“The issue was brought to light by Valve Software, which had recommended that Mac gamers not update to Mac OS X 10.6.4 until the issue was addressed,” Slivka reports.
“Valve, which has been working closely with Apple and graphics card companies to improve gaming performance on the Mac platform, has now posted a technical explanation of the steps it has been able to take to improve performance as facilitated by the new software update,” Slivka reports. “While the details are certainly interesting, the bottom line is that frame rates have been increased by 15% to 120% on some newer Mac hardware.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]
Dunno about 120% but it REALLY helped performance on my Mac. Can play at 1600×1200 4xAA now. Hopefully Valve will continue to push Apple to get serious about gaming on the Mac – it’s one of the only “advantages” Windows really has over OS X.
@matt
Agreed! The main thing keeping PCs relevant in the home market is gaming.
Yes, I agree with you Matt, Apple needs to really tighten up on GPU driver development on staying up to date with OpenGL. If Apple can address this, then Windows has 0 advantage over the Mac.
Don’t buy games on Steam. its a DRMed Walled Garden. It’s convenient, but bad in the long term. Valve tries to capitalize on the lack of games to Mac to lock users in with DRM and a closed and Walled Garden with no way out.
Anyone notice if there’s been an improvement with Starcraft 2 also? I’m doing a Time Machine backup now to prepare for Apple’s update.
Actually Karlv, if it wasn’t for Valve’s walled garden, owners of the Windows versions of various games would have had to re-buy their games to play them under OS X. I still had my account from back when Half Life 2 was first out, and I was able to replay it without paying an extra dime.
I agree Lifeisabeach, we as Mac users should be happy that someone finally stepped forward and supported gaming on a Mac. Thanks to Valve they got rid of the only virus I ever had(Windows Bootcamp)
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
This whole, “walled garden” meme as negative is getting old. Some walled-gardens are very nice and create a consistent ambiance devoid of distracting noise. Good walls make for good neighbors.
Good walls make for good neighbors.
Ah yes, the classic misapplication of the quote from Robert Frost’s Mending Wall
http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html
Thank you for the Robert Frost link. I had not read the poem and I love it.
Anything that helps gaming on the mac is a good thing.
Read that Frost poem….I just don’t get some poetry, reads like drug-addled ramblings.
Blizzard has supported Mac for ages.
@matt:
“The main thing keeping PCs relevant in the home market is gaming.”
This may have been true at one time, but for the most part PC gaming is struggling. Yes, I realize that there are plenty of viable franchises out there but the entire industry as a whole has been gutted by the cheaper cost of the console industry. I’ve been a long time gamer (the only reason I ever owned a PC) but couldn’t see the benefit any longer in maintaining current rigs solely for the purpose of keeping up with the unbelievable specs of newly released games. God bless Boot Camp. With that I was finally released. However, when it came along and I started to replenish my game library, I realized that the pickings for new PC games was very slim, and growing slimmer. Trust me, I bemoaned the loss. The irony of it though is that Microsoft and XBox is hugely responsible for gutting an entire division of their own company. The idiots even seem to steal from themselves, and replace it with a less solid product.
No. In actuality, the main thing keeping PC’s relevant is the astounding ignorance of it’s customers.