Portal: Mac OS X vs Windows Performance Test

jmke · 14th May 2010, 08:12

It’s been a while since anyone treated Mac OS X as a first-tier gaming platform, so when Valve announced that they would be bringing their Steam service and the Source engine to the Mac, it was big news. After a roughly 2 month beta period for the Mac versions of Steam and the Source engine, yesterday Valve finally released the first wave of their Mac gaming efforts.

We went ahead and ran a timedemo from test chamber 18 and beyond on both the Mac OS X and Windows versions of Portal. We kept the settings cranked up at all times, but varied the resolution between 1280x800 and 2560x1600 to look at different GPU loads. At the worst-case of 2560, the Mac version of Portal runs at only 54% of the speed of the Windows version. That moves to 63% at 1920x1200, and 66% at 1280x800.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/q...al-performance

thorgal · 14th May 2010, 09:55

Not surprising these results. OSX relies on Open GL, and no current graphics card is optimized for open GL gaming. I don't really see this taking off : the Mac (OSX) is no gaming platform.

14th May 2010, 10:36

A mac user said it was because Valve uses a DX9 -> OpenGL abstraction layer for the OpenGL calls.

Either way the performance doesn't matter as much as the loss of image quality... if I wanted to play a game that was that fuzzy, I'd take off my glasses.

blackened · 14th May 2010, 14:09

Well, at least it works.. I still cant think about gaming on a Mac without thinking about this classic.. The first line always makes me laugh.

14th May 2010, 14:42

Just saw this on soup

jmke · 14th May 2010, 14:51

awesome

14th May 2010, 08:12	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	Portal: Mac OS X vs Windows Performance Test It’s been a while since anyone treated Mac OS X as a first-tier gaming platform, so when Valve announced that they would be bringing their Steam service and the Source engine to the Mac, it was big news. After a roughly 2 month beta period for the Mac versions of Steam and the Source engine, yesterday Valve finally released the first wave of their Mac gaming efforts. We went ahead and ran a timedemo from test chamber 18 and beyond on both the Mac OS X and Windows versions of Portal. We kept the settings cranked up at all times, but varied the resolution between 1280x800 and 2560x1600 to look at different GPU loads. At the worst-case of 2560, the Mac version of Portal runs at only 54% of the speed of the Windows version. That moves to 63% at 1920x1200, and 66% at 1280x800. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/q...al-performance __________________

14th May 2010, 09:55	#2
thorgal [M] Reviewer Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 1,887	Not surprising these results. OSX relies on Open GL, and no current graphics card is optimized for open GL gaming. I don't really see this taking off : the Mac (OSX) is no gaming platform. __________________ Last edited by thorgal : 14th May 2010 at 12:03.

14th May 2010, 14:51	#6
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	awesome __________________

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14th May 2010, 10:36	#3
Kougar Posts: n/a	A mac user said it was because Valve uses a DX9 -> OpenGL abstraction layer for the OpenGL calls. Either way the performance doesn't matter as much as the loss of image quality... if I wanted to play a game that was that fuzzy, I'd take off my glasses.

14th May 2010, 14:09	#4
blackened Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 79	Well, at least it works.. I still cant think about gaming on a Mac without thinking about this classic.. The first line always makes me laugh.

14th May 2010, 14:42	#5
wutske Posts: n/a	Just saw this on soup