Jump to content

Performance on Mac is disappointing


OlaHaldor
 Share

Recommended Posts

I mainly fly on a PC, but for fun I installed X-Plane 10.30b7 on my Mac Pro 2009. The specs

- Mac OS X 10.9.3

- 2 x 2.26 GHz quad xeon (8 cores in total)

- 12 GB RAM

- GeForce GTX 680 4 GB

- A fast RAID

 

No plugins, no addons, just the basic C172 at a local airport (which has no scenery at all), I adjusted the render settings to my liking - and I get only about 8-15 fps.

That can't be right, can it?

 

CPU usage is way below 50%

GPU usage is also way below 50%

 

X-Plane using 5GB memory. And 1.5GB GPU RAM was used.

 

 

 

So where's the bottleneck? Old CPU architecture ? Or is X-Plane really that bad optimized for Mac? (which strikes me as funny since Austin uses a Mac ?)

 

In comparison, the same setup (location, plane and render settings) on my PC gives me 50+ fps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The older (first gen) i7 / w3500 Xeon CPU is definitely the cause.

A 2.2 Ghz with a 4.2GT/sec QPI bus is to blame.

I replaced my CPU with a W3690 (3.46 Ghz @ 6.4GT/sec QPI) and popped in a GTX 670.

It's acceptable now - but not stellar.

I use it for all my development - since if our scenery runs well on my older-gen machine, it'll run even better on a reasonably modern system.

-CK.

Ps make sure you've downloaded the nVidia OSX "web drivers" from nVidias website. They bump up your card from PCIe 1.1 to PCIe 2.0 speeds.

Edited by chris k
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've heard the CPUs in the dual CPU Mac Pros don't have the usual socket. The CPU itself doesn't have pins, instead it's the motherboard. So finding the CPUs with holes in them instead of pins can be a challenge. I've heard. Not that I've looked at it. But I don't think I'll be upgrading the Mac any further. RAM and an SSD perhaps. But the CPUs will be as they are. Don't wanna risk anything. :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's actually the top metal Lids they're missing. The Socket is the same. Just it's slightly thinner die (vertically) as it has no integrated head spreader (IHS). i.e. the die is exposed not he top.

 

Just don't tighten down the heatsink all the way and you'll be fine.

 

Instancing *does* work on nVidia, but it's slower than non-instancing, so yeah - it's still broken.

 

- CK.

Edited by chris k
Link to comment
Share on other sites

...is X-Plane really that bad optimized for Mac? (which strikes me as funny since Austin uses a Mac ?)

 

In comparison, the same setup (location, plane and render settings) on my PC gives me 50+ fps.

 

45+ FPS with 2010 iMac

Edited by gthomas
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too many factors are involved with FPS, two identical systems (I mean hardware + operating system + drivers) could easily return different FPS values.

Even saying "45+ FPS with 2010 iMac" (no offence to you, gthomas, it's just an example) doesn't help because there're no informations about your system and X-Plane configuration so it's almost impossible to give a clue to OlaHaldor in this way... but it would be very interesting to know how you can obtain that value.

 

Angelo

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too many factors are involved with FPS, two identical systems (I mean hardware + operating system + drivers) could easily return different FPS values.

Even saying "45+ FPS with 2010 iMac" (no offence to you, gthomas, it's just an example) doesn't help because there're no informations about your system and X-Plane configuration so it's almost impossible to give a clue to OlaHaldor in this way... but it would be very interesting to know how you can obtain that value.

 

Angelo

first, the 45+ is an indication that it is not badly optimized for the mac

even if it were at an airport with no scenery, which it is not, this would show that it's not XP/Mac that is the issue

 

Since you thought "it would  be very interesting to know how [ I ] can obtain that value":

2.93 GHz i7

16GB RAM

Compressed Textures

Resolution: High

Trees: Overgrown

Objects: Mega Tons

Roads: Tons

# of cars: New York

World detail: Very high

Airport Detail: high

shadow: static

HDR: off

Screen Anti-Aliasing: 8x

anisotropic filter: 2x

clouds: 10%

aircraft: 172SP

weather: low viz

 

just went to an airport with no scenery: 59 FPS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Win7 on the exact same hardware = ~2X the speed

really 2x? supposition/predigest or measured?

 

But that still does not answer 'what is decent?'

 

It would be interesting to see a version of x-plane truly optimized for the mac instead of a cross platform design understandably tilted toward the PC to attract disaffected MSFS users. The things that would enable a mac pro to slay dragons are not done (those choices either do not exist on the PC or would perform poorly), while other choices perform well on a PC but not a mac. These are programing choices not inherent positives or negatives of either system.

 

The current situation is that XP runs faster on an iMac than it does a mac pro. If the opposite choices were made the results would be different. It is these choices made by LR, more than video card drivers, that affect mac users on XP.

 

however, the question remains: 'what is decent?'

Edited by gthomas
Link to comment
Share on other sites

really 2x? supposition/predigest or measured?

 

 

Measured - My Rig - MacPro 3.46Ghz Hexacore, GTX670 - Boot into Win7 and it's night and day on FPS.

 

Another comparison done by Ben himself (before I had a bootcamp partition):

From: Ben S <bxxxxx@xsquawkbox.net>Subject: Re: Bug report: Instancing Disabled on Apple + Any nVidia HW (even though supported)Date: December 19, 2012 at 7:46:18 AM GMT+11To: Chris K <xxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com>hi Chris,Just an FYI: another user sent me Mac/Win comparisons, so I don't need you to destroy your system to run Bootcamp.But I will say: there's fps to be had on Linux and Windows58 fps on Linux50 fps on Windows35 fps on Mac.cheersben

_________________

 
Thats a 1.5X increase right there - (Ok, perhaps not 2X but it feels like it!)  more if you factor vs Linux on same hardware  ;)
 
- CK.
Edited by chris k
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone really needs to lean on Apple/nVidia. This has been a problem for years. Valve and Blizzard have tried to push them a bit to make their AAA titles run, but it unfortunately causes an artificial increase in Mac system requirements for most games.

 

My 2012 MBP is ticking along great, except for X-Plane. Always seems to be the case. I think this year's the year I take the plunge and build a gaming rig, while saving the MBP for "real" work.

Edited by Dhruv
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What do you call decent?

 

Decent meaning that you get about equal performance from systems which are about equal in price. Up until v10 this was was the case. My Mac Pro was actually a little faster than a similarly expensive Windows machine. However, with nVidia's terrible drivers, and Apple's reliance on nVidia GPUs, this is no longer the case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would be interesting to see a version of x-plane truly optimized for the mac

 

Because the big problem is something Laminar can't do anything about, there's no logic to this. Ben can't force nVidia to improve their drivers, and 99% of the performance gap between Windows and OS X is tight there. As has been pointed out elsewhere, X-Plane actually runs slower on OS X if you enable instancing. The drivers are that bad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...