstly, WoW does get som nice boost from multiple cores. It benefits greatly from 2 cores and can also use 2 more cores though that has not so much impact as the second core.

Secondly If what you say is true that wow is more CPU bound than GPU tell me why a Mac Pro with lower clockspeed same core count and same cpu series run in circles around the iMac I7 with the 4850.

At Max settings yes the system can feel like its eating itself, But the actual reason is you are probably starting to run out of memory. Running around in Dalaran can make WoW use as much as 3.5 GB of memory, leaving more or less nothing for the rest of the system. I got out and bought myself 8GB of memory and the difference was like night and day.

Now I do most 25 man raiding at 30+ fps and dalaran is normally at 40 FPS at peaktimes. It can dip some times but not often.

As for my CPU usage It trickles by at 60-80% meaning in total it uses LESS than 1 core. So NO wow is not needing more CPU tha GPU to run. This is a thing that was true in vanilla when WoW could get latency issues if your cpu was struggeling.
 
Unfair said:
WoW benefits more from CPU than GPU. At least in its current live state, that will change in Cataclysm I'm pretty sure cause @ Max settings on my i5 2009 iMac w/ 4850 the system tries to eat itself.

This was of course running @ native res, but once I got it down to 1920x1080 windowed mode the game (Cataclysm) became playable @ max settings.

So, faster core speed of a processor currently help WoW run better, oh and said countless times, WoW doesn't benefit at all from multi-core processors. However, his lack luster video card won't be able to do much with the Cataclysm graphics update.
Click to expand...

Unoptimized beta code can play a big part in that for starters.

Also, OSX does not run WoW nearly as well as Windows, so if you're not playing the game in Boot Camp, that will also affect your performance.

I can't see the new water shaders impacting performance by that great of a degree. What other graphical improvements are coming out of Cataclysm?
 
Dyne said:
Unoptimized beta code can play a big part in that for starters.

Also, OSX does not run WoW nearly as well as Windows, so if you're not playing the game in Boot Camp, that will also affect your performance.

I can't see the new water shaders impacting performance by that great of a degree. What other graphical improvements are coming out of Cataclysm?
Click to expand...

I'd guess Cataclysm could do - as it enabled DirectX 11 effects in the game. The mobile ATI cards are not the best at handling that
 
byron_hinson said:
I'd guess Cataclysm could do - as it enabled DirectX 11 effects in the game. The mobile ATI cards are not the best at handling that
Click to expand...

ATI cards in general are not the best at handling DirectX11. :)

DirectX11 is currently experimental in WoW anyhow; it still defaults to DirectX9.
 
JHorstmann said:
Just got the 3.6ghz i5, 8gig RAM, Radeon 5670.

Runs WoW on Ultra at a consistent 31 fps. Have had no lag problems at all- have been questing for 5 hours tonight.
Click to expand...


I averaged 48 FPS with ultra settings on my 09 core 2 duo 4670. In dungeons it would hover around 80 FPS. When I switched up to the 5670 I am averaging around 55-60 FPS and 90-115 FPS in dungeons. All on ultra. You may have an issue somewhere if your running that low. The only time i dip into the low 30's is when I'm in Dalaran while it is very populated. like outside the Bank.

I am using Titan Panel for my FPS numbers and averages.
 
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