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jamesa · Sep 7, 2003, 06:14 AM

Hi there,

There's something I've been dying to know about the new G5s but nobody has really answered.

How does it go at games?

If you could post FPS for any games - or if you have none, maybe download something like America's Army (ftp://armyops:ftp@guinness.devrandom...90-mac.dmg.bz2 - warning, big link).

If you could post what games you've tried, their FPS, and your setup (eg dualie with Radeon 9800 and 512Mb RAM) I'd be most grateful

-- james

proton · Sep 7, 2003, 06:23 AM

If you want a server that'll be a bit faster to download America's Army from, give the MacGameFiles Servers a go. They're usually pretty speedy except right after a big new release.

- proton

jclarkv · Sep 7, 2003, 06:51 AM

How do I derive the frame rate?

jamesa · Sep 7, 2003, 11:28 AM

when you're in a game, hit the tilde (~) key

then type, without the inverted commas, "stat fps"

it'll give you a rough range. see what you get as you're running round, preferably on a big map like Bridge Crossing

Thanks heaps

-- james

skyman · Sep 7, 2003, 11:30 AM

Originally posted by jamesa:
Hi there,

There's something I've been dying to know about the new G5s but nobody has really answered.

Well, that's because no one has received their G5 yet.

jclarkv · Sep 7, 2003, 12:10 PM

I was too unsure of myself to actually join an online scenario, but the frame rate I'm getting just running around the training sessions is around 70-80. I'll try some more after the kids are in bed (I feel funny practicing shooting things with them watching) and post again if I get better numbers. This is with the G5 1.6 and the lowest end graphics card.

Immortal K-Mart Employee · Sep 7, 2003, 01:50 PM

Originally posted by skyman:
Well, that's because no one has received their G5 yet.

Lots of people have actually, plus the 1.6's are well stocked in stores.

macsimile · Sep 7, 2003, 02:33 PM

i ran ut with everything set to the highest level. my fps ranges from 68-89. i am runnung a stock 1.8 G5.

jamesa · Sep 8, 2003, 01:56 AM

Originally posted by jclarkv:
I'll try some more after the kids are in bed (I feel funny practicing shooting things with them watching) and post again if I get better numbers. This is with the G5 1.6 and the lowest end graphics card.

hehe! if they end up joining the army later on, by all counts blame me

thanks to both of you for trying it for me!

Anyone else with any other games (though more AA scores are great too... esp anyone with a Radeon 9800)

TIA!

-- james

alligator · Sep 8, 2003, 11:53 AM

I'll do it, but what is America's Army? Is that the game put out by the Army to solicit new recruits?

This is my first Mac, it's a 1.8 G5. I'm not too good at installing yet, but I'll give it a shot tonight.

Anything I should know before installing it?

Commodus · Sep 8, 2003, 01:43 PM

alligator:

You can find out about America's Army here. It is indeed that game meant as a recruiting tool, but it's an interesting game in its own right.

You don't have to worry too much about installing. What you often do with a demo download is double-click the file you downloaded to open up the disk image (the UT2003 demo came as a .dmg file, for example) and then copy the contents of that image to your Applications folder. You then just launch the program in that folder to play.

jamesa · 05:43 AM

Originally posted by alligator:
I'll do it, but what is America's Army? Is that the game put out by the Army to solicit new recruits?

This is my first Mac, it's a 1.8 G5. I'm not too good at installing yet, but I'll give it a shot tonight.

Anything I should know before installing it?

don't worry, you're not going to suddenly get bombarded by army recruiters. It's a pretty cool game, and what's more it's free

Other than that, if anyone has a G5 and a copy of UT2003, etc. I (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) would love to hear from you...

-- james

MusicalTone · Sep 9, 2003, 06:11 AM

Interesting debate. Looks like a hard one to call from where I am sitting.

Apple certainly seem to have bosted both G4 and G5 sales with the current line ups!

I wonder how long G4 dualeis will be around - channnel must be nearly empty?

fireside · Sep 9, 2003, 07:32 AM

Originally posted by jclarkv:
I was too unsure of myself to actually join an online scenario, but the frame rate I'm getting just running around the training sessions is around 70-80. I'll try some more after the kids are in bed (I feel funny practicing shooting things with them watching) and post again if I get better numbers. This is with the G5 1.6 and the lowest end graphics card.

thats pretty good considering the lowest end graphics card sucks.

jclarkv · Sep 9, 2003, 07:58 AM

Originally posted by fireside:
thats pretty good considering the lowest end graphics card sucks.

Thanks for that info. No one had commented about where that number sits. I had read about game frame rates well over one hundred and *thought* it was low. Lucky I don't play games that require high frame rates (strickly Stronghold and Zoo Tycoon).

alligator · Sep 10, 2003, 10:39 AM

Wow, America's Army is a huge download (505 MB)! Just finished downloading it last night, can't wait to see how it runs!

jamesa · Sep 11, 2003, 07:24 AM

Originally posted by alligator:
Wow, America's Army is a huge download (505 MB)! Just finished downloading it last night, can't wait to see how it runs!

it is a big game, especially considering the last version (1.7) was a few hundred megs smaller. I think it's thanks to the medic training that this one blew out a fair bit...

-- james

alligator · Sep 11, 2003, 09:00 AM

Sorry, I took a look last night at the license agreement to install it, and it's really bad. It admits that it is an invasive piece of software, will monitor everything you do on your computer, take screen shots, and send all of this back to another company.

I can't live with that - so I can't test this on my G5.

GENERAL_SMILEY · Sep 11, 2003, 09:49 AM

Originally posted by alligator:
Sorry, I took a look last night at the license agreement to install it, and it's really bad. It admits that it is an invasive piece of software, will monitor everything you do on your computer, take screen shots, and send all of this back to another company.

I can't live with that - so I can't test this on my G5.

Really? Or am I just being gullible, if it is true (which I could well believe) couldn't you just not use it networked - little snitch should inform you if anything tries to call out, failing that disconnect it from the net.

Just seems a shame to download it, then not try it. Still understandable with such an invasive EULA.

Bbazzarrakk · Sep 11, 2003, 10:47 AM

Sorry, I took a look last night at the license agreement to install it, and it's really bad. It admits that it is an invasive piece of software, will monitor everything you do on your computer, take screen shots, and send all of this back to another company.

This is a known recruiting tool for the army. Given that, they have to learn something about you to decide if you have what they're looking for. They're also very upfront about what they're doing. Let's try to keep the conspiracy theories to a reasonable level of paranoia.

Baz

Commodus · Sep 11, 2003, 11:20 AM

I don't remember the game ever doing that. The only things you connect for are multiplayer play and submitting your completed training.

It's not a trojan monitoring your every move even when the program is closed, or anything like that. Besides, even if it was, you could turn on the OS X firewall (under the Sharing section of System Preferences).

alligator · Sep 11, 2003, 01:24 PM

I'm not making this stuff up. There is language in the EULA that says something like "Licensee understands that this is invasive software . . . and information will be collected about the Licensee's computer use. Screen shots may also be taken . . ."

Someone who is installing this should print out a copy. They were the ones to call it invasive software, not me.

Commodus · Sep 11, 2003, 02:43 PM

Invasive is a word that means that it accesses your computer. That's a given if you're doing anything that requires that a program get information on your computer, no matter how much or how little.

Let me clarify how the game's multiplayer works. Unlike most multiplayer games, you don't simply hop in and pick any role you want. You have to qualify for it by playing the training modes offline (basic training, parachute training, etc.). When you finish a training mode successfully, you're asked to login and submit that information to the America's Army servers so that they know that you've completed it.

When you're ready to play online, the servers check your player name against what training the server says you've done. If you've been through medic training, you can act as a medic. If you've gone through the sniper training, you can choose a sniper rifle as your weapon. That sort of thing.

The game does not, I repeat NOT, collect any more information from you than that. The only network traffic you should see from the game outside of logging in to submit your training scores (which is just a username and password specific to the game) is that which synchronizes you with the other players in a multiplayer match.

I can't be much more explicit about how little the game is doing than that, short of having the developers tell you themselves. Remember that a lot of programs are "invasive" simply by the fact that they have to get info stored locally on your machine. Your e-mail software is invasive. Any audio program that automatically grabs track information (artist, title, etc.) from the Internet is invasive, because it has to compare the audio files on your system to a database of CDs.

No one who has played America's Army has had a phone call from the recruiter's office, spam e-mail, or a sudden influx of US Army pamphlets into their mailbox.

jamesa · Sep 12, 2003, 01:35 AM

Originally posted by alligator:
I'm not making this stuff up. There is language in the EULA that says something like "Licensee understands that this is invasive software . . . and information will be collected about the Licensee's computer use. Screen shots may also be taken . . ."

Someone who is installing this should print out a copy. They were the ones to call it invasive software, not me.

heh... they're not MS. The "invasive" part is simply the punkbuster anti-cheating system, which has to check the file sizes of the AA files and also has to check that footprints of certain apps are not running - things like aimbots, which target for you.

It's your right not to install it, but I'm not sure that the American Army is all that interested in what you have on your hard drive.

-- james

alligator · Sep 12, 2003, 08:56 AM

Oh, good points. I'll look at it again. It's still in my trash on my G5.

jamesa · Sep 15, 2003, 04:49 AM

According to MacWorld:

Quake 3 1.30b5

G5 Dual 2ghz: 268.5 FPS
G5 1.8ghz: 133
G5 1.6ghz: 117.4
G4 Dual 1.42ghz: 134.1
G4 1ghz: 75.6

Anyone else tested anything?

-- james

jamesa · Sep 16, 2003, 11:04 PM

*bump*

I know there are more Big Als getting out into the channel. Anyone else had a chance to put one through it's paces?

-- james

Shaktai · Sep 16, 2003, 11:27 PM

Originally posted by jamesa:
According to MacWorld:

Quake 3 1.30b5

G5 Dual 2ghz: 268.5 FPS
G5 1.8ghz: 133
G5 1.6ghz: 117.4
G4 Dual 1.42ghz: 134.1
G4 1ghz: 75.6

Anyone else tested anything?

-- james

While they state that the Dual 2ghz G5 had the Radeon 9800, they don't really clarify what video card(s) the other models had. Not a very useful comparision for quake unless they are all using the same video card.

jamesa · Sep 17, 2003, 01:56 AM

Originally posted by Shaktai:
While they state that the Dual 2ghz G5 had the Radeon 9800, they don't really clarify what video card(s) the other models had. Not a very useful comparision for quake unless they are all using the same video card.

which is exactly why I'd rather hear from people that have them in their hot little hands

-- james

Commodus · Sep 17, 2003, 09:50 AM

They're probably testing the stock configs, in which case the Q3 benchmarks don't mean much. Benchmarks in the Windows world would show the Radeon 9600 pulling in front of even a GeForce FX 5600, let alone a 5200. The 2 GHz system would still be the fastest, of course, but not by nearly as much.

So if you're ordering a G5 and intend to use it for gaming: pay your $50 extra and enjoy yourself!

Mattmac21 · Sep 17, 2003, 02:13 PM

Umm, I have a 1.8Ghz G5 with the lowest Graphics card and 512 MB of RAM and I only was getting between 30 and 35 FPSjavascript:smilie('

'). What would be wrong? Too high resolution maybe?
I dont know.

Thanks for any help

Mattmac21

jamesa · Sep 17, 2003, 05:33 PM

Originally posted by Mattmac21:
Umm, I have a 1.8Ghz G5 with the lowest Graphics card and 512 MB of RAM and I only was getting between 30 and 35 FPSjavascript:smilie(''). What would be wrong? Too high resolution maybe?
I dont know.

Thanks for any help

Mattmac21

most likely either you were running at a really high resolution, or maybe it's just the low end graphics card being sucky.

Don't despair too much - the graphics card can be pulled out and replaced - try www.macsales.com

If you want advice on which one to get, these forums would be a great place to start

-- james