GMA X3100 Driver!!!

if there are updates to the video drivers, they are usually released with the 10.5.x updates. if you are still running 10.5.2, this could be part of the problem.

Make sure you have current backups of ALL data before trying anything. Not sure what all you do with your system, but running some maintainence such as repair permissions & disk repair, finish off by installing the 10.5.7 combo update + any others that show up via Software Update.

How to - Disk Repair & permissions: http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=3810
10.5.7 combo update: http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_7_ComboUpdate

what animations or files are you having problems with? how much ram is installed?

can you cite some additional sources or complaints on this please? I have a black macbook (late 2007) sitting in my laptop bag right now. It's not used everyday but haven't noticed any specific issues.

Message was edited by: kmac1036

I have the GMA X3100 graphics chipset in my MacBook (Late 2007). I don't have the problems you're talking about. Expose and dock scrolling are plenty smooth for me. My computer has 1GB of RAM.

As kmac1036 suggested, I think you should try doing some maintenance on your machine.

Did Apple upgrade the RAM to 4GB for you or did you do that yourself after purchase? If you upgraded yourself, do you still have the old modules? Try running the computer with the old modules to see if performance improves.

~Lyssa

My results aren't any better than yours... but comparing to the results on my MBP with the 9600M (crappy compared to an x1600 in an iMac from 2006!!!!), I'm leaning towards the Open GL implementation in OSX. the OS itself doesn't use it in the GUI, as it's Aqua / Quartz. It seems like the ATI cards do really well, even the old ones, at getting really good GL benches.


Results 75.45
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.6 (9G2030)
Physical RAM 1024 MB
Model MacBook3,1
Drive Type FUJITSU MHZ2120BH G1
CPU Test 137.08
GCD Loop 256.45 13.52 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 123.43 2.93 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 101.23 3.34 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 136.98 23.85 Mops/sec
Thread Test 205.10
Computation 194.57 3.94 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 216.84 9.33 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 148.97
System 156.11
Allocate 211.57 776.95 Kalloc/sec
Fill 133.71 6501.25 MB/sec
Copy 142.63 2945.94 MB/sec
Stream 142.45
Copy 134.61 2780.39 MB/sec
Scale 135.71 2803.80 MB/sec
Add 150.23 3200.23 MB/sec
Triad 150.90 3228.15 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 173.73
Line 160.43 10.68 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 205.57 61.37 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 165.51 13.49 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 163.77 4.13 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 180.66 11.30 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 22.86
Spinning Squares 22.86 28.99 frames/sec
User Interface Test 292.50
Elements 292.50 1.34 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 47.70
Sequential 64.51
Uncached Write 86.51 53.11 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 84.77 47.96 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 34.95 10.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 99.67 50.09 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 37.84
Uncached Write 14.28 1.51 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 88.11 28.21 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 67.53 0.48 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 104.75 19.44 MB/sec [256K blocks]

The Apple drivers for the GMA X3100 don't provide the same features and performance as the windows drivers. E.g., they only support OpenGL 1.2, while in Vista it's OpenGL 2.0 and XP at least OpenGL 1.4. AFAIR, there were also performance issues which got better with 10.5.2, but it's still not on par with the windows drivers.

Chris.by wrote:
The Apple drivers for the GMA X3100 don't provide the same features and performance as the windows drivers. E.g., they only support OpenGL 1.2, while in Vista it's OpenGL 2.0 and XP at least OpenGL 1.4. AFAIR, there were also performance issues which got better with 10.5.2, but it's still not on par with the windows drivers.

It's funny though, because I just ran the OpenGL Extensions Viewer from Realtech-VR under 10.5.8 with my GMA X3100 Macbook. On the OpenGL page of the program, it reads out which features are supported by the Apple OpenGL Driver for GMA X3100:

OpenGL 1.1 (100% - 7/7)
OpenGL 1.2 (100% - 8/8)
OpenGL 1.3 (88% - 8/9)
OpenGL 1.4 (93% - 14/15)
OpenGL 1.5 (100% - 3/3)
OpenGL 2.0 (100% - 10/10)
OpenGL 2.1 (100% - 3/3)
OpenGL 3.0 (24% - 6/25)
OpenGL 3.1 (14% - 1/7)

I'm not sure it can be read that way, but it looks like only *two functions are missing for full OpenGL 2.1 support*, namely GL ARBmultisample and GL ARB_pointparameters. The program even runs 2.1 tests perfectly, but some programs won't launch because they require 1.3 or higher.

Message was edited by: henrikmk

the x3100s run ok for me... I think you are having other issues with the OS. So either run the maintainence items I suggested, reinstall the OS & software, or sell it for an upgraded machine.

How are you getting the 20 fps figure? I'd like to see how mine does in comparison, more for curiosity's sake than anything. Things look perfectly fine for me.

~Lyssa

maybe try cinebench: http://www.maxon.net/index.php?id=162&L=0

might be bad ram??? test it too as the Intel GMA chips use shared system memory. http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php