Mac engine far slower than PC engine on same machine.

#1 I maybe very wrong, but it has to do with the using a good video card or using openGL. I believe, openGL is software rendering(?).

The other thing to realize is how much is really going on in those demo levels, especially the Stronghold. Start turning off emitters and you'll see a performance increase. Just keep in mind what your target machine is for your project because they could suffer too if their machine specs don't match your production machine.

I'm debating about upgrading the card in my machine at the moment but that means uping the minimum specs for the game to run.

Hope that doesn't come across too preachy (or n00bish for that matter) :)

cheers!

#2 I understand what you're saying, but my point is that on the exact same machine (literally the same machine, not just a similar one) the demo games run great in Windows and are painfully slow in OSX... to the point where it's pretty much not playable.

I'm using OpenGL in both Windows and OSX.

Plus it doesn't have to do with how much is going on in the missions. As I said above I created a new mission with flat terrain and still had the same problem.

#3 To me that indicates a driver problem with your Mac run environment, or something along those lines. What are you using to emulate Windows on your Mac, and is the entire environment up to date?

#4 There's no emulation involved - the Intel based Macs will run Windows natively.

There are a couple of other threads about speed problems w/1.5 on the Mac - some about lighting, some about gameplay speed - so there are some optimizations to be done somewhere for the Mac...

#5

Quote:There's no emulation involved - the Intel based Macs will run Windows natively.

There are a couple of other threads about speed problems w/1.5 on the Mac - some about lighting, some about gameplay speed - so there are some optimizations to be done somewhere for the Mac...

Exactly. :)

#6 I think the Mac versions in general run a bit slower than Windows versions, but on my Intel MacBook Pro I don't know that I would say there's a huge difference...one thing you could check to make sure that your Mac build is actually a Universal Binary, and not a PPC build running in Rosetta....

#7 Don't quote me on this, but I *think* I heard Paul S. mention that he was looking into ways to optimize performance on Intel Macs.

#8 It's definitely the universal binary.. is there a non-universal version of 1.5 available?

Thanks Ken, that'd be great if the performance could be improved a bit.

Thanks all!

#9 Well, you don't have to compile 1.5 as a universal binary if you don't want to, as far as I know.

#10 Yeah.. I didn't compile it though, just the compiled version in the download.

#11 I think it may have something to do with my iMac now.

I just got a new Macbook and the FPS.Starter and Demo are running much better on there than the iMac.

The iMac:
2Ghz Core Duo
2Gig RAM
128MB X1600 Radeon

Macbook:
2Ghz Core Duo 2
1 Gig RAM
64MB (shared) video

There's no way it should run better on the Macbook than the iMac. It's got a better processor, with the less RAM and far inferior video I doubt the CPU architecture makes that much difference.

I'm going to wipe and reload Tiger on my iMac and try it again.

I'll post back with my results.. I feel much more encouraged now. :)

#12 I have a new MacBook Pro Core2 Duo (2.33 Ghz, RadeonX1600) and TGE 1.5 runs *much* slower than on my year-old AMD 3800+ nvidia 6600 box. I mean, damn, I've got this amazing fast Mac and it's really disappointing. (Also, when TGE is running the fans make this thing sound like it's going to lift off the table.)

TGE 1.4 also showed a difference between Mac and PC, but the difference is far worse with 1.5. Offhand I'd say TGE 1.4 was 25% slower on my Mac, and TGE 1.5 is 200% slower on my Mac.

#13 Yeah.. there's no doubt that it's much slower on the Mac than Windows, even on the same machine.
I have faith in the GG guys though and would be willing to bet they'll get it optimized pretty quickly.

#14 Edited to say, me too, can't wait!

#15 @Rob: LOL...nice edit.

My compiled game appears to run about the same on my MacBook Pro in OSX and XP. I haven't checked metrics in both environments, but my eye doesn't detect much of a difference.

That might not be the case for the Stronghold mission, though. I'll check that out.

#16 Yea it s really slow on my MacBook (2gig ram) plus the mouse movement is terrible. I mean the right click shifts 200 degrees when i right click and points in watever direction.. Hopefully they will make a Universal binary compatible version vewyy soon .


:'(

#17 The Mac build should be Universal binary already.

#18 So why is it so slow ..


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I bought my liscence yesterday . And the provided link from my profile links to a zip file containing Torque Demo OSX .


Why is it demo . ? Does it means demo as in Free Test software or as in demonstrator ?

#19 David,
i'm not surprised the demo is slow on the Macbook..there's a LOT going on in there and the video card on our Macbooks is not the greatest for 3D games.... Macbook pro is different story. ;)

Since you bought the license, log into your account on the GG site and look in the "Downloadable products you own" section. There will be a link to download the 'Torque Game Engine 1.5'

If thats' the one you already downloaded then under Applications/Torque Game Engine 1.5 SDK/Torque SDK/example there will be starter.racing, starter.fps and I think tutorial.base.
Look on the site and there are a bunch of tutorials that show you how to get started with modifying the existing starter kits.

HTH

#20 Steve, I disagree. My MacBook Pro has 2 cores at 2.33 Ghz and 3 GB of RAM and a Radeon X1600. That video card oughta kick ass. It certainly kicks the ass of my PC's nvidia 6600, and yet the PC Torque is much faster.

I would guess that the reason it's "suddenly" slow is that the Stronghold mission now has a lot more going on -- better textures, Tim Aste art, particles, and so on. Also, maybe the Lighting Kit is causing trouble. I've never looked at its source, but my offhand, wholly uninformed guess would be that it's not nearly as optimized on the OpenGL side as it is on the DirectX side. I wonder how the exact same mission would fare in 1.4.2 Hmmm.. I'll try that.

Also, I recall an Alex Stephenson .plan that talked about glbegin becoming a blocking factor. I guess we should fire up the profiler and see what's happening.