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Mac OSX Performance Windows vs OSX

Hi everyone,
In this thread I'd like people to share knowledge and links on the how these two systems differ in performance, as well as any tricks to get OSX games to perform similarly to PC games. I find these to be very arbitrary, so I think collecting all our experience here would be a great resource. Remember this is for Windows and OSX only, because I think of these as the essential platforms for indie devs.

Issue today: drawing many sprites runs slower on OSX (need to test more/could be graphics card on my mac)
One game had a persistent room which seemed to slow down the rest of the game on OSX but not Windows.

Edit: This isn't to troubleshoot my current issues, but to find share experiences.

Edit: going to run tests on YYC soon.
 
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Coded Games

Member
What are the specs like on the computer running OS X? There will be a slight difference between operating systems since OS X doesn't have DirectX but I think the difference in specs between your two computers will play a much bigger role in performance.
 
What are the specs like on the computer running OS X? There will be a slight difference between operating systems since OS X doesn't have DirectX but I think the difference in specs between your two computers will play a much bigger role in performance.
Yes in my case my specs are much worse on my mac. I really only purchased it for baking apps, but i do see performace differences when testing on friends computers.
Mac: running el capitan 4gb ram, 2.6ghz core 2 duo. and nvidia geforce 8600m GT 256 MB
PC: windows 10, 8gb ram, i5 processor, intel hd graphics 5500
 
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Starz0r

Guest
GameMaker is mainly CPU dependent unless you are using the 3D functions and or drawing sprites manually. Looking here, depending on what i5 you have, it shouldn't really bottleneck GameMaker's performance, but seeing that your Mac has a Intel Core 2 Duo, it's safe to say that it's probably the part that is causing performance to slow down. If you have Studio Pro and the YYC for Mac, you can try compiling with YYC and see if it makes a difference.
 
GameMaker is mainly CPU dependent unless you are using the 3D functions and or drawing sprites manually. Looking here, depending on what i5 you have, it shouldn't really bottleneck GameMaker's performance, but seeing that your Mac has a Intel Core 2 Duo, it's safe to say that it's probably the part that is causing performance to slow down. If you have Studio Pro and the YYC for Mac, you can try compiling with YYC and see if it makes a difference.
Hey thanks for the advice. It nudged me to do more research on the YY compiler. I do have Pro : )
 
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Starz0r

Guest
What you said was rubbish.

[edit]
My bad. It has been pointed out to me that Starz0r was the one talking rubbish. :)
You didn't even explain how I'm wrong, you made one of the most absurd responses I've seen so far. First off, this is not rubbish, in my research, GameMaker 8 compiled games are heavily CPU dependent, while I haven't done the same research for GameMaker: Studio, I can only assume so far it's true. Unless you care to prove me wrong. :^)
 
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Starz0r

Guest
It is rubbish. ;)

It is entirely dependent on how your game is coded.

If your game is logic heavy - CPU bound
If it is graphically heavy - GPU bound
If it is well balanced - equal load.

GM doesn't just tax the CPU for the sake of it.
I never specifically said that, I said that unless you are using 3D or Drawing Sprites manually you really won't have any problem with what ever GPU is plugged in. Most GameMaker games are Logic Heavy anyway, so I'm not sure what you mean by Graphically Heavy? GameMaker can write a lot of sprites to the screen without much problem usually because they won't be bigger than 256x256, which are rare cases. I see GameMaker struggling more to render many tilesets and backgrounds efficiently without any problems.
 
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NPT

Guest
This whole topic is ludicrous and based on a false premise.

The OP compares performance between a PC and a Mac:
Mac: running el capitan 4gb ram, 2.6ghz core 2 duo. and nvidia geforce 8600m GT 256 MB
PC: windows 10, 8gb ram, i5 processor, intel hd graphics 5500
The Mac specs suggest it was released around 2009 and the PC around 2015. There is light years difference in performance and this is what he's using to attempt to compare Studio's performance on the different OSes.

Sadly, the OP (and anyone with a Mac} already has an environment where they could create a near perfect environment.
Create executables for OS X (both vm and YYC), create executables for Windows (both vm and YYC).
Run them under OS X, measure them.
Reboot the Mac using Bootcamp.
Run them under Windows.

Now you're comparing the differences between the executables on identical hardware. Now you actually can start drawing conclusions.
 
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