Same problem here. The 10.6.4 update has slowed down my macbook pro 9600gt performance, i did notice graphic lags in a game called HoN which i usually played with high settings without any problem. I tried to repair permissions and reinstall the COMBO UPDATE but this didn't solve. Any advice?
Andrea
At least some of the people here may have a problem with smcFanControl. Contrary to popular belief, Apple does not publish the internal fan speed settings or temperatures in any public forum. This program may actually give you the effect of a dog chasing its tail. Instead, run the
hardware test that came with your Mac to verify there aren't any hardware faults with your Mac. They are on the prebundled discs. If they aren't, you are overreacting to the fan settings noisiness, or presumed overheating, and should let them stand where they are without third party software control. If you aren't using smcFanControl, and are still having issue, it may be an issue with your RAM*:
Different operating systems use RAM differently, and you can't make a perfect to spec RAM module all the time. This creates scenarios where updates appear to fail because of the RAM.
As for expecting a fix from Apple, it may be these third party developers haven't been following Apple's guidelines as well as they should. At least let them all know of the issue.
Allan, there apparently are some serious performance issues with the 10.6.4 update that appear to affect many games, including Valve's games, Portal, Half-Life 2, and Team Fortress 2. (Their forums are filled with users, including myself, with performance issues after this update).
The behavior and symptoms are somewhat odd. On a fresh startup of my system, I'll start a game of Team Fortress 2, and when playing with normal performance, I can see Activity Monitor showing that it's using around 140% of the processor(s) (meaning 100% of one core and 40% of another). In the game, I'll get around 60 fps.
Then, I go to watch TV or something, come back in a few hours and attempt to play the game again with same map, same settings, same everything, and performance is suddenly horrible. I notice in Activity Monitor that strangely, the game is only using like 60% - 70% of the CPU, and in game, I'm getting a visual lag that makes the game unplayable, and a measly 24 fps. (There's no other background process issue like Spotlight or anything like that, as I have Activity Monitor running 24/7/365 on my second monitor so I always know what's happening. Also, with this Nehalem 8 core, there's 16 virtual cores, so a total of 1600% CPU usage available to work with.)
Yet if I quit the game, restart my computer, and then try the game again, I get perfectly normal performance (at least at first).
Like I said, very weird. I've taken a Shark System Sample and sent it to one of the Valve Mac openGL guys; he may be able to provide some insight into what the underlying issue is (something with threading, is my guess).
Ive also experienced similar problems with half live ep2, since the 10.6.4 update
ive been experiencing graphic glitches and stuttery performance that makes the game unplayable.
Valve suggests contacting apple to resolve the issue, just where do you log a software call LOL, the only contact info i can find for support, is a US phone line, email for ipod problems and email for hardware problems. All i can find to log a software/OS issues is the user forums...
Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Interesting blame. Why didn't they pay attention to the developer seeds of 10.6.4 and test for them?
Developers have a whole bug reporting system they can enter comments about.
Either this means they can't afford to be part of the developer program at Apple, in which case, gamers need to buy their games more often to show them the importance of being part of the program, or they failed to test it thoroughly enough to see the issue before the update was released. Either way, be sure Valve is aware that they should post on
http://bugreporter.apple.com/ what they've noticed and say there is an issue.
Valve has been working closely with Apple in recent months to get their Source engine working on the Mac. Your assertion that Valve does not test for errors in a new OS seed is completely bogus. I have had graphics problems with the last two OS updates (10.6.3 and 10.6.4) on recent games, including Dragon Age, Torchlight, TF2 and Portal. The problems originate from Apple.
