How Does 3D Mac Gaming Keep Up?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
How a computer with a 100 MHz slower processor and 128mb less RAM (not to mention a sharper resolution) can post a higher score like that is beyond me with details maxed. That's a pretty big blip on my bull**** detector.

That was my point. The site is not reputable, find real benchmarks.

You own a P3 600 and a Geforce 2 MX? Since when? MX200 or 400?

Since about October 1999. Got a Dell P3 600 with a TNT2 Ultra. When I worked for SidGames, I received a free GeForce 2 MX from InnoVision (before they were released, too) to review. I put that into my personal box (P3 800), but have since upgraded my GF2MX to a GeForce 3, and put the GF2MX into the old P3 600. I've also got a Radeon powered computer in the house. And it's not an MX200, or MX400, it was around before the number ratings (so it was essentially a MX400).

No one on a PC uses an older video card? You sure about that?

You'd be very hard pressed to find a gamer who plays the 3D games we're talking about on a Rage 128.

Not until I get a link to back your "OS 9 has inefficient coding" remark. For whatever reason you totally ignored that point immediatly after bringing it up...

There is no specific link to prove it, that's why I've ignored it. It's speculation, supported by the fact that the G3s should be considerably faster than they are, in comparison to P3s. That, and OS X offers a big speed jump, which tells you something in OS 9 was slightly inefficient.

So do you, if you think a PIII450 with a Rage and 128 of RAM can post 50 fps in any real benchmark at 800x600. I've only seen that done with G3s or systems with much more RAM and processing power. In reality the number would be around 35-41 or so. Not an average of 50.

Errm...you missed my point. My point was your site was BS, because of all of the BS results in there.

You've yet to cite any real benchmarks, and when I point out the invalidity of your benchmarks you get on my case because they're BS?

Echinda: I hate, hate, HATE, Apple marketing. The Apple users seriously think a G4 can defeat a modern day Pentium 4 or Athlon at the same price point, when in all honesty it can't even hold a candle. The hardware of today's Mac's are obsolete, I'm just dispelling some misconceptions a lot of you have. If I hear one more person say the G4 is 128-bit...

I also don't really mind Macs, though. The G5 is supposed to kick ass, I'm really looking forward to that thing. That may be the chance for Apple to have actual fast computers, not these old clunkers. I'm also sitting on the fence with OS X, I hate Aqua, but I really like much of the OS' design.

The point is, current Macs are slower than current PCs, for more money, with less software. It's hilarious how people try to argue with that. When the G4 came out, years ago, it was VERY fast compared to the PC counterparts. But it hasn't gotten much faster since, while PC processors (and memory systems) have gotten MUCH faster. We'll see how the G5 turns the tables.

[Asher]

After all that hype about how the Mac ports are so high quality, it looks like Civ3 for Mac is ****e. Anyone want to comment on that?

[bradman]

Originally posted by Asher
After all that hype about how the Mac ports are so high quality, it looks like Civ3 for Mac is ****e.

Oh? What bugs are you encountering? And here I had thought that you didn't even like Civ games, and you've bothered to play and compare both versions. I must admit I'm flattered. I know a person of your intellect wouldn't want to make such a sweeping statement without having firsthand knowledge of what he was talking about.

And I can't help but pass this one up:

Originally posted by Asher DirectX doesn't emulate a single thing at all unless your video hardware doesn't support a certain feature, at which point it emulates it in software. You CANNOT do this on a Mac. OpenGL does not support it.

You certainly can, and OpenGL on the Mac supports it. If a feature is not hardware accelerated by a video driver, the OpenGL software renderer picks up the slack. I don't know where you get your information about OpenGL on the Mac, but you need to start finding more reliable sources, or stop guessing.

How is it that you bumbled back into the Mac forum? Finger slip? Either way, I'd like to ask you to leave, or at minimum take your off-topic Mac-bashing back to the appropriate forums where it belongs.

Brad

[FlameFlash]

Er...just what are you talking about? I think you have some serious misunderstandings on what DirectX is and how Drivers work.

Then why did Quake III come out for the Mac first? (I asked the Wintel user "friend" of mine who WAS waiting for a DirectX driver update which is what Quake III release for Wintel was supposedly waiting for... yes, that's second-hand info, but it's still info that says my Mac is better with graphics than his Wintel.

The video card manufacturer makes the drivers (ATI, Nvidia, etc.). Not Microsoft.

Ah, so this is why Linux users sit back and wait for drivers that are written by usually fellow Linux users rather than harassing ATI, etc?

We also don't DEPEND on DirectX for our games at all. You can use OpenGL for graphics, there's other open audio methods too, etc. DirectX is popular BECAUSE it is a Good Thing.

Uh huh... that's why I was saying, again, why Macs were better... I never said Macs depended on DirectX, so you've misquoted me there. Macs DON'T use DirectX, you're right, it IS OpenGL for graphics... and how often does OpenGL get updated compared to DirectX? Exactly, that's why OpenGL is better, that's why Quake III was able to be launched on Mac first.

DirectX doesn't emulate a single thing at all unless your video hardware doesn't support a certain feature, at which point it emulates it in software. You CANNOT do this on a Mac. OpenGL does not support it. It's one of the DirectX's main features.

Exactly my point... again, it's Wintel computers and hardware produced for Wintel that when the hardware DOESN'T support a certain feature it goes software side. OpenGL DOESN'T need to do that just for that main reason. Mac processors aren't number punchers, somebody who says otherwise should size up their Mac with a Wintel number-cruncher, but Mac DOES do graphics, as was mentioned earlier, which is why Mac is Photoshop King.

You seem to think that somehow PCs are slower for doing 3D gaming because of "emulation" DirectX does. Heh. Whatever, that's just so totally off for how it works.

That just stinks of my signature... nothing new or that I can reply to there.

You write directly to the hardware through an API (Direct3D, OpenGL, etc). On the Mac, you're restricted to OpenGL. PC has DirectX and OpenGL. DirectX is popular because it makes game development easier overall. OpenGL is popular for portability, because Macs and Unix don't run DirectX.

The only reason DirectX is even "popular" is because Microsoft writes it and The Microsoft Collective undoubtedly requires program writers to write in DirectX for when there aren't plans for a Mac port. No wonder they have a monopoly.

Edit: Which Quake came out first for the Mac? This is certainly news to me! Also, NO Quake games use DirectX. So what you're saying is BS, whether you meant it to be or not.

I answered that earlier... if no Quake game uses DirectX, then I'll have to go beat my Wintel "friend" with the ugly stick... or is that since you're an all-knowledgeable PC user that you never had to bother to install DirectX when you installed a new game because you have the latest DirectX beta?

You have some deep misunderstandings on how PC 3D games work.

And you need to go buy a Mac.

Edit: And I bow to the knowledge of bradman... he must have posted while I was originally writing this.

[- Groucho -]

Originally posted by Asher
After all that hype about how the Mac ports are so high quality, it looks like Civ3 for Mac is ****e. Anyone want to comment on that?

I've got the Civ3 Mac port and it works great. The only issue I've got is occasionally the unit sounds (fighting, sighing, grunting etc.) don't play, but they are pretty repetitive so its not like that bothers me much. I also managed to make the mouse stop responding, but it was 3:00 am and I was half asleep so I'm pretty sure that was a wetware error. No programmer (Brad included) should be held responsible for my random ham fisted keystrokes.

As for the positives, the game runs very smoothly and I don't get any pausing, jitteriness, animation glitches or other oddities that usually indicate a bad port. The advisor screens give smooth responses and flipping quickly between them works without a hitch. I've only played to the Industrial age, so I'm not sure about the end game, but with 8 civs each with 50+ military units and two big wars going on, the between turn pauses were only 5+ seconds (15 seconds max). Most of that time was attributable to watching units that move into your units' LOS fight or march around. When that didn't happen the pauses were negligible. Compared to SMAC on my old Celeron 400 with 228 Mbs RAM (which was admittedly a crappy machine but it did exceed the SMAC specs by close to the same amount my current machine exceeds the CivIII specs), this thing cooks. SMAC used to take eons to move units for the AIs. I'm not using a crazy powerful machine either - its an iMac G3 600 with 256 Mb RAM.

So I'm not sure what the complaints you've heard are about.

[Asher]

Originally posted by bradman
Oh? What bugs are you encountering? And here I had thought that you didn't even like Civ games, and you've bothered to play and compare both versions. I must admit I'm flattered. I know a person of your intellect wouldn't want to make such a sweeping statement without having firsthand knowledge of what he was talking about.

Can't you see the forum here?
There are several threads complaining about sound issues, speed issues, etc.

You certainly can, and OpenGL on the Mac supports it. If a feature is not hardware accelerated by a video driver, the OpenGL software renderer picks up the slack. I don't know where you get your information about OpenGL on the Mac, but you need to start finding more reliable sources, or stop guessing.

Well that's certainly different than how it works on the PC and UNIX.
So what you're saying is the OpenGL software rendering system on the Mac is continually updated so that it can support new features in software if the hardware doesn't support it? That's not how it works on any other system.

How is it that you bumbled back into the Mac forum? Finger slip? Either way, I'd like to ask you to leave, or at minimum take your off-topic Mac-bashing back to the appropriate forums where it belongs.

Well, Wiglaf asked a question, I answered it. But you're right, let's move this thing over to the Off-Topic where more PC users will read it.

[Asher]

Originally posted by FlameFlash
Then why did Quake III come out for the Mac first? (I asked the Wintel user "friend" of mine who WAS waiting for a DirectX driver update which is what Quake III release for Wintel was supposedly waiting for... yes, that's second-hand info, but it's still info that says my Mac is better with graphics than his Wintel.

Huh??
Quake III did NOT come out for the Mac first. And why would your friend be waiting for a DirectX driver update when Quake III uses OpenGL?? Your second hand info is grossly inaccurate.

Ah, so this is why Linux users sit back and wait for drivers that are written by usually fellow Linux users rather than harassing ATI, etc?

Linux users sometimes do that (they don't do it for graphics cards, though: ATI and Nvidia either contract companies to make them or release them themselves) because the hardware is so old it's unsupported anymore, or simply because the company doesn't care about Linux. Your point is totally irrelevant when talking about Windows Gaming.

Uh huh... that's why I was saying, again, why Macs were better... I never said Macs depended on DirectX, so you've misquoted me there. Macs DON'T use DirectX, you're right, it IS OpenGL for graphics... and how often does OpenGL get updated compared to DirectX? Exactly, that's why OpenGL is better, that's why Quake III was able to be launched on Mac first.

OpenGL gets updated far less often than DirectX. OpenGL is a committee of people that move slowly and behind the hardware curve to standardize everything. For YEARS, OpenGL 1.2 was the latest. Last year OpenGL 1.3 came out. For every .X revision in OpenGL, there's about 2-3 DirectX revisions coming out. And DirectX has more features (by a big, thick margin) standardized than OpenGL does. In fact, OpenGL is scrambling to make OpenGL 2.0 to compete with DirectX 8 and 9.

Why do you keep mentioning completely inaccurate Quake III numbers? 1) It did not come out on the Mac first, 2) It doesn't use DirectX at all, since Carmack ported it to the Mac and Linux as well.

Exactly my point... again, it's Wintel computers and hardware produced for Wintel that when the hardware DOESN'T support a certain feature it goes software side. OpenGL DOESN'T need to do that just for that main reason. Mac processors aren't number punchers, somebody who says otherwise should size up their Mac with a Wintel number-cruncher, but Mac DOES do graphics, as was mentioned earlier, which is why Mac is Photoshop King.

Dear God...
First, 3D cards have nothing to do with Photoshop performance. Second, the Photoshop stuff you do *DOES* work off your processors, which *ARE* number crunchers. The whole AltiVec thing was to make massive parallel number crunching!
A Mac does NOT do decent 3D graphics, which is why all workstations for graphics tend to be IRIX-powered SGIs or x86-based computers.
And I fail to see why you think it's a bad thing when your computer can emulate hardware you don't have...

The only reason DirectX is even "popular" is because Microsoft writes it and The Microsoft Collective undoubtedly requires program writers to write in DirectX for when there aren't plans for a Mac port. No wonder they have a monopoly.

That's not true at all. It's just that DirectX makes game development that much easier with DirectInput, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, Direct3D, etc. That's why DirectX is used.

I answered that earlier... if no Quake game uses DirectX, then I'll have to go beat my Wintel "friend" with the ugly stick... or is that since you're an all-knowledgeable PC user that you never had to bother to install DirectX when you installed a new game because you have the latest DirectX beta?

Games don't require you to install DirectX betas, unless they are betas themselves. DirectX comes with Windows, btw. DX 8.1 ships with Windows XP, the latest.

Sometimes you will have to upgrade DirectX, but it's simply a matter of using the installer on the CD. 1 minute later you've updated DirectX to the latest. Is that so difficult?

And you need to go buy a Mac.

Maybe when the G5 TiBooks come out.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Echinda
So I'm not sure what the complaints you've heard are about.

Here are the ones I'm talking about:

This is what I've got: Mac Os 8.6, G3 (333 MHZ), vmemory (64 MB), Built-in (32 MB), RAM (128 or 256 MB, can't remember and don't know where to look).

This is what happened: Four hours trying to get Civ3 running respectably - no luck. First, I had to upgrade QT 4.0 to 4.1.2 or higher. I went to QT 5.0. I was asked if I wanted the CD to install 4.1.2 but an error message came up everytime I tried, plus I never even saw it on the disc.

After clicking on the Civ3 icon, it took almost two minutes for the main menu to pop up. The whole time the screen is dark and the machine is grinding like crazy. I tried changing the refresh rate 3 - 4 times but only auto would work. When I made choices of what type of land, how many civs, difficulty level, etc. there was probably 30 - 40 sec. of grinding before I could move on. I got as far as building a city (Beijing) before I closed ot down.

I tried cranking my virtual memory up to 997K to see what would happen, but it only seemed worse. I allocated more preferred memory from 128000 to 200000, but I didn't notice any real differences. I left the minimum at 128000 because I had to increase virtual memory to compensate, I thnk. Its alla blur now.

after playing Civ3 for few days on my G4, i'm rather dissapointed by the quality of the port. I also own the PC version of Civ3 (bought it when it just came out) which I run on a Athalon 600mhz and there is a big speed difference between the two. The mac version is really slow. I finally managed to run in OS X, and after disabling quartz text, the game is much more playable than OS 9 version.

First off, a huge problem that bugs me is that preferences do not stick. by this i mean when i change preferences, such as turning auto-save off and always wait until end of turn on from the main menu, the changes I make to prefs dont stay. they revert to default no matter what. the only way i got around this is to start a game, change the prefs within the game and then save the game. that ensures one's own prefs to be saved, but only for that particular game session. and starting postion linked by culture will be always be true since that cannot be changed before the game starts. i have always turned that option in PC version because I want random neighbors. another minor issue that might be linked to this problem is that the difficulty level always goes back to chieftan when starting new game. and i never play anything other than diety. (i've actually won my first diety game last week on pc)

Second, there is a huge performance problem under OS 9. It is almost unplayable on my G4 with 384 mb ram. i believe it needs some optimization work. everytime i scroll map or move units, there is a lag and i hear that clicking HD accessing noise. Imagine the lag when u have multiple units moving across the roads/rails. they should move smoothly, not pause and lag after every tile movement. However this does not occour in OS X. Im quite impressed by the X version, its much faster than the 9 version. One thing I figured out is that turning off quartz text for X gives huge performance boost and prevents crashes. The 9 version also seems to leak/fragment memory and leaves me about 100 mb short in memory when i exit the game.

Both of the versions have some audio problems. Music gets choppy especially in main menu setting up a game. After experimenting with turning on/off "disable music" option, I no longer can get music back. but thats not a huge loss since civ3 music is kind of bad. another audio issue is there is no sounds during battle.

Im not sure if some of these problems are specific to my mac, so if anyone else experiences these problems please post.
although the mac version seems much slower than the pc version, some parts of the game is actually faster IMO such as the time it takes to start a new game and loading saved games. anyways i hope there is a patch soon to fix some annoying problems.

[- Groucho -]

Looking at those two posts, there isn't anywhere near enough evidence for your "****e" assessment.

The one guy has an old machine and it sounds like he tried to update QT in the middle of his install. The "shut all open programs" stuff is there for a reason in Mac OS 8. I wonder if he has tried to scrub and reinstall? In a Win9x environment trying to update software at the same time as you're installing something was a good way to hopelessly muddle the registry, so this kind of issue certainly isn't OS 8 specific.

The other guy had no real issues in OS X other than his perception of the speed the game ran at (other than the audio, which I've also experienced and its no biggie - same thing always happened to me in CivII on a PC and that was still my favourite game for years). According to you, Macs are just slower, so that is hardly the port's fault, is it? As for his OS9 issues, if he thinks having to put in your preferences at the beginning of a game is a "huge problem", then I haven't got much respect for his sense of perspective. You had to do the same thing in SMAC and it never bothered me. I have a friend that goes ape if he has to wait more than a half second for any computer process. Clearly a "huge problem" to some is not even noticeable as a problem to others.

You were way too harsh, Asher. Are you sure Jobs didn't pick on you as a kid.

[FlameFlash]

Huh??
Quake III did NOT come out for the Mac first. And why would your friend be waiting for a DirectX driver update when Quake III uses OpenGL?? Your second hand info is grossly inaccurate.

As I said, if that's inaccurate, then fine, I'll just go after him with the ugly stick (which I might anyway just for the fun of it)... but with the numbers and other garabage you've been throwing, I'm not going to trust your Wintel=good & Mac=bad scenario either. I'm also not going to take YOUR second-hand knowledge over somebody else's second hand knowledge. Besides, if OpenGL is used more often on a Mac... wouldn't it be more logical to beta test, and therefore release the program on a Mac first since it obviously uses OpenGL better with all the stat throwing mumbo-jumbo going on and the fact that no matter what you do, a Mac still doesn't need as much VRAM to run the same games as the game needs on a Wintel.

Linux users sometimes do that (they don't do it for graphics cards, though: ATI and Nvidia either contract companies to make them or release them themselves) because the hardware is so old it's unsupported anymore, or simply because the company doesn't care about Linux.

*shrugs* Each of the arguement points on this matter has died in the retelling... I'm not even going to continue to kick it.

Your point is totally irrelevant when talking about Windows Gaming.

So are quite a few of your points when taken out of context.

OpenGL gets updated far less often than DirectX. OpenGL is a committee of people that move slowly and behind the hardware curve to standardize everything. For YEARS, OpenGL 1.2 was the latest. Last year OpenGL 1.3 came out. For every .X revision in OpenGL, there's about 2-3 DirectX revisions coming out. And DirectX has more features (by a big, thick margin) standardized than OpenGL does. In fact, OpenGL is scrambling to make OpenGL 2.0 to compete with DirectX 8 and 9.

Why do you keep mentioning completely inaccurate Quake III numbers? 1) It did not come out on the Mac first, 2) It doesn't use DirectX at all, since Carmack ported it to the Mac and Linux as well.

I simply defer to Bradman's post regarding OpenGL, and I would like you to prove my Quake III release dates wrong before I'll even listen to you on that one... or allow you to mock me (see beginning of this post.) Besides... though I may be mistake on this forum, but generally forums are used to DISCUSS not mock, tear apart, ramble, etc... which, unfortunately is all you've seem to done. I'm simply trying to counter what actually makes sense to me, especially since you've made it your sole duty to reply to me it seems.

Dear God...
First, 3D cards have nothing to do with Photoshop performance. Second, the Photoshop stuff you do *DOES* work off your processors, which *ARE* number crunchers. The whole AltiVec thing was to make massive parallel number crunching!
A Mac does NOT do decent 3D graphics, which is why all workstations for graphics tend to be IRIX-powered SGIs or x86-based computers.
And I fail to see why you think it's a bad thing when your computer can emulate hardware you don't have...

Proof again? And I'll point out that it's funny you're actually defending a Mac failing that I pointed out regarding the number crunching end. What whole AltiVec thing, BTW or am I supposed to have the resources you seem to have right at my figertips as well? (Yes, I am annoyed, not ticked yet, but annoyed, and if somebody could refer me in a private message the URL of the forum rules for this site, I'd appriciate it... I'm too lazy to do much hunting.

That's not true at all. It's just that DirectX makes game development that much easier with DirectInput, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, Direct3D, etc. That's why DirectX is used.

Uh huh... and who made all of those programs? When you have something to refute a point of mine, I look forward to reading it, but if you want to offer more evidence in my favor, go right ahead.

Games don't require you to install DirectX betas, unless they are betas themselves. DirectX comes with Windows, btw. DX 8.1 ships with Windows XP, the latest.

Sometimes you will have to upgrade DirectX, but it's simply a matter of using the installer on the CD. 1 minute later you've updated DirectX to the latest. Is that so difficult?

Well duh, this was my entire point... if Mr. I know everything about DirectX is who I'm talking to then you'd know when a beta and real version updates would come out, you'd never have to install the update from the CD... try reading my posts instead of lumping and scanning... it helps.

*sighs* Asher when you are willing to throw data, and not harass people who like their computers for what they are... even though there are some failings (just as in all computers) and even though we control a small (yes very small I admit) share of the PC market I simply recommend you go play in traffic... you've taken enough of my time.

[MarkG]

for someone who doesnt have a mac you surely post a lot here asher

you've goten your responses once, you seem to be have come back for more. please taking your trolling comments out of this forum

thank you