Questions about 9600 and drivers with OSX

I'll try to make it as brief as I can. I've been a Windows/PC user all my life, never cared about OSX, but I've been considering picking up a unibody 17" when it comes out sometime next year and I would assume it would have the same 9600 and not something more powerful. So...

1) How does the drivers work on OSX? Do I still pick up the new ones from laptopvideo2go or am I forced to stick with stock Apple drivers? (This is not taking bootcamp into consideration though I know I can go that route.)

2) The only game I really play consistently is World of Warcraft. I do NOT expect games like Crysis to even run smooth at medium with native res (I'd assume native on the 17" is 1920x1200). So my question is, for those who've experimented with different configs, does WoW run better with say, a 2.8 core2duo with a 9600, or a 1.6 core2duo with a 8800gts (my gatewayfx 6831)?

3) Lastly, since I don't see too many benchmarks around for the 9600, how does it compare to say...my old 7800m GTX, or my current 8800m GTS? I may want to try out some new games like the upcoming GTA4 in settings higher than all minimum with some super small resolution. I'd assume it'd fall somewhere in between, and if it does, would it be closer to the 7800 or the 8800?

Thanks to you all!

 

You don't need to worry about drivers.

WoW will run better with the 8800GTS, although it will run very well with the 9600GT. Note that the 17" MBP comes with a 8600GT.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=302231

 

Hmm, don't need to worry about drivers? Don't the newer drivers sometimes fix issues with some of the newer games? Or does OSX handle it totally differently or something? And in this case, I am referring to installing WoW on OSX instead of Windows.

As for the 9600 in the 17" mbp, I was referring to the next version that isn't out yet. Most likely it'll have the same gpu as in the 15". Just my guess but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same.

 

WoW will run fine under OS X, and there are no 3rd party drivers for most Mac components anyway. Don't forget that OS X attempts to be as user friendly as possible, which means less driver fiddling and troubleshooting (less customization as well).

 

Alright, I'll have to get used to the idea that I can't get the latest drivers for "improved performance" but thanks for the answer mr. leek. (I think that's a leek in your avatar)

 

As great as OS X is, this is one area that they should open up to the vendors of there hardware. ATI and Nvidia are doing a great job of this in Linux and had made a big deal of progress in a lot of areas. This would greatly benefit OS X in a lot of ways without compromising it in any way.

 

In OS X, all graphics driver development goes through Apple since OpenGL is a core part of the operating system. The UI has long been accelerated by the GPU and the Core Image and Core Video APIs are also GPU accelerated and are used in a number of Apple and third party applications, so stability and compatibility of graphic card drivers is critical. Not that Apple is perfect with graphics card drivers, but that is there likely reasoning for maintaining control of graphics card drivers.

In terms of updates, every point update (it. 10.5.x) also includes new graphics card drivers. That is generally sufficient in OS X since the release of AAA games that demand immediate graphics driver tweaks isn't that common. WoW is a pretty old game now so it'd imagine the drivers are already well optimized so it probably doesn't matter. It's interesting that WoW seems to be one of the few, maybe only, game that has been specifically mentioned in the change list of a point update (in 10.4.9).

For graphics drivers in Windows for Boot Camp, it's just like any other laptop so you'll have to use drivers from laptopvideo2go. Apple updates Boot Camp very infrequently (currently there are trackpad issues with the Unibody drivers), and even when they do, the graphics drivers aren't usually the latest versions.

In terms of the 9600M GT being in the 17" MBP, I sadly have to agree that'll likely be the case. Apple usually keeps all MBPs in a generation on the same GPU since they don't have the volumes for just the 17" model to justify sourcing a separate GPU. It'll have at least 512MB of GDDR3 though, which is something since most manufacturers just put DDR2 on their mid-range GPUs, so Apple's is faster than most 9600M GT. And the GPU in the 17" MBP has also been clocked faster than in the 15" MBP in all previous cases for both the X1600 and the 8600M GT. In fact, the 8600M GT in the 17" MBP was actually clocked faster than nVidia spec (probably to spite people who always complain Apple underclocks their GPUs), and was somewhere in between a 8600M GT and the 8700M GT. This also means that Apple better clock the 9600M GT faster in the new 17" MBP otherwise the old 8600M GT in the current 17" MBP will be right on top of it.

 

Yeap, it'd be sad if previous gen 8600 is about on par with the newest gpu. But hopefully Apple will pull through with not only aesthetics but also performance in comparison with their previous line. And yea, WoW is like the only game that Macs have that PC users also play. Wait, I think Steam can also be included, not sure.

 

i've found that WoW runs better in windows on a mac than in OS X itself. so go ahead and install XP or even Vista on your mac, even if you plan on only playing games that are native or have been ported to OS X.

that way, you will be able to use the latest laptopvideo2go drivers as well. works great for me.

and there are MANY games available for OS X, a lot more than just WoW and steam games.

 

Yes there are quite a few games that are cross-platform multiplayer compatible. They include names like all the Call of Duty (1, 2, 4), the Battlefields (1942 and 2142), all the Quakes including Quake Wars, all Blizzard's games, all the Unreal Tournaments, Halo, Ghost Recon, etc. The main multiplayer games that aren't available in OS X are the Source Engine ones, but those are doable via CrossOver.

 

Good stuff, never knew so many games were native on OSX. So if I am to get better performance going the windows route, I'd assume I should install XP over Vista right? Question is, where do I get all the drivers for windows? (This is assuming I do bootcamp instead of VMware) Windows needs drivers for everything, be it network, audio, etc. And when you bootcamp, to my understanding you are rebooting the computer and loading a totally different os, so OSX won't be supplying the sound in the background.

 

The Leopard DVD / bootcamp dvd has all the drivers needed for xp/vista.

 

Yes, just insert the Leopard DVD that comes with the MBP and it'll autorun like a standard Windows installer. It'll install everything you need, but you'll probably want to install your own graphics drivers afterword.

Just to note, for the new unibody models, only the Leopard DVD that came with notebook will work. The BootCamp 2.1 available for download on Apple's website is older and don't have the right drivers, as is any Leopard DVD you buy at retail, so they won't work.

 

Even more cool. I wouldn't have imagined that Apple would supply Windows drivers. And what you're saying is, the latest version of BootCamp will run fine, but use drivers with the OS dvd.

 

The Leopard DVD that comes with the Unibody computers is the latest version is as the only one that will work.

 

Okay dokay, will do.

 

My friend use the latest Realtek drivers for the sound card from there website. For the Video, we used the latest drivers from Nvidia and forced the 9600 GT and it works great and games ran a little smoother.

 

When you say forced I assume you mean you downloaded a modded inf file and "forced" it that way.

As for latest audio drivers, does it really matter? I can't imagine how much performance gains there'd be.

 

I just downloaded the latest drivers from Nvidia that are for a 9 series cards and then I used the driver thingy and told it to use the 9600 GT driver.

As for the sound it wont make any performance difference but a newer driver could eliminate a potential crash. To me the new the better.