Game's in Mac OS 10.3

[Typhy]

Let's not go into why or how I got 10.3, let me just say that Apple has my 70 bucks ( Student Discount ).

I'm sure that you're all aware of the features that 10.3 offers, and the changes it makes - if not, go read a review on it. And believe me, it's ownage.

Out of the games I've played in it so far, AA gets by far the bigger performance boost.

Those of us who use G4s, I'm sure are farmiliar with the "SAW Lag". When someone shoots a SAW, your framerates go to hell. Well, no more. People can be all around me shooting SAW's, M4s, M16's, 203's, you name it. My framerates stay steady.

Also, 10.3 offers a 2-5 FPS boost everywhere.

For you GHR players out there; sorry: OS 10.3 offers no improvements to GHR's framerates. The same is true with MOH:AA, SH and UT 2003.

If anything, RTCW is effected negativly by 10.3. Playing Dam, one of the more graphics demanidng maps, at the start, looking at the whole thing ( when you kill the cheese delivery dude ), my framerates dropped down to about 45. Other than that, they held steady at about 75. Either I'm greatly mistaken, or it used to be 75 looking out at the whole dam, and 95 everywhere else. But w/e, 75 FPS isn't bad anyway, hell, nor is 45.

Just thought you might like to know.  

[Jeb]

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=41504&doc2=37175
the biggest improvement is in memory and user interface.

[Cobra]

Hmm, you sure about UT2k3 not getting a boost in Panther??  I've heard from multiple places that it runs considerably faster in 10.3.

According to macbidouille:
BenchUT2003 under X.2.6 and X.3. He uses a G4 Quicksilver 933 with a Radeon 9000 and 1.5 Gb RAM. Tests were done under 1280*1024 resolution with demo flyby-citadel
 
 Under X.2.6:
 Score 37.00
 Min FPS 11.42
 Average FPS 36.94
 max 121.27
 
 Under X.3:
 Score 55.95
 Min FPS 17.4
 Average FPS 57.026
 max 192.117

[Ace]

Will 10.3 help out an old G3 iMac any?  My non-student discount update is due in next Monday.

From what I've heard, Panther is supposed to make a significant difference on old G3 machines.

[Jeb]

I wouldn't believe those benchmarks from macbidouille.
Because there is no change in hell his 933mhz g4 is faster than my G5 in 10.3 (and the site is french which is a clear give away). But perhaps its because he is running a flyby on low detail.

In ghr i've noticed no speedup, because ghr stayed near/on the maximum allowed fps in that game.

EDIT
i did a flyby on my g5 in ut2k3, and i pulled
Score: 73.3
min: 10.6
average: 93.13
max 283.91
Sadly i wish i saw 93fps average during botmatches

[Cobra]

Are those numbers higher than what you see in Jaguar, Jeb?  Or are they about the same?

By the way, what video card've you got in there (just wonderin')?

[spike]

jus wondering typhy, how can i qualify for student discount? besides the obvious of course. do you have to be in college?

[Jeb]

i dunno, i never tested it in jaguar, I have a radion 9600.

And spike, you can get the student discount if your in college. I'm not exactly sure how typhy got a student discount (since there are NO colleges in alaska   ). I also think teachers get discounts, and government employees (even vets). Or if you have purchased a G5 you get a "free copy" (20$ for shipping).

[Typhy]

jus wondering typhy, how can i qualify for student discount? besides the obvious of course. do you have to be in college?

Quite simple, to tell Apple you go to UAS. ( University of Alaska Southeast ).

In my case, I used my mom's name ( she's a school teacher ).

[tasty]

I realize that they added new features, but could Apple offer a free update, once, please? I mean when systems 7.5, 8, and 9 were out, they offered .X updates for those free of charge even when plenty of new features were added? just a thought.

[tasty]

The people in charge of Apple are greedy capitalist Americans....I LOVE THOSE GUYS!  

Way to be completely irrelevant.

[Jeb]

panther is worth it, especially expose.
Other than that, its stable, fast, and looks even better.
I don't really use expose that much because i have two big monitors on my g5, but i can imagine how useful it would be for someone with a laptop, imac, or a monitor with a 1024x768 resolution. I tried panther on a 400mhz G3 tower and it felt as fast as my G4 466 does in jaguar.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Tasty, why not just go back to pre release 7, when they were all free?

10.2 is at 10.2.6 now, that's 6 updates for free.  Yes, they've changed the way that they number their releases, but 10.3 is a bigger change in the OS over 10.2 then 8 was over 7.6.

My only complaint is that they are doing the major releases once a year now.  

[Civrock]

hey,

i just had a framerate of 66 in Ghost Recon. it wasnt just there for a second, no, it was there several times.
Since i have Panther (my dad is a beta tester), my framerate improved from about usually 20-30 to about 30-66(!!) now.
i was on the castle map and it wasnt just in one place of that map and i wasnt looking into the heaven for more frames.
here?s one of the screenshots i took:



i?m using an eMac with 700mhz, the built in 32mb geforce2 mx and 768mb of ram. i?m playing with 800x600x16 and with all settings on low.
since 2 weeks i?m using the full version of panther 10.3 and my game-performance really improved! no shit!

[one] Civic.xo

[Supernatural Pie]

Since i have Panther (my dad is a beta tester), my framerate improved from about usually 20-30 to about 30-66(!!) now.

Wow... that's quite a substantial increase. Good to know because I have just about the same system as you.



2 days left...

[tasty]

Tasty, why not just go back to pre release 7, when they were all free?
 

Oh yeah those were the days. Apple certainly is not is customer-friendly as they once were, but the again they are also much more financially sound than they were during those times. Unfortunately, the two may be connected.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Meh. You get plenty of updates for free within each version of OS X, and the upgrades that Apple does charge for are unequivocally UPgrades, with a host of improvements and refinements. I'm ok with paying Apple for a quality new version; it's a lot more agreeable than paying Microsoft for a new pack of bugs and shoddy design.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Unfortunately, the two may be connected.

Welcome to economics 101.  Today we will discuss the profitability, or lack thereof, in the classic argument of selling your product, or just giving it away for free.  

Methinks you can remove the "may" in your observation Tasty.  They figured out that the software business unit as a loss leader only works if it's a temporary loss leader, that hardware sales can't pay for that business unit too.

I'm actually amazed that tech support (apple care) is as good as it is with as little as they charge for the out of warranty work.

I'm still waiting for Apple to put out a whole new productivity suite (replace Appleworks), just so I can lose MS Office, and rid myself of everything from Redmond.  If Apple really wants to make some inroads to business, they need that and a Mac application that is compatible and competes with MS Access (Filemaker doesn't do it)

[Casper]

jus wondering typhy, how can i qualify for student discount? besides the obvious of course. do you have to be in college?

Quite simple, to tell Apple you go to UAS. ( University of Alaska Southeast ).

In my case, I used my mom's name ( she's a school teacher ).

u dont even have to be in highschool to get it...

[Bigpat]

Panther made quite a difference on my 400mhz TiBook.  Everything seems conisderably faster.