Apple’s Enhanced OpenGL Stack Versus Linux

“While our primary focus at Phoronix is on providing Linux
benchmarks, we do enjoy trying out and benchmarking other operating
systems like FreeBSD, Solaris, and Mac OS X. When Apple originally
launched Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” we were the first to provide
detailed Mac OS X 10.6 benchmarks compared to Mac OS X 10.5 and
also how Apple’s new operating system at the time compared to
Linux. We have continued to monitor the performance of Snow Leopard
and found that some point releases had introduced some regressions
and we have compared the performance of Mac OS X 10.6 to Windows 7
and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. With Apple’s release last week of the “Snow
Leopard Graphics Update 1.0” that is reported to bring “stability
and performance fixes for graphics applications and games in Mac OS
X”, our interest was piqued and we set out to run a new set of
Apple OpenGL benchmarks. In this article we are looking at the
OpenGL performance of Mac OS X 10.6, 10.6.2, 10.6.3, 10.6.4, and
10.6.4 with this graphics update installed.

“Apple’s HT4286 support page for the 69MB package that is
designed to offer greater stability and performance fixes for
graphical applications list some of the basic details of this
update. This OS X graphics update is targeted for the Mac Mini,
MacBook, MacBookPro, iMac, and Mac Pro models that were
manufactured in 2009 and 2010. Effectively this update is just for
the Mac computers with NVIDIA or ATI graphics. This update is not
designed to improve the OpenGL performance or stability for the
older Macs that offer only Intel integrated graphics or older
graphics hardware that is already limited by its rendering
capabilities. This support page specifically mentions as fixing
frame-rate issues in Valve’s Portal and Team Fortress 2 games,
resolving a stability issue with the Apple Aperture 3 photo/imaging
application, and resolving image corruption issues when
hot-plugging displays. As has been widely reported now, one of the
key reasons for the Snow Leopard Graphics Update 1.0 is the release
of Valve’s Steam/Source Engine for Mac OS X.”

Complete Story