Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Hornet · Sep 24, 2003, 11:15 PM

Here is a relatively simple test anyone can do, however I am specifically looking for a 1.25ghz 15" owner to run this... I would be very grateful!

First of all, please download the unreal tournament 2003 demo, from here: (131MB, so broadband only)
http://www.macgamefiles.com/detail.php?item=17665

Next, the little testing program that will make this a lot easier:
http://www.hardmac.com/news/photonews15/BenchUT2003.sit

Now after placing the unreal tournament 2003 package where ever you would like (eg in your Applications folder), open "BenchUT2003". From here, click select UT 2003 application, and then select the application from where you put it. Then, click the *high tab. Ensure background tasks are at a minimum, like running safari or what not is fine (if its not too busy with eg flash animations), but turn off any music in itunes, or other cpu intensive activities. Finally, click botmatch-antalus (the middle button).

UT will run its benchmark, and in a few minutes when its done, it will come quit. Then, click the "copy to clipboard" button in BenchUT2003, and paste it here. Your results will look something like:

PowerPC G4/ 1000 MHz/ATI Radeon 9000 OpenGL Engine/ Score: 10.718203 Min FPS: 1.597423 Average FPS: 10.712731 Max FPS: 36.349117

This is a good test to tell how effective the Radeon9600 is in the new powerbooks in gaming, however primarily how the change in processor clock/cache impacts on game performance (as this is a primarily CPU dependant test)
Thanks in advance

Drakino · Sep 24, 2003, 11:21 PM

Downloading now, will let you know here in about a half hour or so.

Liquidity X · Sep 24, 2003, 11:34 PM

please do, getting my 17 on fri and gamign was the one reall Q i had about it. in X bench the 17 is rokcing about 30-35 points higher than my current DP g4, so i am very optimistic.

Drakino · Sep 25, 2003, 12:25 AM

Here you go...

The flyby on Antalus:
PowerPC G4/ 1249 MHz/ATI Radeon 9600 OpenGL Engine/ Score: 65.848320 Min FPS: 25.948046 Average FPS: 70.707352 Max FPS: 213.111252

And the botmatch on Antalus:
PowerPC G4/ 1249 MHz/ATI Radeon 9600 OpenGL Engine/ Score: 15.233117 Min FPS: 5.986451 Average FPS: 15.228621 Max FPS: 39.532284

And one last set of scores, the same botmatch, but on reduced processing power (aka full power saving):
PowerPC G4/ 1249 MHz/ATI Radeon 9600 OpenGL Engine/ Score: 7.373950 Min FPS: 3.612471 Average FPS: 7.372466 Max FPS: 18.900812

Jbroad572 · Sep 25, 2003, 12:41 AM

Is that good or bad? seems like that's not too much of a difference from what you posted.

nagromme · Sep 25, 2003, 12:58 AM

15 FPS average in the botmatch doesn't sound good--it means at times the min framerate is WORSE than 15. But maybe those test conditions are more intensive than you really need to play?

I wonder how much you have to scale back the detail to make the MIN framerate never drop below, say, 20 or 30?

And what res are those tests at? I'd like to run at 1400x900 widescreen on a 17" but maybe I'm dreaming!

And one more related Q--will UT2k3 to full screen AA on the new PowerBooks?

Hornet · Sep 25, 2003, 01:39 AM

OK well I reran the test after rebooting, with only launch bar running in the background (inactive... it wasnt scanning the hdd or anything).

My results:

PowerPC G4/ 1000 MHz/ATI Radeon 9000 OpenGL Engine/ Score: 13.785030 Min FPS: 2.091032 Average FPS: 13.779176 Max FPS: 36.826271

Particularly notice the minimum framerate of 2.09 and the average of 13.77. Unplayable would be an understatement

Currently playing UT2003 on nearly any (G4 based) mac with a decent number of bots (16) is simply not an option...

Now turn to the 1.25ghz model:

And the botmatch on Antalus:
PowerPC G4/ 1249 MHz/ATI Radeon 9600 OpenGL Engine/ Score: 15.233117 Min FPS: 5.986451 Average FPS: 15.228621 Max FPS: 39.532284

First, note the improvement in the minimum framerate: 2.09 -> 5.98. 2.86x change there. Then, note the average fps. The 1.25ghz delivers a 10.6% speed up based on the results above. I would (if possible) like to see some 1.25ghz results after a fresh reboot, with no other programs running/have been run, more ram available etc etc (btw, I have 512MB).

In any case, from what we have so far is a good improvement on the minimum, and a minor improvement on the average...

Anyhow thanks for the results

But yeah, still means UT2003 isnt that playable on macs in bot matches :/ hmmmmm

Jbroad572 · Sep 25, 2003, 02:10 AM

Well that sucks. I was really looking forward to better gameplay. Oh well, maybe one day.

dennis88 · Sep 25, 2003, 04:24 AM

Someone here on the forum said that when he bought 512mb more ram, the performance in ut2k3 was MUCH better, he had the new 17" pb.
And when you play botmatch, the cpu have to control all the bots, and that slows the performance alot.
So if you play at on internet or lan, the performance should be alot better.

nagromme · Sep 25, 2003, 05:42 AM

That's good to know about the botmatch AI factor. 1-on-1 human gaming is what I mainly do.

pantalaimon · Sep 25, 2003, 06:57 AM

any ideas on how Halo will run on the 1.25GHz 15"? Will it run better that Unreal 2003, its an older game isn't it?

forcelite · Sep 25, 2003, 07:09 AM

Is halo even coming to the mac?

pantalaimon · Sep 25, 2003, 07:34 AM

yes, the PC version is out next week and a mac version is a few weeks later

PoisonTooth · Sep 25, 2003, 09:32 AM

Guys, unless you're talking about a dual G5 PowerMac, the reality has been and will continue to be that Macs are craptacular gaming platforms. If you're a hardcore gamer, get yourself an Xbox or a PC and be done with it.

LfGrdMike · Sep 25, 2003, 09:41 AM

Not true im still running modern games on a iMac 600 with 320 mb of ram. So thats a load of BS. The only game that never ran good on my mac was Falcon 4.0 which was a piece of **** game altogether, and was way ahead of its time. WCIII and Neverwinternights runs great on my 12 inch pb. Jedi Knight II ex-cetera runs great on both machines. The fact of the matter is if you are a really good gamer you could get a G5, but powerbooks arent made entirely for games, but it works. All those tests and so on dont mean anything. If it runs good who cares.

PoisonTooth · Sep 25, 2003, 11:39 AM

Originally posted by LfGrdMike:
Not true im still running modern games on a iMac 600 with 320 mb of ram. So thats a load of BS. The only game that never ran good on my mac was Falcon 4.0 which was a piece of **** game altogether, and was way ahead of its time. WCIII and Neverwinternights runs great on my 12 inch pb. Jedi Knight II ex-cetera runs great on both machines. The fact of the matter is if you are a really good gamer you could get a G5, but powerbooks arent made entirely for games, but it works. All those tests and so on dont mean anything. If it runs good who cares.

No, totally true. As we see above UT2K3 doesn't run all that well, even with the new PB's extra 250 MHz and excellent Radeon 9600 GPU. I have a T40 sitting in front of me whose scores crush the PowerBooks. Makes you wonder if the Radeon drivers are optimized fully for the PB.

Macs are merely OK for gaming. The software selection is a fraction of what is out there for Windows, and, until very recently, Apple hardware didn't give us very impressive performance for geometry-intensive games. The dual G5 could change that, but hell: $3K is a big chunk of change to drop on a gaming rig.

Macs rock in many ways, but gaming is NOT one of their strengths. If you contend that it is, then you're hardly being realistic. No objective Mac fan will ever refer to the OSX/Mac platform as a good gaming option. Not even close.

Also -- I bet your definition of "running well" and mine are worlds apart.

Tomster · Sep 25, 2003, 06:21 PM

I would have to agree that although Macs are great at many things, they are only OK at gaming. I don't think it is the problem of the platform being too slow, but rather an issue with crappy ports (Blood Rayne comes to mind).

I do take solace in one cool thing though. When surrounded by Dells at a lan party, mine is the only computer that NEVER reboots. Gotta love that unix substructure.

James L · Sep 25, 2003, 07:01 PM

Forget the XBox or PC (why support M$?), get a Playstation 2 until you are ready for a G5!

PoisonTooth · Sep 25, 2003, 07:33 PM

Originally posted by James L:
Forget the XBox or PC (why support M$?), get a Playstation 2 until you are ready for a G5!

I don't share a deep hatred for MS. I buy the best product for my needs, and I feel the Xbox is the game console that fits me best. Quite simple, really.

Likewise, I think Windows XP is perfectly serviceable. I've never had any massive problems, just the usual flakiness here and there. Do I like OSX better? Now that it has real hardware beneath it, yes. I think the hardware finally caught up to the promise OSX at which OSX hints.

chrisutley · Sep 25, 2003, 08:28 PM

XBOX is the best console available at this time for older kids and adults, especially if you want to play online.

I've owned all 3 consoles at the same time, and gave away the GC and PS2.

h00ligan · Sep 25, 2003, 09:38 PM

Originally posted by James L:
Forget the XBox or PC (why support M$?), get a Playstation 2 until you are ready for a G5!

my god some people are soooooooo shortsighted.

fwiw sony employs many of the same and many worse business tactics thn MS.

PERIOD...

like the nice agreements they make people sign to develop for the ps2.. and their original stateside return policy.. sony to me is FAR worse then MS would ever be, they are the kinds of ripoff and claim innovation.. not to mention corporate strongarming.

James L · Sep 25, 2003, 10:16 PM

wow... apparently I'm short sighted. That must be why I keep bumping into wall!

filmmaker2002 · Sep 25, 2003, 10:42 PM

I dunno, based on my experience, the 15" 1.25Ghz Powerbook plays Jedi Outcast, WCIII, CivIII, Wolfenstein, MOHAA, and UT2003 VERY smoothly with all settings kicked up. Not a hiccup. Then again, I can't tell the difference between 55 fps and 56 fps like most of you gamers can.,

dennis88 · Sep 26, 2003, 12:24 AM

Originally posted by filmmaker2002:
I dunno, based on my experience, the 15" 1.25Ghz Powerbook plays Jedi Outcast, WCIII, CivIII, Wolfenstein, MOHAA, and UT2003 VERY smoothly with all settings kicked up. Not a hiccup. Then again, I can't tell the difference between 55 fps and 56 fps like most of you gamers can.,

Nice to hear.

kenzo · Sep 26, 2003, 03:25 PM

I am running UT2003 on my machine and I noticed some performance issues with it to, running as the main administrator so I created a new user that I can log into just for gamming and I stripped it down to the bare minimum, just networking. I am even killing the finder, which you don't need when you launch from the dock, when I want to restart, I just start the finder again. On a 1.25 GHz Machine with 512 MB Ram and no finder or other programs running in the background performance was very good with 16 bots. Not perfect, but good enough to pound and slaughter for hours on end.

power142 · Sep 26, 2003, 09:18 PM

More of the same from my rev. A 17" with 1GB memory:

botmatch-antalus
Score 14.539816
Min 2.023153
Avg 14.536373
Max 36.414368

(got applescript error, so couldn't cut and paste!

)

Luca Rescigno · Sep 27, 2003, 02:52 AM

Just for comparison, in case it helps anyone, here are the scores for a 1 GHz Combo eMac (Radeon 7500 32MB) with 640 MB of RAM:

Flyby-Antalus-High
Score: 28.3
Min: 16.0
Avg: 28.3
Max: 98.8

Botmatch-Antalus-High
Score: 12.5
Min: 5.6
Avg: 12.5
Max: 36.6

forcelite · Sep 27, 2003, 06:26 AM

how do you go about disabling the finder?

What settings do you do to go bare minimum?

I am very interested in this

Thanks

Force

Luca Rescigno · Sep 27, 2003, 02:30 PM

You can disable the Finder by downloading TinkerTool and adding the "Quit" option to the Finder, but I doubt it'll increase performance much.

To go with bare minimum settings, just choose the "Low" tab within the application.

nagromme · Sep 27, 2003, 02:47 PM

Odd that an eMac gets similar scores to a 17" PowerBook.

Luckily, bots aren't important to me in large numbers. And I can reduce the quality to have portable gaming--that's a fair trade!

As for Macs as a game platform... I personally haven't noticed a speed benefit on the PC. I have a PC with the same GPU as my PowerBook and the PC is worse for gaming actually. One case is not scientific--you may well be right about the performance vs. cost in general, for games. And there have been some bad ports too, I agree. Also, the selection is greater on the PC. BUT there are more games on Mac than I can buy anyway, so that doesn't bother me. The games I want tend to show up on Mac.

But all that aside, the Mac makes a BETTER gaming platform, by far, in other ways: stability, ease of maintenance, security, etc.--all the general things that make a Mac a better all around computer apply. Those things may not be the priority for everyone--but for SOME--like me--they make a Mac a better game platform than Windows. I would NOT be willing to suffer through Windows for the sake of games--and I own a PC!

Consoles are fun--but again, for SOME--like me--a computer is the winner. Give me downloadable demos, user mods, online multiplay, higher-than-TV resolution, and mouse control for 3D games. Not to mention portability! A console doesn't deliver what I personally like to have. (I do enjoy gaming from PowerBook to TV sometimes too, though.)

So everyone must choose what's best for them--often a PC or console. But if your goals are like mine, a Mac is the ultimate game machine... and a portable PowerBook is best of all!

Keep the test results coming, thanks all!