Apple working with partners to improve Mac gaming performance

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
With more major releases than ever headed to the Mac platform thanks to the release of Valve's Steam service, Apple is working closely with its hardware and software partners to improve performance of graphically intensive titles.



Rob Barris, a Valve employee who worked on the Steam client for Mac, revealed on the company's official forums that improvements are expected in the near future. He said that smaller, quick fixes could come sooner, though improved drivers in the future are expected to have the greatest impact.



"Performance is going to improve as drivers are updated," Barris wrote. "I would expect modest improvements in short term and larger ones in longer term. No, I can't put dates on them."



He continued, "We are making a lot of progress is identifying specific issues that need work inside the game and inside OpenGL and drivers. Apple, ATI and NVIDIA are all involved."



Barris' comments came in response to a thread complaining about game performance within Mac OS X. Though performance so far has been decent, it has fallen behind PC counterparts running similar hardware with Windows 7.



Steam is an online gaming networking service and storefront, which allows users to connect with one another, track each others' achievements in specific titles, and join each others' online games quickly. Its release for the Mac in May has inspired some game developers to bring their titles to the Mac, which traditionally has not been a strong gaming platform.



Earlier this month, Valve revealed through its monthly hardware survey that more than 8 percent of Steam users were on Mac OS X. Apple achieved that total in its first month of availability.



In March, when Steam for Mac was announced, Valve told AppleInsider that it worked closely with Apple to bring the client natively to the Mac.



"We've been working with them a bunch as we get more acquainted with their platform," said John Cook, director of Steam development at Valve. "They've been a great partner so far and we look forward to growing our relationship with them over time."
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 50
    hezetationhezetation Posts: 674member
    I'm the first!
  • Reply 2 of 50
    Instead, improve the iPhone 4 ordering system first.
  • Reply 3 of 50
    cbswecbswe Posts: 116member
    finally OpenGL 3.0 for mac maybe?
  • Reply 4 of 50
    ajmasajmas Posts: 597member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cbswe View Post


    finally OpenGL 3.0 for mac maybe?



    I believe it came out with MacOS X 10.6.3.
  • Reply 5 of 50
    inline1inline1 Posts: 10member
    I have been playing TW Online and have found that either I am really bad, which is kind of true, or my iMac 24 with 3 gig ram cant handle it. I am surprised by periodic messages saying my system performance is slow. Is this normal? Is the iMac with upgraded ram just not capable of this kind of graphic performance? I close all other software and run as full screen. If I do not use full screen the performance is really really bad.
  • Reply 6 of 50
    benroethigbenroethig Posts: 2,782member
    It didn't. It's still missing a couple extension.
  • Reply 7 of 50
    damn_its_hotdamn_its_hot Posts: 1,209member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hezetation View Post


    I'm the first!



    Who cares!
  • Reply 8 of 50
    bettiebluebettieblue Posts: 294member
    Its hard to fix low end hardware or the fact you cant updgrade it in all but the Mac Pro.
  • Reply 9 of 50
    ilogicilogic Posts: 298member
    Software Store fronts.. gotta love'em.
  • Reply 10 of 50
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    This article is a repeat of Macrumor's story, with no credit given.



    As for OpenGL performance vis a vis Apple, I'm not holding my breath. Side note: 256MB DDR3 VRAM is standard on Macs, while 1GB DDR5 is standard on PCs.
  • Reply 11 of 50
    hezetationhezetation Posts: 674member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Damn_Its_Hot View Post


    Who cares!



    Didn't think I did, then it happened that I was.



    Grumpy?
  • Reply 12 of 50
    lowededwookielowededwookie Posts: 1,143member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R View Post


    Side note: 256MB DDR3 VRAM is standard on Macs, while 1GB DDR5 is standard on PCs.



    No it's not... at least not on the cheap to mid PCs. Only high end gaming PCs have that and those machines often cost more than a Mac.



    All being said though it's going to get real interesting for Mac gaming in the next year or so.
  • Reply 13 of 50
    lukeskymaclukeskymac Posts: 506member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R View Post


    Side note: 256MB DDR3 VRAM is standard on Macs, while 1GB DDR5 is standard on PCs.



    Troll much?
  • Reply 14 of 50
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Apple is working with another company to get their software to run better in OSX? NO WAY! What about all those cries from people that said Apple should never have to do this, and it's Adobe's fault that Flash sucks in OSX?



    OBVIOUSLY I WAS CORRECT ALL ALONG



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Lukeskymac View Post


    Troll much?



    lmfao! It's like he's not even trying.



    GDDR5 isn't standard on PC video cards. It's just there. In fact, doesn't the GTX 280 have a Mac counterpart that uses GDDR5?
  • Reply 15 of 50
    lukeskymaclukeskymac Posts: 506member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    Apple is working with another company to get their software to run better in OSX? NO WAY! What about all those cries from people that said Apple should never have to do this, and it's Adobe's fault that Flash sucks in OSX?



    OBVIOUSLY I WAS CORRECT ALL ALONG





    lmfao! It's like he's not even trying.



    GDDR5 isn't standard on PC video cards. It's just there. In fact, doesn't the GTX 280 have a Mac counterpart that uses GDDR5?



    The Radeon HD 4850? Outdated, but yeah, it does.
  • Reply 16 of 50
    ssquirrelssquirrel Posts: 1,196member
    Current Intel IGPs are pretty terrible. They will be doubling in ability in 2011 with Sandy Bridge and doubling again the following year with its successor. So in 2012 Intel IGPs will catch up with mid-level 2010 graphics tech. Uhm, yay?



    IGPs are well and away the largest selling graphics chips on the market. The discrete graphics market is far smaller. It's kind of weird b/c you have all these companies creating games that require better graphics cards, programs written to make use of your graphics card for parallel processing, etc and then you have Intel pushing terrible IGPs.
  • Reply 17 of 50
    cbswecbswe Posts: 116member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ajmas View Post


    I believe it came out with MacOS X 10.6.3.



    Not completely, they're still on OpenGL shading language 1.2. The one in OpenGL 3.0 is 1.3, the latest is 4.0, it's from OpenGL 4.0 :P
  • Reply 18 of 50
    mactelmactel Posts: 1,275member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by skipthedog69 View Post


    Instead, improve the iPhone 4 ordering system first.



    They have more than a few employees and will fix gaming and the ordering system in parallel.



    This is great news that Apple is taking gaming seriously after many decades of not doing so. The hope is Apple will put some engineers on OpenGL and make it a better gaming set of APIs than DirectX. Here's hoping!
  • Reply 19 of 50
    Y'know, even with rbarris' word on it, I don't believe for a second that Apple is suddenly, magically becoming Not-Apple and contributing any effort towards Mac gaming. Sure, Valve clearly cares a lot about it, and maybe even AMD and nVidia (which would be an incredible stretch, considering where their allegiances understandably lie), but Apple? Lol no. If they were any more apathetic to the idea, I'd say they were definitively against it.
  • Reply 20 of 50
    extremeskaterextremeskater Posts: 2,248member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    Apple is working with another company to get their software to run better in OSX? NO WAY! What about all those cries from people that said Apple should never have to do this, and it's Adobe's fault that Flash sucks in OSX?



    OBVIOUSLY I WAS CORRECT ALL ALONG





    lmfao! It's like he's not even trying.



    GDDR5 isn't standard on PC video cards. It's just there. In fact, doesn't the GTX 280 have a Mac counterpart that uses GDDR5?



    Apple doesn't offer anything even remotely close to the GTX 280 and that card is about 2 years old already.
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