 Apple released a patch for Mac OS X 10.6.4 called “Snow Leopard Graphics Update.” The update addresses an issue with two popular games, Starcraft II and Team Fortress 2, as well as an issue that can cause Aperture 3 to crash.
Products Affected:
MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009), MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010), iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009), Mac Pro (Early 2009), Mac mini (Early 2009), Mac OS X 10.6.4, Mac mini (Mid 2010), iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010), iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010), Portal, StarCraft II, Team Fortress 2.
Only three changes were listed for this update, among them one which “addresses frame rate issues occurring in Portal and Team Fortress 2 from Valve” on a number of recent Macs with graphics cards from ATI or Nvidia. Our Macworld lab ninjas should be able to go hands-on with testing next week, but a source at ATI reached out to explain just how significant of an update this is for Mac gaming.
The screenshot below from Flickr user Andrew Durdin (used with permission) illustrates Portal performance improvements by comparing them between Windows 7 and Mac OS X before and after the Snow Leopard Graphics Update. Durdin saw frame rates either double or triple while running Portal at 2560 by 1440 resolution with high quality settings on a 27-inch 2.66GHz quad-core Core i5 iMac with a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4850. The resulting frame rates are much, much closer to performance parity with the Windows version, and well within respectable, playable thresholds.
With these developments in mind, and considering the massive gains of this graphics performance update, the Mac's gaming future looks pretty bright. I don’t think anyone besides the most zealous of your gaming friends could blame you for getting your shades ready.
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