4x higher performance on integrated graphics over discrete.

I was a little disappointed that I was only getting about 30 FPS in half-life 2 on my 2011 macbook pro 15", but at some point I accidentally left gfxCardStatus set to "Integrated Only". Then, when I played the game, my FPS was consistently between 90-140fps with the same settings (everything maxed besides some filtering stuff). When I put it back to discrete, the FPS shot down. Why could I possibly get so much better performance on a theoretically inferior graphics processor? Also, this is the low end 15" with the crappy (but still supposedly better than integrated) graphics card.

Intel's integrated 3000 model graphics is optimized for the most common graphics operations, and has nearly direct access to memory and CPU. So, I'm not surprised that it can show better performance than discrete chips for such applications. In addition to getting great performance for those things, it gives you more battery time as well - a win-win situation to be sure. I'm sure that graphics gurus can easily find its weak points, though.

wheelguy12 said:

Intel's integrated 3000 model graphics is optimized for the most common graphics operations, and has nearly direct access to memory and CPU. So, I'm not surprised that it can show better performance than discrete chips for such applications. In addition to getting great performance for those things, it gives you more battery time as well - a win-win situation to be sure. I'm sure that graphics gurus can easily find its weak points, though.

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I also believe that the integrated GPU contains a dedicated instruction set for decoding and encoding video, which makes it as fast as some workstation cards in this area.

However, this begs the question-why did apple even waste the space to include a dedicated card if the integrated one blows it away in so many respects? Even if the graphics gurus can find its weak points, I doubt any graphics guru would say the low-end 15"'s card is worth the money.

What you're stating is quite the opposite from what bench marks show for certain other graphic intensive games. For example "Call of Duty". As a matter of fact, MacWorld magazine reported disappointment with the Intel HD 3000 because it did not perform as well as the previous GPU in the 2010 13" and 15" MBP machines.

chscag said:

What you're stating is quite the opposite from what bench marks show for certain other graphic intensive games. For example "Call of Duty". As a matter of fact, MacWorld magazine reported disappointment with the Intel HD 3000 because it did not perform as well as the previous GPU in the 2010 13" and 15" MBP machines.

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But did the new discrete graphics card perform any better than the old graphics?

wyager said:

But did the new discrete graphics card perform any better than the old graphics?

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The new discrete graphic cards in the MBP 15" and 17" series machines were reported to be faster. Again, that's according to the bench marks run by MacWorld magazine. They use "Call of Duty" for measuring the frame rate and overall "speed".

Check out all the bench marks on their site. I don't have the URL off hand or I would post it. They also had an article about the new MBPs in their last month's issue which also gave the bench marks.

chscag said:

The new discrete graphic cards in the MBP 15" and 17" series machines were reported to be faster. Again, that's according to the bench marks run by MacWorld magazine. They use "Call of Duty" for measuring the frame rate and overall "speed".

Check out all the bench marks on their site. I don't have the URL off hand or I would post it. They also had an article about the new MBPs in their last month's issue which also gave the bench marks.

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How odd... I wonder if the source engine takes advantage of resources not available on the discrete ATI cards? Source and IW engines are both old, but I wouldn't be surprised if Valve re-did a lot of stuff in source to port it to OS X.

I think you put your finger on the answer - it depends on the details of the test that is run. If the test includes computations that are not handled by the HD3000, but are handled by the external graphic chip...

It may take some time before most games move to the HD3000 instruction set, but given that Intel is pushing it, they will have to eventually do so.

wheelguy12 said:

I think you put your finger on the answer - it depends on the details of the test that is run. If the test includes computations that are not handled by the HD3000, but are handled by the external graphic chip...

It may take some time before most games move to the HD3000 instruction set, but given that Intel is pushing it, they will have to eventually do so.

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I actually meant the opposite of this... I believe that the HD3000 can do things that the discrete ATI card can NOT do. Either that or Valve neglected to offer full support for ATI cards for some reason.