It’s that time again: Mac vs PC, the Half-Life 2 series, both covered in mud, wrestling with no t-shirts, all the rude bits…
I ran custom timedemos for Half-Life 2, Episode 1 and Episode 2 on a 27″ iMac (3.06 GHZ Intel Core2Duo with 4GB DDR3 RAM and the rather paltry ATI HD 4670 with 256MB VRAM). I tested Mac OS X 10.6.3 and also ran an up-to-date version of Windows 7 Ultimate via Boot Camp. Settings are the same as used on my recent Portal benchmark:
- Model detail: High
- Texture detail: Medium
- Shader detail: High
- Water detail: Reflect world
- Shadow detail: High
- Colour correction: Enabled
- Anti-aliasing mode: 2x MSAA
- Filtering mode: Anisotropic 2x
- Wait for vertical sync: Disabled
- Motion Blur: Enabled
- Field of view: 75
- Multicore rendering: Enabled
- HDR: Full (if availalble), bloom ticked
You can’t disable HDR on a Mac since Valve didn’t implement the non-HDR path, so HDR is enabled by default. I assume that the same goes for Multicore rendering, which also can’t be changed on a Mac.
Half-Life 2: interface was sluggish, sound cut out on the Mac at the highest resolution. Timedemo was from the level Anti-citizen One.
Episode 1: sound cut out on the Mac at the highest resolution. Timedemo was from the level Exit 17.
Episode 2: sound cut out on the Mac at the highest resolution. Timedemo was from the level To The White Forest.
As expected, Half-Life 2 for Mac is battered to death in terms of performance compared to Half-Life 2 for Windows. There is some hope as current rumours suggest that 10.6.4 will focus on improving the graphics performance of Mac OS X.
To read my thoughts on graphics performance on Mac OS X, see my Portal performance article.
Being generous I can maybe accept OS X performance being 50% that of Windows for a new game, but cases where Windows is more than 4 times faster is outright terrible.
Maybe it’s time to compare OS X and Windows performance for other modern games like Quake Wars, Call of Duty 4, and Bioshock. It doesn’t seem like the graphics in Source Engine games are light years ahead of the previously mentioned games so the results should be informative. If the performance delta between OS X and Windows in those games are similar to what we see in the Source Engine games then the problem is definitely more OS X graphics drivers, while if the performance delta is noticeably smaller then the Source Engine itself would definitely need more work along with Apple helping out with driver optimized for the Source Engine.
I tested BioShock on Mac and PC, but without a timdemo as it doesn’t have that functionality. Performance ratio between the two OS’ was about the same, perhaps a little better on the Mac side. I’ll certainly work on this next week. Oh bugger, that means buying CoD4 for PC! :p
Oh. I didn’t mean to make you go out and buy a game that you don’t already own. I definitely can’t wait until all new games are available with Steam Play to avoid being dinged moving between platforms. Thanks in advance for your efforts in continuing to investigate cross-platform gaming performance.
Hehe, I don’t mind. It’s in the name of science!
OS X 10.6.2 vs 10.6.0 vs 10.5.8: How Fast Do 3D Apps Run on Each?
http://www.barefeats.com/nehal16.html
Something to consider- although the performance difference isn’t huge for the apps/games they tested, I’d be interested to see if Valve’s games run better on 10.5 vs. 10.6
BareFeats did do a comparison of Valve game performance between 3 Mac models but without taking into account Windows OS or different Mac OS versions.
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp24.html
That’s why I haven’t upgraded to 10.6 – it pisses me off to have a take another (compared to Windows) performance hit just by updating the OS. Common sense dictates it should be the opposite!
GPU SHOOTOUT, Round 2: GeForce GTX 285 vs. Others w/ new drivers & OS X 10.5.8
http://www.barefeats.com/nehal14.html
Try turning anti-aliasing off… ATI cards on macs always have issues with it. (‘Sides you shouldn’t need it at high resolutions).
I tested this yesterday actually. Framerate goes up from about 14 to 39. Still, it is an issue if someone at a lower resolution wishes it to be turned on, but turn it off for better performance.
Is this after the latest Source Engine update that is supposed to improve ATI AA performance?
Hello,
ALL games I have tested on my MBP OSX vs W7 = W7 always wins by 30-70% higher raw fps performance, nevermind loading times and stuttering (depending on the game and if nativ or cider/wine port). Even in simple games, such as World of Warcraft, Windows still has better performance, especially with shadows enabled. The original Bootcamp Nvidia drivers from Apple on Windows 7 give you an underclocked GPU. If you use the newer Verde Nvidia BETA drivers, you should be up to normal clockrates, which should improve performance on Windows 7 even more – leaving OSX further behind (see Apple forum for more info on this).
Now, I guess Apple is using something comparable to what we get under Bootcamp (188.xx) at default for OSX and building upon that (custom drivers?). If this is the case, then that would explain part of the performance drop.
If you ask me, though, most of it could be: a) Maybe a underclocked GPU on OSX (?) b) OpenGL still lacks some extensions in certain games (WoW shadows), maybe ppl have to optimize stuff for this first? c) Apples drivers are outdated d) Multicore Rendering with Source sometimes decreases performance instead of increasing it on Windows, so you have to turn it off to actually improve things sometimes (HL2). If this is the case on OSX, maybe this is eating a few fps too? e) Do NOT tell anyone, but I am BATMAN. Combine all of this and you actually get those low numbers.
This is the main reason why I use Windows 90% of the time on my MBP now, after giving Apple a try with OSX and spending a fortune on my new toy. I need the performance and features Windows offers and dualbooting sucks the life out of me and the hardware.
I wanted to adjust the DPI text size yesterday, and found out that I actually had to do it via terminal or debug tools and even then it didn’t work that well. My Mum can’t type with two hands due to an injury on her right arm and has used Windows voice recognition in her nativ language the past few years to “punch” herself through the desktop and such. On OSX there is nothing comparable to this yet and the only thing you get is in English only. I need Bluray acceleration/support and I have to use a few apps that are not supported on OSX – yet. Even starting or closing apps is faster on Windows (especially with games) when using Readyboost (5 bucks for a flash drive).
So, given all that plus the performance problems I am getting on games, plus the extreme HEAT (the newer i7 models are even worse) this machine gives out while playing or doing any hardcore stuff, I was left with only ONE single option: I bought Windows 7 and set it as my main OS for now once again. Apple really needs to fix a few things here and there – especially for almost 2k bucks. In that price range you get PC stuff that blow the MBP out of the water in every way you can imagine.
Mr. Ecko
PS: To makes things worse, I also did a Ubuntu Linux vs OS X test a few months ago. What shocked my is that I saw better performance there on the few games it has. Example: Doom 3/Prey. There are rumors that Steam is heading for Linux, too. When and if that happens, we should have a good match ahead of us. Both use OpenGL. I’ll bite my girlfriend in the neck, I promise, if I find out that Linux has better performance on games then.
PPS: Oh, btw, kudos for doing these benchmarks. Steam has a few Crossplattform games to test: “Killing Floor, City of Heroes, Source, Eve Online” and so on. I can’t give you any exact numbers right now, but you should find the system requirements on those games for OS X are much higher and even then run so-so compared to the Windows version. I’d like to see more, though.
Thanks.
Mr. Ecko
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You do realize Boot camp doesn’t run Windows well at all, right?
You’re going to have to clarify that sentence a bit. What do you mean “not well”: It’s Windows, on a Mac.
I’ve never heard anyone complain that performance is anything other than what you’d get on the same hardware on a PC.
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I find the performance differential between Windows and OS X appalling, especially because Valve doesn’t make it clear that there is such a differential. Imagine playing HL 2 on a Windows PC smoothly and then thinking the same should be true on your similarly configured Mac, so you buy a copy and then find out that it performs horribly. There goes your money (unless you pony up for Windows and run it through bootcamp).
I’m not sure who’s to blame, but I would think it’s Valve rather than Apple (e.g. because of poorly coded drivers).
Many games for Mac have lower performance than their PC counterparts. The performance difference isn’t easy to pin down, so don’t be so harsh on Valve.
Have a look at our recent Portal 2 performance article to see how things have changed.
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One thing to notice, The mac is running at 1920×1080
The PC is running at 2560×1140
That’s a 25% larger screen resolution than on the mac.
Do the computer’s have the same specs?
If you tested this with boot camp — then two things.
Why would you run the mac one at a lower screen resolution. To make your point?
Bootcamp sucks. It hardly handles windows. Don’t base it on that. Find a PC with equivelent specs.
Try reading the article if you don’t understand the pictures (You don’t if you’r in doubt). Both Windows and OSX was running at both resolutions on the same mac.
What do you mean when you say bootcamp hardly handles Windows? If you have a problem with windows it’s a driver problem. the other part of it is the actual bootloader..
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