x-plane: macbook fps faster than mac pro :(

I have an 8 core 2.8 mac pro with 6g of ram and the 8800. I also have a new 2GHz macbook with 4g of ram. Whenever I play on my macpro I always think the fps should be better. I don't have the rendering settings very high but it seems like with that machine I should be able to run them high if I wanted to. Both machines have x-plane and last night I did a test; sitting at the same airport with EXACTLY the same rendering settings, resolution, weather etc my macbook gets about 10-12fps BETTER than my mac pro (38-40ish vs 28ish)....I just about cried. When I checked my activity monitor my macbook was using a higher % of its CPU resourses compared to the macpro yet the macbook still ran smoother. When I looked at the CPU window in activity monitor (on the macpro) it looked like only one (of 8) cores was doing much...isn't there a way to tell my x-plane or my mac to use as much CPU power as possible? Is there some sort of benchmark test to see if my macpro is running as fast as it should?
Sorry for the long post! Any help would be great, I can't stand the thought of having an 8 core MP that is slower than a little macbook...

Thanks so much for any help!

I'm not technically qualified to comment about the inner workings of X Plane, however, I would suggest you contact the folks at X Plane and see what they have to say.

There's no way the graphics and processor speed of the MacBook compares to your Mac Pro. Even though the new MacBook uses a better and faster nVidia chipset, it's not near as fast or powerful as the 8800 in your Pro.

Something's not right. Contact X Plane support and let us know.

Regards.

Vandura25 said:

I have an 8 core 2.8 mac pro /// When I looked at the CPU window in activity monitor (on the macpro) it looked like only one (of 8) cores was doing much...isn't there a way to tell my x-plane or my mac to use as much CPU power as possible?

Click to expand...

Darn Good Question, and I came here solely to post the same thing.

I always run my activity monitor in float mode to watch the 8 processors at work.
Converting a DVD the other day, you see all 8 busy at it in HandBrake at maybe 65-75 %.

So I dig out my X Plane that's been sitting in storage for 3 years, and I get the same thing, just one of the 8 at full tilt.

I have another issue using the 23" cinema/
The game parks itself in the upper left hand corner using maybe 47% of the screen.
I looked till my eyes balls deformed, and don't see an option for full screen.

Oh, and one more thing, My Joystick Extreme 3D Pro is the most unpro wrist breaker I have ever used.

I suppose isometrics isn't a bad thing, but killing the entire crew looks bad, and missed approaches look like a drunk sailor on an innertube.

I was going to go to X Plane and X plain, but There has to be magic in here hiding.
Thanks'

I have a similar problem. I play a quake 3 mod called Urban Terror and my 2.8 ghz iMac w/ an 8800 and 4gigs of ram gets ~60fps whereas my 2.4 ghz aluminum macbook gets around 90fps. I never ran activity monitor during game play to see how many cores I am using, but when I play the game in Windows on my iMac I constantly have 125 fps. FRUSTRATING!

Sorry for the late reply,
X-Plane will only run on two cores. As well as this, it is a 32-bit application, so processes half as much data per second than is possible on the Mac Pro (I believe). The X-Plane developers were considering a 64-bit version, but was never done. The Mac Pro might be faster if you upgraded to Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) is released, as it does integrate better on the 64-bit chips (correct me if I'm wrong, again).

Oscar

What resolutions are you running the game on, on the two different systems.

If you're running a higher resolution on the Mac Pro that might account for the frame rate discrepancy.

Also take a look at any vertical sync settings to see if those are the same between the systems.