Macbook Pro Santa Rosa Gaming Problems

temjin · June 12, 2007 2:48AM

Hi, I'm new to the forums. I picked up a new Macbook Pro 2.2Ghz, 2GB, 8600m GT w/128mb. And I'm having major issues with 3D gaming. Games such as WoW, and Quake 4 have heavy framerate stuttering, and hiccuping issues. I've testing various graphical settings and the problem is persistent. Is anyone else having these issues?

sdw2001 · June 12, 2007 9:49AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Temjin

Hi, I'm new to the forums. I picked up a new Macbook Pro 2.2Ghz, 2GB, 8600m GT w/128mb. And I'm having major issues with 3D gaming. Games such as WoW, and Quake 4 have heavy framerate stuttering, and hiccuping issues. I've testing various graphical settings and the problem is persistent. Is anyone else having these issues?

128 is probably not enough to really run things the way you want. 256 would be better. 2GB of RAM should be good...but I would make sure that you don't have a lot of other open apps when playing. What video settings are you using?

Marvin · June 12, 2007 10:16AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDW2001

128 is probably not enough to really run things the way you want. 256 would be better. 2GB of RAM should be good...but I would make sure that you don't have a lot of other open apps when playing. What video settings are you using?

The spec is fine, the problem seems to be due to more buggy drivers, this time for the new 8600M GT cards. Someone else warned about it in another thread. WoW was one of the games specifically mentioned. We'll just have to wait for Apple to sort it, hopefully along with their GMA drivers in 10.4.9.

temjin · June 12, 2007 10:49AM

Thanks guys for the input. I ended up spending some time with WoW and Quake 4 and configuring the settings. With WoW, i started by scaling everything back to minimum and gradually increased individual effects. Resolution was set at 1280x800, with everything maxed, except Viewing distances (which were set at minimum) the game ran very well. The Viewing distance settings kill the frames, increases to these 2 settings even moderately, causes heavy stuttering as the MBP struggles to swallow the work load.

Quake 4 on the other hand improves a bit at lowest detail settings with res set to 800x600. Once again as the game calls upon resources for scripting gaming events, sounds, doors opening into new hallways or areas the game chokes hard, bringing the FPS down to a halt momentarily. Quake 4's performance in general seems so suspect. It runs great once scripted events pass or new areas are "loaded" in, even at high detail settings and res.

Concerning the 128mbs of vram. I'm pretty new to mac gaming, though in my experience with PC games 128mb's doesn't normally constrain the FPS in such a way that I'm experiencing. Typically, higher vRAM amounts buys you higher resolutions and increased filtering settings (AF, AA) at higher frame rates. My experience though, I have nearly zero programming knowledge and if somebody knows otherwise please share.

I work for a CompUSA with an Apple Shop, I'm going to bring in a Flash Stick with Quake 4 and test it out on various other Macs. For example, X1600 performance on various machines, and as we get more new MBP's I'll test out the 256 to 128 disparity.

benroethig · June 12, 2007 12:04PM

128 vs 256 doesn't make any difference, the clock speed does though.

Right now the 8600M GT is showing both drastic increases to nearly equal to the base Mac Pro and sharp decreases. As others have said, there are some driver issues right now. Apple is working with the gaming community to get this sorted out.

temjin · June 15, 2007 1:48AM

Well I've managed to do some testing. Looks like those with new Santa Rosa Macbook Pro's can rest easy with the stuttering frame rate problems. I took a flash drive with me to work loaded with the Quake 4 demo. I installed it on a 17" imac w/x1600 128MB. The game ran smooth and significantly better than what I experienced on my Santa Rosa Mac Book Pro. I then loaded it up on a last gen MBP with the x1600 w/256mb. Ran great and seemed to handle the higher res textures a bit better at higher fps. I then tried the demo out on the black macbook with the GMA950. The game ran pretty slow, but consistent... even more consistent than my MBP.

I was concerned and called Apple, they told me that they didn't have any other record of this complaint in their database. Ultimately after the phone call, I felt I'd have to swap mine out for another.

Well on the day that I was about to prepare to exchange, our store recieved a Santa Rosa MBP 17" w/256, and a 15" w/128MB. I loaded up the demo on the 17" MBP, and the Quake 4 demo ran bad, just like how mine handled it, tons of haulting, stuttering and skipping. I then moved the demo to the 15" MBP, and the same thing. So I came to the conclusion, that it's incredibley unlikely that I've just tested 3 seperate Macbook Pro's with faulty 8600m GT's. So hopefully before too much longer apple will release a firmware update getting these Macs to behave the way they should. And I have little doubt that these MBP's will be fast and smooth with gaming once this gets adressed.

birdman.ilikefly · June 21, 2007 8:17AM

hi

i'm new

i bought a SR 2.4ghz with 256mb of VRAM (and 4gb of RAM) so it should run games fairly well... especially old stuff.

anyway i downloaded a couple of demos to try it out and, well, they all ran like shite

call of duty 2 demo, unreal tournament 2003 and 2004 demos, as well as halo demo, i get consistent 20fps, max in call of duty 2 is 30. halo demo ran like special crap, getting regular white screenage every few seconds. lowering the graphics settings on all games made some difference, in the range of 10-20fps better (possibly reaching 25 in UT demos, which is crap obviously

)

i thought it was an issue with the universal binary thing... but nope they're all universal binary demos. i saw on another forum , macrumors i think, that frame rates for the same games are much better in windows using the windows versions (obviously). i have no way of verifying that on my machine though... i just know that i'm not getting the framerates that i expected!

i really hope this is a driver issue.. otherwise i will be quite disappointed... also, i just got a kernel panic after running a game... i hope that won't become consistent.

benroethig · June 21, 2007 9:19AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdman.ilikefly

hi

i'm new

i bought a SR 2.4ghz with 256mb of VRAM (and 4gb of RAM) so it should run games fairly well... especially old stuff.

anyway i downloaded a couple of demos to try it out and, well, they all ran like shite

call of duty 2 demo, unreal tournament 2003 and 2004 demos, as well as halo demo, i get consistent 20fps, max in call of duty 2 is 30. halo demo ran like special crap, getting regular white screenage every few seconds. lowering the graphics settings on all games made some difference, in the range of 10-20fps better (possibly reaching 25 in UT demos, which is crap obviously

)

i thought it was an issue with the universal binary thing... but nope they're all universal binary demos. i saw on another forum , macrumors i think, that frame rates for the same games are much better in windows using the windows versions (obviously). i have no way of verifying that on my machine though... i just know that i'm not getting the framerates that i expected!

i really hope this is a driver issue.. otherwise i will be quite disappointed... also, i just got a kernel panic after running a game... i hope that won't become consistent.

This is a driver issue. Apparently Apple never bothered to test the machine before releasing it.

gon · June 21, 2007 10:55AM

I have played WoW at 1280x800 resolution and minimum settings on a Macbook, which by all standards has very poor graphics hardware for gaming.

The new MBP's driver issues aside, even the last gen Macbook Pros' hardware (with the X1600) should be capable of butter smooth performance at least at native resolution, maxed out settings (including draw distance) and no AA. My neighbor's Windows computer has in every way worse specs than the MBP and it can accomplish this. Performance worse than that is a fault of software, whether Apple's, ATI/nVidia's, or Blizzard's.

benroethig · June 21, 2007 12:35PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gon

I have played WoW at 1280x800 resolution and minimum settings on a Macbook, which by all standards has very poor graphics hardware for gaming.

The new MBP's driver issues aside, even the last gen Macbook Pros' hardware (with the X1600) should be capable of butter smooth performance at least at native resolution, maxed out settings (including draw distance) and no AA. My neighbor's Windows computer has in every way worse specs than the MBP and it can accomplish this. Performance worse than that is a fault of software, whether Apple's, ATI/nVidia's, or Blizzard's.

It happens on more than one game and Apple writes its own nvidia drivers, so I think the culprit is pretty clear here. Apple got Lazy.

temjin · June 22, 2007 11:01PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdman.ilikefly

hi

i'm new

i bought a SR 2.4ghz with 256mb of VRAM (and 4gb of RAM) so it should run games fairly well... especially old stuff.

anyway i downloaded a couple of demos to try it out and, well, they all ran like shite

call of duty 2 demo, unreal tournament 2003 and 2004 demos, as well as halo demo, i get consistent 20fps, max in call of duty 2 is 30. halo demo ran like special crap, getting regular white screenage every few seconds. lowering the graphics settings on all games made some difference, in the range of 10-20fps better (possibly reaching 25 in UT demos, which is crap obviously

)

i thought it was an issue with the universal binary thing... but nope they're all universal binary demos. i saw on another forum , macrumors i think, that frame rates for the same games are much better in windows using the windows versions (obviously). i have no way of verifying that on my machine though... i just know that i'm not getting the framerates that i expected!

i really hope this is a driver issue.. otherwise i will be quite disappointed... also, i just got a kernel panic after running a game... i hope that won't become consistent.

I loaded Windows Vista Ultimate via Boot Camp up on my MBP the other day and tried some games out on it. And yes, the gaming runs TREMENDOUSLY better. I tried out games like Call of Duty 2 demo which ran great, Oblivion, yes even Oblivion ran decent at 1280x768 with HDR, and textures at medium (128MB card i have), loaded up other game demos liek Tomb Raider Anniversary (highly recommended) That game looks great and ran buttery smooth at 1680x1050 (i have an external 20inch LCD). So the 8600m GT is no slouch it can kick some but, Apple just needs to address this on their end via a firmware update.

birdman.ilikefly · June 23, 2007 3:43AM

that's great to hear, thanks for that.

so i guess the problems you have described are more or less exactly what i've been experiencing.

it's a pity that OSX can't run those games well. hopefuly it will be fixed, but i suppose i won't be using my mbp for much more than work and music and movies (front row is such a gimmick, but it's still awesome).

i've been getting consistent kernel panics since owning this mbp and i'm going to get a replacement this monday, fingers crossed. i already took it back to have the ram replaced but that hasn't seemed to fix it at all

Marvin · June 23, 2007 6:40AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Temjin

Tomb Raider Anniversary (highly recommended)

Yeah that's a good game but I don't know if I was just wishing too hard but I could have sworn her boobs bounced in the PS2 version. I'm almost sure of it because I remember jumping on the spot for considerable amounts of time. I was so disappointed when I started with the PC version.

Is that part of the next-gen features?

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdman.ilikefly

i've been getting consistent kernel panics since owning this mbp and i'm going to get a replacement this monday, fingers crossed. i already took it back to have the ram replaced but that hasn't seemed to fix it at all

What do your panic logs say in /Library/Logs/panic.log?

birdman.ilikefly · June 23, 2007 9:05AM

well they mostly look like the first example, these ones happen randomly.

and the second example was the one that i was able to reproduce when loading up COD2 on highest graphical settings.

Sat Jun 23 18:10:06 2007

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001A4A55): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 0, Type 14=page fault), registers:

CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x5b850641, CR3: 0x0132f000, CR4: 0x000006e0

EAX: 0x5b850611, EBX: 0x00000611, ECX: 0x76086f48, EDX: 0x1a82dd90

CR2: 0x5b850641, EBP: 0x47e33bf8, ESI: 0x7607dd90, EDI: 0x4633d2c8

EFL: 0x00010202, EIP: 0x00e3e974, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x00000010

Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0x47e339b8 : 0x128d08 (0x3cc0a4 0x47e339dc 0x131de5 0x0)

0x47e339f8 : 0x1a4a55 (0x3d24b8 0x0 0xe 0x3d1cdc)

0x47e33b08 : 0x19aeb4 (0x47e33b20 0x0 0x47e33b48 0x127ee3)

0x47e33bf8 : 0xe17cc2 (0x463a8004 0x7607dd90 0x1a82dd90 0x5b850611)

0x47e33dd8 : 0xe1a059 (0x4633d2c8 0x0 0x19998000 0x6)

0x47e33f08 : 0x39b3c3 (0x4633d000 0x6a3c900 0x1 0x66df718)

0x47e33f58 : 0x39a595 (0x6a3c900 0x135eb4 0x0 0x66df718)

0x47e33f88 : 0x39a2cb (0x6a2d1c0 0x0 0x450 0x1203)

0x47e33fc8 : 0x19ad2c (0x6a2d1c0 0x0 0x19e0b5 0x700df40) Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x0

Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):

com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros(230.8.5)@0xde6000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(1.5.1)@0x654000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x5b6000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family(160.2)@0xa1f000

Kernel version:

Darwin Kernel Version 8.10.1: Wed May 23 16:33:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.22.5~1/RELEASE_I386

*********

*********

Fri Jun 22 18:01:31 2007

panic(cpu 1 caller 0x001A4A55): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 1, Type 14=page fault), registers:

CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x521c20d8, CR3: 0x012ce000, CR4: 0x000006e0

EAX: 0x521c20cc, EBX: 0x00000001, ECX: 0x0000000c, EDX: 0x00000000

CR2: 0x521c20d8, EBP: 0x47c5bee8, ESI: 0x070bbc00, EDI: 0x462df000

EFL: 0x00010246, EIP: 0x00950f16, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x06660010

Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0x47c5bca8 : 0x128d08 (0x3cc0a4 0x47c5bccc 0x131de5 0x0)

0x47c5bce8 : 0x1a4a55 (0x3d24b8 0x1 0xe 0x3d1cdc)

0x47c5bdf8 : 0x19aeb4 (0x47c5be10 0x6f51000 0x8 0x0)

0x47c5bee8 : 0x9544f4 (0x462df000 0x6660d74 0x47c5bf58 0x6660d74)

0x47c5bf08 : 0x39b3c3 (0x462df000 0x69d2240 0x1 0x2)

0x47c5bf58 : 0x39a595 (0x69d2240 0x0 0x0 0x19e23a)

0x47c5bf88 : 0x39a2cb (0x69e0ec0 0x0 0x8000 0xf0b)

0x47c5bfc8 : 0x19ad2c (0x69e0ec0 0x0 0x19e0b5 0x65005a0) Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x0

Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):

com.apple.GeForce(5.0.0)@0x93d000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x5e5000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.4.7)@0x6ea000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.4.7)@0x705000

dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(5.0.0)@0x714000

Kernel version:

Darwin Kernel Version 8.10.1: Wed May 23 16:33:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.22.5~1/RELEASE_I386

Marvin · June 23, 2007 11:05AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdman.ilikefly

well they mostly look like the first example, these ones happen randomly.

and the second example was the one that i was able to reproduce when loading up COD2 on highest graphical settings.

com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros(230.8.5)@0xde6000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(1.5.1)@0x654000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x5b6000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family(160.2)@0xa1f000

That one could be a loose airport card. If possible, take it out and reseat it. If that doesn't help, the card may need replaced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdman.ilikefly

com.apple.GeForce(5.0.0)@0x93d000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x5e5000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.4.7)@0x6ea000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.4.7)@0x705000

dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(5.0.0)@0x714000

Yeah there's something wrong with the drivers for the new laptop chipsets. Hopefully they will be updated soon.

Of course the fact these devices are both causing problems might mean it's a more serious issue. You'll soon find out with your replacement. If it doesn't crash while gaming then it was likely a more serious issue.

akac · June 23, 2007 12:36PM

Yes, its the drivers. I doubt they were even updated for the card. Many games do not run well on it including missing textures, crashes, and missing 2d elements. EOW and C&C Zero Hour are two that I tried.

Interestingly, WOW played perfectly for me on my 17'' with the HD screen.

birdman.ilikefly · June 24, 2007 5:15AM

something else interesting - i get these consistent errors when i play COD2 demo on it:

fs_handleforfile:none free

they just stop the game i'm in the middle of and bring it back to the COD2 title screen.

i have no idea where these come from... anyone able to enlighten me about it? i have never encountered these problems before.

this is still a secondary problem to the terrible performance... although they may both be problems with the graphics card drivers that haven't been updated etc...

why doesn't nvidia have an OSX section for drivers on its website? or do apple do them? what's the arrangement there? weird...

benroethig · June 24, 2007 6:15AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdman.ilikefly

something else interesting - i get these consistent errors when i play COD2 demo on it:

fs_handleforfile:none free

they just stop the game i'm in the middle of and bring it back to the COD2 title screen.

i have no idea where these come from... anyone able to enlighten me about it? i have never encountered these problems before.

this is still a secondary problem to the terrible performance... although they may both be problems with the graphics card drivers that haven't been updated etc...

why doesn't nvidia have an OSX section for drivers on its website? or do apple do them? what's the arrangement there? weird...

Unlike ATI, the Nvidia drivers are wirrten by Apple using Nvidia source. As such, they have never been as good. That being said, we've never seen anything like this disaster.

Marvin · June 24, 2007 7:22AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

Unlike ATI, the Nvidia drivers are wirrten by Apple using Nvidia source. As such, they have never been as good. That being said, we've never seen anything like this disaster.

There was an Nvidia driver issue with 10.4.7 I think and it affected performance quite considerably though probably not as seriously as this. It was annoying because where I worked, they ordered a G5 machine and it came with 10.4.7 so we couldn't downgrade it. We had to wait about a month or more for Apple to fix it in 10.4.8.

Quote:

Originally Posted by birdman.ilikefly

something else interesting - i get these consistent errors when i play COD2 demo on it:

fs_handleforfile:none free

I think that's more a Call Of Duty problem than to do with your Mac:

http://www.iwnation.com/Forums/index...10&mode=linear

ericjames · June 25, 2007 7:15PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Temjin

Hi, I'm new to the forums. I picked up a new Macbook Pro 2.2Ghz, 2GB, 8600m GT w/128mb. And I'm having major issues with 3D gaming. Games such as WoW, and Quake 4 have heavy framerate stuttering, and hiccuping issues. I've testing various graphical settings and the problem is persistent. Is anyone else having these issues?

I have the same computer and WoW runs like butter at the native resolution (1440 x 900) with most settings maxed out when I tested for a few hours yesterday. I downloaded the game just to try it out, but promptly deleted it when I remembered how prone to videogame addiction I can be

.

I just saw some benchmarks showing that the performance difference between the 128 and 256 mb 8600m GT is negligible (around %5) for most modern games. I'm glad that I saved the money (to splurge on a 4 gig RAM upgrade in the near future, probably).

Macbook Pro Santa Rosa Gaming Problems

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