WoW/OS X is much slower than WoW/Windows on MacBook Pro - why?

javacowboyjavacowboy
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31121



Edit:



Placating the moderator:



Is there merit to the conclusion drawn that OS X is an inferior OS in some respects, including gaming, or is the conclusion reached by the article erroneous?



Happy?



Edit by mod:



Weak, man.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 62
    m01etym01ety Posts: 278member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JavaCowboy

    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31121



    Please don't just post links without content.
  • Reply 2 of 62
    ipeonipeon Posts: 1,122member
    Huh? So World of Warcraft plays slower on Mac OS X than Windows according to that article. How does that equate to "OS X is slower than Windows"?



    A true statement would have been "World of Warcraft plays slower on OS X than Windows."
  • Reply 3 of 62
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,179member
    That article could have supplied more info.



    I can't help but wonder if the version of WoW he was running under OSX was not universal. I can't imagine Rosetta would handle that very well.
  • Reply 4 of 62
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Yeah, talk about content-free reporting...



    1) Was the copy of WoW under MacOS X Universal or not?



    2) Did they happen to stop and consider, even for a *microsecond*, that the drivers for the video card are different?



    I mean really, JC, that was pretty weak.



    A content-free post linking to a content-free verbal spewage?



    Ya gotta try harder than *that*...
  • Reply 5 of 62
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    [B]Yeah, talk about content-free reporting...

    2) Did they happen to stop and consider, even for a *microsecond*, that the drivers for the video card are different?



    That does not in any way change anything. If you have bad drivers, that's not Windows' unfair advantage. That's just OS X's (or Apple's, or ATi's, whoever writes the drivers) weakness.
  • Reply 6 of 62
    javacowboyjavacowboy Posts: 864member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    Yeah, talk about content-free reporting...



    1) Was the copy of WoW under MacOS X Universal or not?



    2) Did they happen to stop and consider, even for a *microsecond*, that the drivers for the video card are different?



    I mean really, JC, that was pretty weak.



    A content-free post linking to a content-free verbal spewage?



    Ya gotta try harder than *that*...



    For a moderator you jump to conclusions far too quickly.
  • Reply 7 of 62
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gene Clean

    That does not in any way change anything. If you have bad drivers, that's not Windows' unfair advantage. That's just OS X's (or Apple's, or ATi's, whoever writes the drivers) weakness.



    You're right. But it doesn't mean that one *OS* is slower than the other, it only means that the *drivers* are slower than the other on that task.



    The article is still ill-thought out drivel based on a fact-light informal post on Penny Arcade. It was just designed to get hits, is all.



    I mean heck, why don't we compare how long it takes to copy a file on the same volume, and then make grandiose sweeping statements about network speeds?
  • Reply 8 of 62
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JavaCowboy

    For a moderator you jump to conclusions far too quickly.



    Oh please. I read the article, *and* the original PA post, before commenting. It's content-free, and doesn't provide enough info to make any conclusions at all, one way or the other.





    As for the rest...



    Posting Guidelines. Again.



    9. Be descriptive with the title of new threads. Do not start a thread with an ambiguous title like "Guess what..." and then use the text portion of the post to explain. Give your post a headline. This courtesy is especially appreciated in the more highly trafficked forums. Furthermore, threads with no original content will not be allowed. Do not post a link or quote an article while contributing little to nothing of your own.



    Edit your original post, or this gets locked, like it should have been in the first place.
  • Reply 9 of 62
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    There's an issue with full screen glow in WoW for Mac that cuts frame rate nearly in half...for fuck's sake, how many of these exact same threads will be started today?



    Here, I've done JavaCowboy's homework: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...&tmp=1#post224



    I told his teacher too...so he's getting a zero.
  • Reply 10 of 62
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Not to mention that games are written for Windows and ported to OS X. So naturally the game code never uses some of the advanced features of OS X - just enough to glue the Windows calls into a workable OS X call.



    This "comparison" is completely useless. These guys apparently do not even realize that they are comparing two different source codes.



    I would never expect a cross-platform port of anything to be faster than the original that was written for its platform.
  • Reply 11 of 62
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    I mean heck, why don't we compare how long it takes to copy a file on the same volume, and then make grandiose sweeping statements about network speeds?



    Don't get him started on how OS X takes 20 minutes to do a simple 20 MB file copy.
  • Reply 12 of 62
    javacowboyjavacowboy Posts: 864member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    There's an issue with full screen glow in WoW for Mac that cuts frame rate nearly in half...for fuck's sake, how many of these exact same threads will be started today?



    Here, I've done JavaCowboy's homework: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...&tmp=1#post224



    I told his teacher too...so he's getting a zero.



    You guys are so defensive. You all feel so threatened by the implication of the slightest imperfection in Mac/OS X, etc.



    Maybe it would occur to you that the reason I posted is because I DON'T HAVE AN OPINION ON THIS ISSUE AT ALL , and that I want to hear other peoples' opinions. Instead, you've all assumed that I'm out to get you... or something.



    From the pattern you've established, I'm sure that if I were to ask if the Mach kernel needs further optimization to catch up vis-a-vis the Windows or Linux kernels, you'd probably have a conniption.



    You need to lighten up. Seriously.



    Edit: Yeah, I know I should have put a question mark in the title, but from what I see (I could be wrong) it's not possible to edit the title of the thread.
  • Reply 13 of 62
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JavaCowboy

    You guys are so defensive. You all feel so threatened by the implication of the slightest imperfection in Mac/OS X, etc.



    Maybe it would occur to you that the reason I posted is because I DON'T HAVE AN OPINION ON THIS ISSUE AT ALL , and that I want to hear other peoples' opinions. Instead, you've all assumed that I'm out to get you... or something.



    From the pattern you've established, I'm sure that if I were to ask if the Mach kernel needs further optimization to catch up vis-a-vis the Windows or Linux kernels, you'd probably have a conniption.



    You need to lighten up. Seriously.



    Edit: Yeah, I know I should have put a question mark in the title, but from what I see (I could be wrong) it's not possible to edit the title of the thread.



    Hey...I'm not the one bolding and capitalizing entire phrases. Are *you* ok?
  • Reply 14 of 62
    javacowboyjavacowboy Posts: 864member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Hey...I'm not the one bolding and capitalizing entire phrases. Are *you* ok?



    Uh...emphasis, and for those with short attention spans?
  • Reply 15 of 62
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,322moderator
    It's always been the case that Mac gaming was slower because the market was always so small, people were glad to have a port no matter what condition it was in. Windows was *the* gaming platform so people not only expected the game but that it was highly optimized.



    Mac on Intel could help because developers will now be able to test and optimize builds on the same machine but since Mactel is just out, you can't expect instant results.



    Also, if it wasn't a universal binary they used, then it speaks for itself. Benchmarks are generally unreliable especially when they are presented in such an ambiguous way.
  • Reply 16 of 62
    danmacmandanmacman Posts: 773member
    Give Windows a couple months of use, trust me it will be much slower than OS X.
  • Reply 17 of 62
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JavaCowboy

    You guys are so defensive. You all feel so threatened by the implication of the slightest imperfection in Mac/OS X, etc...and that I want to hear other peoples' opinions. Instead, you've all assumed that I'm out to get you... or something.



    You did say, in your first post:



    Quote:

    Originally posted by JavaCowboy

    Is there merit to the conclusion drawn that OS X is an inferior OS in some respects, including gaming, or is the conclusion reached by the article erroneous?



    I would suggest that the "defensiveness" to which you refer is simply an answer to your question. People are trying to get across (correctly) that the article is entirely devoid of merit. Yes, Mac OS X can be slow at gaming sometimes. Is it right to test one game on one mac running OS X and Windows, see that the game is slower on OS X, and then conclude that OS X is "slower than Windows"? No, of course it isn't.



    The only thing you can conclude is that OS X is slower at running that particular game. That could be OS X's fault, or it could be the game's fault.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by JavaCowboy

    Uh...emphasis, and for those with short attention spans?



    As I understand it, "cap locks" on an online forum is equivalent to shouting. Some people consider it to be impolite.
  • Reply 18 of 62
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Using a single example to prove a wholly more complex thesis is simply nonsensical. Observe one Frenchman driving at 100 km/h and a Spanish-man driving at 50 km/h and you'll state that the Spanish always drive slower than the French?
  • Reply 19 of 62
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JavaCowboy

    You guys are so defensive. You all feel so threatened by the implication of the slightest imperfection in Mac/OS X, etc.



    Hardly. I've got my own hitlist of things wrong in the OS. This was simply a facts/logic issue. WoW is a lot slower. That's true. Jumping to 'the OS is slower' without any qualifiers, parameters, or such is fallacious. That's all.



    It's a lot more interesting to deduce *why* than to make sweeping generalizations that aren't really founded in reality, isn't it?



    Quote:

    Maybe it would occur to you that the reason I posted is because I DON'T HAVE AN OPINION ON THIS ISSUE AT ALL , and that I want to hear other peoples' opinions. Instead, you've all assumed that I'm out to get you... or something.



    See, now *that* would have been a great thing to put in your first post: "Anyone have any ideas on why there's this huge slowdown??"



    Quote:

    From the pattern you've established, I'm sure that if I were to ask if the Mach kernel needs further optimization to catch up vis-a-vis the Windows or Linux kernels, you'd probably have a conniption.



    Naw, we'd trot out funnels and point at them and laugh with you.



    Quote:

    Edit: Yeah, I know I should have put a question mark in the title, but from what I see (I could be wrong) it's not possible to edit the title of the thread.



    I got it for you. Actually, I edited it to have both the factual info (and even added the word 'much' because, yeah, 50% the FPS is much slower), without the conclusions the article jumped to, and added a question to prod discussion. *whew*



    Work, work, work.
  • Reply 20 of 62
    grad studentgrad student Posts: 184member
    uh, not that i play any video games, but for the sake of discussion: compilers could have something to do with it. intel compilers are much, much better at producing x86 code than gcc is. plus, GL vs. D3D (not taking sides on that one though), it could be a lot of things.
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