graphics card question

I believe the bigger problem is using Parallels to play games. You are running inside a virtual environment. You would be much better served using BootCamp and booting directly to Windows. You can still have Parallels run Windows when you desire, but you waste a ton of performance because you are running Windows inside of OSX. In BootCamp you will be able to update drivers and run latest DIrect X and graphics drivers for your card. In Parallels you are running Parallels drivers - totally different proposition. Works well, but is still emulation instead of native Windows. You will find that performance is highly improved booting into windows for gaming.

Rick

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,2037.0.html

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=15371811#post15371811

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365904

You can use PC cards and even have them work for you in Lion and later as well.

What card have you?

Admittedly, I went through this many months ago on my own MacPro. Was able to update all the Windows graphics card drivers and DirectX to gain full use of the 5870 I had installed. My knowledge of getting other cards up and properly running in Windows is limited by virtue of not having tested most of them.

My kid runs Battlefield3 and other such stuff easily.

I also ran Parallels on another MacPro with a lot less direct control over the final product. I don't even try and game on it.

Rick

#1 is you had to install graphic driver, Apple doesn't do enough. Same as with your PC.

Because you are talking about DirectX then you have Radeon. Get the AMD driver and rerun WEI to get a new performance rating. Post what it is now, and after unless it is already in the normal territory. AMD drivers though include a lot of optimizing for games which is one of the main changes (AMD will now provide just those small updates rather than the full driver refresh which tend to be 150MB in size).

And for gaming only you can put something else in there though I don't know what are the best today or how well they play with OS X. other forums do have that.

The hatter wrote:

#1 is you had to install graphic driver, Apple doesn't do enough. Same as with your PC.

Because you are talking about DirectX then you have Radeon. Get the AMD driver and rerun WEI to get a new performance rating. Post what it is now, and after unless it is already in the normal territory.

Agreed. You must do the entire update of ATI's Catalyst drivers. It works.. big download but fairly straightforward process.

Installing a higher end PC card has benefits, but lots of headaches to go with. Most of them are not supported well enough in OSX to be considered cross platform. Even those that are can bite you with an OSX update. If you go that route do your homework.

Mountain has as I see it one new feature, thanks to the MacBook Pro inclusion of Nvidia 650Ms and it seems native driver support for GTX 6xx's now. My suspicion was that the time line for us was off and also Nvidia yields, quantity to supply OEM and engineering. On Intel's side also. Left us in the dust.

Drivers for Windows and GTX 670/680 aren't "there" yet either, and history says it will take the lifespan of Moutain too... still waiting for an update to Lion to solve some graphic problem or two.

But it is possible to get OpenCL, OpenGL and CUDA on GTX 6's. CUDA 5 easier than CUDA 4.

The limit of 2x6-pins hurts a bit though. And buying a 2nd 5870 for Windows gaming only takes a good solid 450W PSU contraption as outlined earlier to get more feeds. An 8-pin to two 6-pins.... oh, if only therr were 1200W PSU and Apple had 8-pin in place of 6-pin to make life easier.