GTA IV Performance on 2009 iMacs

[Lenin]

Mac is sh*t to me.

I mean, its very less supoorted OS for games.

Wow. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Macs can play every single PC game out there.

Yeah but then you're using Windows.. Isnt that what macfags hate so much? Why spend so much money on that overpriced POS when you can buy a PC that is twice as good or even better for the same price? Its so sad that people spend so much more money on something because its pretty on the outside (personally i think imacs are friggin ugly). It saddens me really that they cant spend it on something else and stop supporting that scum of company, apple.

[thales100]

Just because you've got $$$, it doesn't mean that you should keep mocking people.

Im not mocking anyone, btw that apple is more expensive than my rig, its just a joke - okei ?

 

[vaudevillian]

 

Just like any OS (usualy) other then windows. You need to run an emulator. It does not take a lot to run an emulator. But it takes away from clock cycles. You wont see an improvement on you mac what ever you do. I have tried all the teaks and I run a pc. I still dont get any improvement. The video card is not a big deal with gta4, processor is the killer. As long as your video card has atleast 512, supports all the things gta needs to run then the only thing holding you back is your processor.

 

Can you duel boot xp on that thing? If so you might see an improvement in FPS.

I AM dual booting right now. Ever heard of boot camp?

I dont need anything for duel booting. I only use linux and windows.

 

I Just make sure there is enough room at the beginning of each drive to duel boot. Then run my installers. Windows/Lunix seem to come with boot managers.

 

Edit:

 

I just looked at boot camp. It seems like a Vurtual Machine, But I dont know.

 

You would need to make sure you have enough space on your mac. Defrage the thing, partition off a small section for backup files then partition another section off near the beginning of the drive for another os. Dont format it just leave it raw. Insert windows disk and boot from it.

Edited March 21, 2009 by vaudevillian

[TruXter]

Just like any OS (usualy) other then windows. You need to run an emulator. It does not take a lot to run an emulator. But it takes away from clock cycles. You wont see an improvement on you mac what ever you do. I have tried all the teaks and I run a pc. I still dont get any improvement. The video card is not a big deal with gta4, processor is the killer. As long as your video card has atleast 512, supports all the things gta needs to run then the only thing holding you back is your processor.

 

Can you duel boot xp on that thing? If so you might see an improvement in FPS.

I AM dual booting right now. Ever heard of boot camp?

I dont need anything for duel booting. I only use linux and windows.

 

I Just make sure there is enough room at the beginning of each drive to duel boot. Then run my installers. Windows/Lunix seem to come with boot managers.

 

Edit:

 

I just looked at boot camp. It seems like a Vurtual Machine, But I dont know.

 

You would need to make sure you have enough space on your mac. Defrage the thing, partition off a small section for backup files then partition another section off near the beginning of the drive for another os. Dont format it just leave it raw. Insert windows disk and boot from it.

If you use Linux, you can use wine and do not need windows to run gtaiv.

It will be very very rough.

[ShotSkydiver]

Just like any OS (usualy) other then windows. You need to run an emulator. It does not take a lot to run an emulator. But it takes away from clock cycles. You wont see an improvement on you mac what ever you do. I have tried all the teaks and I run a pc. I still dont get any improvement. The video card is not a big deal with gta4, processor is the killer. As long as your video card has atleast 512, supports all the things gta needs to run then the only thing holding you back is your processor.

 

Can you duel boot xp on that thing? If so you might see an improvement in FPS.

I AM dual booting right now. Ever heard of boot camp?

I dont need anything for duel booting. I only use linux and windows.

 

I Just make sure there is enough room at the beginning of each drive to duel boot. Then run my installers. Windows/Lunix seem to come with boot managers.

 

Edit:

 

I just looked at boot camp. It seems like a Vurtual Machine, But I dont know.

 

You would need to make sure you have enough space on your mac. Defrage the thing, partition off a small section for backup files then partition another section off near the beginning of the drive for another os. Dont format it just leave it raw. Insert windows disk and boot from it.

No, boot camp is simply a GUI for partitioning the drive without formatting it. Then you boot from the Windows cd, and it installs as if it were a regular old PC (which it is, considering that it's just an Intel processor).

[aragond]

 

And you're running it on this and you think 14 fps is well... great

do you know anything about fps, at 14 fps you would be seeing the half of what is happening in the game, I mean  come on 14 frames per second, my mobile camera 1.3 mp has more fps.

Don't knock it! Frakkin better than my rig's 7-11 fps!!

Maybe I should buy an iMac.

 

(In truth I'm impressed it can run gta at all! As others have said, they're not exactly a games machine.

[rgsgww]

I'm curious, how did the new patch affect your benchmark? For me, I've gained 20-40 fps with everything max.

[MonkeyMhz]

Mac's aren't bad. They aren't meant for games, but they are good. however Id prefer the PC route, more customizable, I prefer the Windows platform.

 

You can get a much better windows pc for the same price as a mac.

 

Thing is, people who say mac's are better, are people who go to future shop and buy a emachines loaded with bloatware. Then they buy a mac, and of course a mac will seem better. Because macs have no bloat ware and don't have other companies like emachines making their computers.

 

Only way to get a good PC, is to either do your research, or get it custom.

 

And only reason why Mac's/Ipod have gotten so big is from advertising, they really know how to play their cards. They spend more on a mac campaign in 1 year than windows/pc has spent since 1993.

 

And at least windows has the respect not to bash Mac on random things that are completely false, like mac commercials do to windows.

 

And don't even get me started on the IPod, good mp3 player. But is the battery a scam, my ipod that I got given to me had its battery say it needs to be replaced. Mac store wants like 70$ to do it. I said forget it, went home. Plugged it in the wall charging, forgot about it. One month later, I found it again, turned it on, it works!. Its been working for 7 months now. = D

 

Some Mac users are really understandable and tolerable, the thing in my opinion that really turns off macs (for me) is the 60% of their consumer base that are just tech-illiterate noobs who say things like "OMG ATI/GEFORCE SUXORS, MAC DID 500x SPEED" you know the type of people who you say to burn a backup cd, and they come back with Disney movie DVD and a lighter.

Edited March 23, 2009 by MonkeyMhz

[TruXter]

Mac's aren't bad. They aren't meant for games, but they are good. however Id prefer the PC route, more customizable, I prefer the Windows platform.

 

You can get a much better windows pc for the same price as a mac.

 

Thing is, people who say mac's are better, are people who go to future shop and buy a emachines loaded with bloatware. Then they buy a mac, and of course a mac will seem better. Because macs have no bloat ware and don't have other companies like emachines making their computers.

 

Only way to get a good PC, is to either do your research, or get it custom.

 

And only reason why Mac's/Ipod have gotten so big is from advertising, they really know how to play their cards. They spend more on a mac campaign in 1 year than windows/pc has spent since 1993.

 

And at least windows has the respect not to bash Mac on random things that are completely false, like mac commercials do to windows.

 

And don't even get me started on the IPod, good mp3 player. But is the battery a scam, my ipod that I got given to me had its battery say it needs to be replaced. Mac store wants like 70$ to do it. I said forget it, went home. Plugged it in the wall charging, forgot about it. One month later, I found it again, turned it on, it works!. Its been working for 7 months now. = D

 

Some Mac users are really understandable and tolerable, the thing in my opinion that really turns off macs (for me) is the 60% of their consumer base that are just tech-illiterate noobs who say things like "OMG ATI/GEFORCE SUXORS, MAC DID 500x SPEED" you know the type of people who you say to burn a backup cd, and they come back with Disney movie DVD and a lighter.

Mac/apple actually got big by having it's laptops in every single chick flick and chick series through the early 2000s

watch sex and the city, the one laptop you see 99.9% of the time is that curly chicks mac with big apple on the back.

They target women, if women think something is sexy, dudes buy it.

Simple easy marketing. hell that's how the hair bands came about. you don't go to a concert to hang out with guys.

Unless you like singing "Y.M.C.A."

[ShotSkydiver]

I'm curious, how did the new patch affect your benchmark? For me, I've gained 20-40 fps with everything max.

It added around 5 FPS, but it made the game run much smoother. Feels a lot better now to play.

 

 

Mac's aren't bad. They aren't meant for games, but they are good. however Id prefer the PC route, more customizable, I prefer the Windows platform.

 

You can get a much better windows pc for the same price as a mac.

 

Thing is, people who say mac's are better, are people who go to future shop and buy a emachines loaded with bloatware. Then they buy a mac, and of course a mac will seem better. Because macs have no bloat ware and don't have other companies like emachines making their computers.

 

Only way to get a good PC, is to either do your research, or get it custom.

 

And only reason why Mac's/Ipod have gotten so big is from advertising, they really know how to play their cards. They spend more on a mac campaign in 1 year than windows/pc has spent since 1993.

 

And at least windows has the respect not to bash Mac on random things that are completely false, like mac commercials do to windows.

 

And don't even get me started on the IPod, good mp3 player. But is the battery a scam, my ipod that I got given to me had its battery say it needs to be replaced. Mac store wants like 70$ to do it. I said forget it, went home. Plugged it in the wall charging, forgot about it. One month later, I found it again, turned it on, it works!. Its been working for 7 months now. = D

 

Some Mac users are really understandable and tolerable, the thing in my opinion that really turns off macs (for me) is the 60% of their consumer base that are just tech-illiterate noobs who say things like "OMG ATI/GEFORCE SUXORS, MAC DID 500x SPEED" you know the type of people who you say to burn a backup cd, and they come back with Disney movie DVD and a lighter.

 

 

Yeah, exactly. I like Windows too; I just prefer Macs. I hate the Mac users who have no idea what they're doing and blindly bash everything else, or the ones who have no idea what a computer is. Those two are usually the same person.

[neilthecellist]

 

Okay, well, I can run every major game (Burnout Paradise, all Valve games, COD4, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, UT3) at native 1920x1200 resolution and get at least 30FPS with this card. It performs amazingly well. Only game is GTA IV that isn't as great but it's just not optimized.

If you get 30+ FPS in those other games, then why did you post a thread saying that your 14 FPS is great?

 

Therefore I surmise that you're probably running all of those games at low/medium details. I'll also surmise that you posted this thread to begin with because you felt bad and wanted sympathy from other gamers to say that your performance was brilliant or something... Clearly that's not going to happen. You're defending a flawed position.

 

I'll be openly plain here: Your computer sucks. 14 FPS is awful. I am running on a GTX 285 with 1 GB of vRAM, recently DOWNpatched to version 1.0.2.0 and on 1920 resolution, I'm getting 50+ FPS if I set the details to your settings. Medium details gets me around 25-35. On high details now, I get around 23 FPS, and on highest settings, I get an average of 15.6.

 

 

EDIT: And Valve games aren't graphics-intensive. On my old 7900GS I was getting FPS spikes beyond 60 FPS on any Valve game. On my new GTX 285 all Valve games run past 90 FPS.

 

EDIT: COD4 isn't graphics intensive either. On my old 7900GS I was getting FPS spikes beyond 50 FPS.

 

EDIT: Your 9500 is crap. When selecting NVIDIA cards, the first number (9xxx) determines what series card you have. The second number (x5xx) determines what grade your card is. My old 8800GTS outperforms a 9500GS easily. And if I overclock my old old 7900GS, I could outperform your 9500 (and probably I already did in the past).

 

EDIT: You accuse another user of b*tching at you just because he has money... Did you ever consider that you spent 200% (yes, two-hundred PERCENT) more than I spent on my computer? You were ripped off. Admit it.

 

EDIT: Not to you, but to other users: People who get macs are the ones who were stupid and went to HP / Dell / vendors to get their computers. Thus, they're paying for bloatware. My computer only cost me around $800 (I buy from Newegg.com only) and I have NO bloatware, nearly everything is plug-and-play except for audio/video/LAN drivers.

 

Macs are a good platform, but the consumers who buy them usually aren't.

Edited March 24, 2009 by neilthecellist

[rgsgww]

I built my own rig and am happy. Ocing as of right now. Trying to find a stable voltage to run a qx9650 at 3.6ghz 1600mhz fsb or 400mhz. Have to run prime 95 for 24 hours . Cannot wait to see how gtaiv will perform I already get 50 fps in the benchmark test with everything max.

 

I have a gtx 285 too

 

COD 4 is not really graphics intensive, nor valve games. Lemme get my ati x1950pro out and I will demonstrate.

[Norm47]

I bet all mac users will get a kick the balls if we made an ad on tv with those 2 people showing CUSTOM-BUILT PCs owning Macs at gaming and other stuff (Windows 7 will probably make them come crawling back to good'ol PCs)

 

P.S:

 

The PC in my sig didn't cost anywhere near the $2k+ your mac does. My PC only cost in total AU$800 for EVERYTHING (includes crt monitor & k/b, mouse).

Edited March 25, 2009 by Norm47

[rgsgww]

Windows 7 will be great. It will run good on bad hardware. Vista x64 is a memory hog. I barely have any ram left of my 4gbs with vista

[Samul]

DUde you have a mac.... I mean Im a graphic Artist and Ive been working on macs for quite a few years... for the price : better off getting a good pc that would be equivalent to the price of your mac. You'd probably be getting 50 fps instaed of a measly 14 fps... I mean come on you gotta be ignorant to technology If you both a imac... these heat up and its laptop components you got in there dont be suprised if macs cant cut into the gaming world they are completetly obsolete computers which use pc components... word of advice dont play any games on a mac espacially not GTA4.

[nemesi5]

 

Okay, well, I can run every major game (Burnout Paradise, all Valve games, COD4, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, UT3) at native 1920x1200 resolution and get at least 30FPS with this card. It performs amazingly well. Only game is GTA IV that isn't as great but it's just not optimized.

No games are optimized for the Mac, it has a gaming disorder, sorry for being mean, but I am very bias towards macs. In my opinion, they are an absolute waste of money, you can get all the programs on a mac to pc and more. I am surprised you can play a game on the Mac, how do you get it working? 14 FPS in my opinion will ruin your vision.

 

As you can see, this forum is very bias towards mac, note that it says PC not MAC & PC

PS, I hate macs for their false statements about PC's, have you seen their commercials?

Edited March 26, 2009 by nemesi5

[rgsgww]

Seems as if 50 fps is almost max. I got 2 extra fps when I pushed my fsb to 1600 mhz and clocked my 3ghz to 3.6.

[neilthecellist]

14 FPS in my opinion will ruin your vision.

You have a point there. My optomotrist once said that anything under 31.2 FPS will damage your vision permanently if you are playing for a long time (i.e. more than half an hour)

[mast]

Mac is sh*t to me.

I mean, its very less supoorted OS for games.

Wow. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Macs can play every single PC game out there.

Yes, but Macs need more hardware horsepower to play those games at par with PCs.

No. It's the exact same hardware. When a Mac is running Windows it's the exact same thing as if it was a PC running Windows.

[neilthecellist]

Mac is sh*t to me.

I mean, its very less supoorted OS for games.

Wow. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Macs can play every single PC game out there.

Yes, but Macs need more hardware horsepower to play those games at par with PCs.

No. It's the exact same hardware. When a Mac is running Windows it's the exact same thing as if it was a PC running Windows.

No, it's not. Go compare some benchmarks of the top performing Mac, and then compare it to my computer, which has a quad core processor by AMD and a GTX 285.

 

Remember, I only paid $800 for my computer.

 

The OP paid $2000.

 

He gets 14 FPS.

 

I get 40+ FPS.

[xKingKaz]

Mac is sh*t to me.

I mean, its very less supoorted OS for games.

Wow. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Macs can play every single PC game out there.

Yes, but Macs need more hardware horsepower to play those games at par with PCs.

No. It's the exact same hardware. When a Mac is running Windows it's the exact same thing as if it was a PC running Windows.

No, it's not. Go compare some benchmarks of the top performing Mac, and then compare it to my computer, which has a quad core processor by AMD and a GTX 285.

 

Remember, I only paid $800 for my computer.

 

The OP paid $2000.

 

He gets 14 FPS.

 

I get 40+ FPS.

i would like to report that this guy is kicking ass

[Norm47]

Apple just puts laptop components in to either a mini box (Mac Mini) or behind a screen (iMac). The new Mac Pro uses a server-based Core-i7 system although with the base price, you can build a much better system.

 

8600GT + Core-i7 for $4500 = EPIC FAILURE

[TruXter]

I would assume you guys are taking into consideration the other things you can with a mac that you can not do as well with a pc.. right ?

 

He is not saying that he has the ultimate gaming machine. He is saying this machine that he has that he never thought would play gtaiv actually

plays it better than expected.

[mast]

No, it's not. Go compare some benchmarks of the top performing Mac, and then compare it to my computer, which has a quad core processor by AMD and a GTX 285.

A computer with the exact same specs running the exact same software is pretty much guaranteed to have the same benchmarks. Macs have exactly the same hardware as PCs: Same processors. Same memory. Essentially the same motherboards. Same operating systems. Same drivers. Same software.

 

My MacBook Pro I'm using now was pretty much considered the fastest laptop to run Windows Vista on last year. OP must've run Windows Vista through an emulator because I get better FPS on my MacBook Pro.

[neilthecellist]

 

No, it's not. Go compare some benchmarks of the top performing Mac, and then compare it to my computer, which has a quad core processor by AMD and a GTX 285.

A computer with the exact same specs running the exact same software is pretty much guaranteed to have the same benchmarks. Macs have exactly the same hardware as PCs: Same processors. Same memory. Essentially the same motherboards. Same operating systems. Same drivers. Same software.

 

My MacBook Pro I'm using now was pretty much considered the fastest laptop to run Windows Vista on last year. OP must've run Windows Vista through an emulator because I get better FPS on my MacBook Pro.

No.... For the last time, it's not. Macs use LAPTOP components, PC's use REAL FULL computer components. Your video card is about the only thing that isn't an -M version.

 

Again, look at what I said earlier:

 

 

===

 

Remember, I only paid $800 for my computer.

 

The OP paid $2000.

 

He gets 14 FPS.

 

I get 40+ FPS.

 

===

 

Not the same motherboard. My ASRock A780 FullDisplayPort motherboard is not the same as a Mac computer.

 

Not the same memory. Mine are Corsair 2 GB 800mhz DDR 2

 

Not the same processor. I have an AMD Phenom 9850 X4 Quad Core 2.5 ghz.

 

Not the same video card. I have a GTX 285. What does the OP have?

 

Stop trying to make yourself feel better. Your mac sucks. Admit it.

 

 

Drivers and software are irrelevant to the discussion at hand, btw.

[mast]

Apple just puts laptop components in to either a mini box (Mac Mini) or behind a screen (iMac). The new Mac Pro uses a server-based Core-i7 system although with the base price, you can build a much better system.

 

8600GT + Core-i7 for $4500 = EPIC FAILURE

Well. Apple has a different business model. Those who buy Mac Pros tend to use specific types of software on them (Shake, Logic, Final Cut, etc) which come at dirt-cheap prices. So they add overhead on the hardware to make up for the software.

[neilthecellist]

 

Apple just puts laptop components in to either a mini box (Mac Mini) or behind a screen (iMac). The new Mac Pro uses a server-based Core-i7 system although with the base price, you can build a much better system.

 

8600GT + Core-i7 for $4500 = EPIC FAILURE

Well. Apple has a different business model. Those who buy Mac Pros tend to use specific types of software on them (Shake, Logic, Final Cut, etc) which come at dirt-cheap prices. So they add overhead on the hardware to make up for the software.

That doesn't add to this thread's discussion at all, apart from qualifying an already-dead argument.

 

The point is that the performance of GTA IV on the OP's 2009 iMac sucks.

[mast]

No.... For the last time, it's not. Macs use LAPTOP components, PC's use REAL FULL computer components. Your video card is about the only thing that isn't an -M version.

 

Again, look at what I said earlier:

 

 

===

 

Remember, I only paid $800 for my computer.

 

The OP paid $2000.

 

He gets 14 FPS.

 

I get 40+ FPS.

 

===

 

Not the same motherboard. My ASRock A780 FullDisplayPort motherboard is not the same as a Mac computer.

 

Not the same memory. Mine are Corsair 2 GB 800mhz DDR 2

 

Not the same processor. I have an AMD Phenom 9850 X4 Quad Core 2.5 ghz.

 

Not the same video card. I have a GTX 285. What does the OP have?

 

Stop trying to make yourself feel better. Your mac sucks. Admit it.

 

 

Drivers and software are irrelevant to the discussion at hand, btw.

You're comparing totally different computer specs with another. Your entire argument is stupid.

[mast]

The point is that the performance of GTA IV on the OP's 2009 iMac sucks.

Well, my MacBook Pro is lower specced than his and I get better FPS than him - so he must've done something wrong with his config or is running it through Crossover or an emulator.

[ShotSkydiver]

I would assume you guys are taking into consideration the other things you can with a mac that you can not do as well with a pc.. right ?

 

He is not saying that he has the ultimate gaming machine. He is saying this machine that he has that he never thought would play gtaiv actually

plays it better than expected.

Thank you. To everyone: Obviously my Mac isn't a gaming computer. The whole point of this thread is that I was surprised that GTA IV would even run at all, and I was simply saying that. My Mac runs all of the games I like to play just fine, and at a stable FPS, besides GTA IV. I'm happy with that. I didn't buy my Mac primarily for gaming in the first place.