Steam for Mac: First Impressions, Windows Is Faster

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
[citation][nom]keither5150[/nom]Steam waiting for all of the Mac gamers = the sound of crickets.Macs still have 5-6% of the market..... and how many of those people game?Again... the sound of crickets.Steam and valve just aren't thinking.[/citation]
Come on dude, mac is cool! Like parachute pants and fuzzy legwarmers were cool. Once the fad dies out there's nothing to a mac.
 
"Getting a DX title running in OpenGL is no small feat."

Ya don't say....
Great that the pay-for delivery system works, but do the games? I would like to say that the mac users that buy a game that doesn't work deserve special consideration, but nah.

DirectX won the rendering battle more than 10 years ago, (when OpenGL and Glide started losing ground). The market and back of the gaming boxes showing "system requirements" makes this fact obvious.

I do not predict high numbers of developers going back to previously released software and BACKPORTING in OpenGL support.

Mac users who suddenly want to game on their over-priced, under-powered, and even lesser supported, OS locked hardware: SUX to be you!
 
It took Valve's Steam engine running on Mac to benchmark Mac computers on Tom's??? Is this a joke? There is PLENTY of software that could be compared.
 
I think it's abundantly clear, at least looking at the screenshots on Anandtech, that there's lighting and post-processing issues at the moment. The glass on the right side of the main comparison has no glare on it and it's just really blurry.
 
for all you pc fanboys out there, first off, this is the first version of steam + ports of these games for the first time for a completely different OS. It takes time for things to become perfected, and even still, it isn't perfected then. Seriously, how long has steam been on windows for, compared to this release of steam for os x
 
[citation][nom]theribster500[/nom]for all you pc fanboys out there, first off, this is the first version of steam + ports of these games for the first time for a completely different OS. It takes time for things to become perfected, and even still, it isn't perfected then. Seriously, how long has steam been on windows for, compared to this release of steam for os x[/citation]

How do you explain World of Warcraft running 35-50% faster? It has been on mac since 2006. Maybe they have not had enough time to fix either?
 
A consumer grade video card will run DirectX better then OpenGL. You might want to try a workstation card since the gap between DirectX and OpenGL is not so great.

BTW its PC for gaming, PC/Linux for real work. Mac has very little to offer for any computing needs aside from simplicity.
 
[citation][nom]aznguy0028[/nom]is anyone surprised? lol. so much for your "superior" computer mac fanbois, that can get owned by a PC that is 400+ cheaper[/citation]
and still better
 
The only thing macs are good for are exactly what apple advertises. People who want their computers to "just work." of course, this only applies if your definition of "just work" happens to be the same as ol' steve's.

If you want to, you know, play games, or use that newfangled hardware before steve gets a chance to decide if he likes it or not, or you know, use flash, then you're just SOL.

Let's see here's the continuum of Control

User ControlCompany Control
Google--------Microsoft---------------------------------------------Apple
 
Hmm...my last comment didn't post properly (sorry for double post) this is the right continuum of Control

Third Party----------------------------------------------------First Party
-----Google-----Microsoft------------------------------------------Apple
 
In all fairness I'm honestly surprised it performed as well as it it on the Hackintosh VS Win 7 on the same hardware. Given the fact that Apple has almost the entire deck of cards stacked against them on this particular concept, at this time any way. Any one who follows the performance of graphics cards realizes how much of a difference drivers can make. Apple nor valve has had any real reason to optimize any of the drivers / OpenGL libraries for games, as this is not what a Mac usually does. Being that the hardware is the same, it comes down to software at this point. So it'll be interesting to see if Apple will lay some dev time down on this to usher in the Mac as a gaming platform, or if they will ignore it for not being their target markets cup of tea. All things the way they are, I'd classify the Portal test as something closer to "Prototype" or "BETA1" at best -- And make no judgments on the Mac's ability to be a viable gaming platform at this point in time.
As to the hackintosh driver variable, for the card mentioned above, Apple does release a Mac with that exact card. The GPU on the Mac version of that same card, is the same as the PC version. (Infact its usually the same card save the required software changes to make it work with Apple's EFI) -- The community contribution is a a mod that will either
A> Tell OSX to load the driver for THIS card via "tricking it"
or
B> Mod the driver its self to include the device ID of the card in question. In any case, you're getting the driver Apple uses on the card with no functional differences to it.

I'm also impresses TH decided to benchmark the hackintosh, I didnt expect that. Nice!
 
I think we can pretty much expect that when steam for linux comes out, it will also run faster than on mac. No proof yet obviously, but if it does that will be somewhat pathetic, given that were dealing with opengl and unix on both sides. But mac is still totally better. See, its shiny! dur...
 
Maybe someday mac gaming will catch up in speed but they have a performance ceiling as the hardware is limited or should i say controlled by apple. PC users just plug in a new processor and graphics to improve performance meanwhile mac users have to wait for further spec upgrade from Apple and pays a premium pricing for that apple logo. Latest spec in mac? not gonna happen.

 
Gaming is one few benchmarks that Windows is superior, try database , web server, video editing ,multitasking benchmarks Mac OS will blow Windows every time
 
Great article, thanks. I noticed the performance was slower on my Mac than the PC. I appreciated the hackintosh benchmark as well to really clearly show the exact difference in performance.

Hopefully they'll be able to get the performance improved, will be interesting. Until then, it's good to have Steam on my Macbook Pro in a pinch, but I'll be sticking with my Windows desktop for all real gaming.
 
I bet that the linux version will be improved faster than the mac one. It'll likely suffer from driver stuff to start in the same way but nvidia and ati are free to release anything that they want.

[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]Could you port WINE to OSX?Even if you did, would performance still be the same?[/citation]

I think they have wine on osx already...

 
Nice to see so many posters doing their very best to confirm the stereotype of hardcore 'gamers' as unpleasant, whiny, immature, assh@#les with some sort of 'mine is bigger than yours' complex. I'm sure that Freud would have something to say about what your 'gaming rigs' are compensating for. For what it is worth, I thought the article was quite interesting, obviously there is work yet to be done by both Apple and Valve. Unfortunately, the level of commentary simply confirmed what I had already suspected about many of the hardcore gaming community - namely that you are more self-satisfied, smug and pig-ignorant than the worst of the Apple fan boys. Very poor form.
 
[citation][nom]False_Dmitry_II[/nom]I bet that the linux version will be improved faster than the mac one. It'll likely suffer from driver stuff to start in the same way but nvidia and ati are free to release anything that they want.I think they have wine on osx already...[/citation]
Oh, after a quick google, you're right. Cool.
Though as expected, using Wine to play Portal does appear to be quite buggy.

So... Toms. Feel like comparing OSX running Mac games form Vavle to running the Windows version via Wine on OSX? Just curious.
For the time being, both are expected to have more bugs and lower performance.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom