Mac Pro 3.1 : Fighting the Bottleneck. Help Please

Joined
Mar 14, 2007
Messages
19
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Pro 3.1
Hi all,

Specs: I'm running bootcamp on a Mac Pro 3.1 in Windows 7. The system is the dual core 3.1 model @2.8 ghz, 16 gb ram and a newly installed Nvidia GTX 970 graphics card. I was previously running a GTX 760 Ti "factory overclocked edition".

Problem: 760 card was good to me but seemed to hover around 30-35 fps on any game I played for over a year. This week I installed the GTX 970 thinking the framerate issue would be solved. Obviously I'm an idiot. The GTX 970 is locked at the same 30 fps on just about anything graphically intensive. This is after verifying the graphics drivers are good and so far as I can tell, operating normally.

The Question: After doing as much research as google will allow me or my feeble conceptualization of query words, I cannot find anything about running the GTX 970 in bootcamp to get around what I have come to know as "the bottleneck". While I have a rudimentary understanding of "the bottleneck" it seems like every context this is mentioned in threads where mac pro's and graphics cards collide is in OS X and not bootcamp and almost immediately thereafter is a commenter telling the OP to install bootcamp. I want to believe that installing boot camp offers options around this, software or otherwise.

So. Is there a work around for this bottle neck without having to build a new computer? I've had this old thing for eight years nearly and I'm pretty fond of it.
Please help!
 

pigoo3

Well-known member
Staff member
Admin
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
44,210
Reaction score
1,418
Points
113
Location
U.S.
Your Mac's Specs
2017 15" MBP, 16gig ram, 1TB SSD, OS 10.15
I don't know much about the video cards you mentioned. I do know that the Radeon 5770 and Radeon 5870 were/are pretty powerful video cards. Personally if I was to install one of these I would get the Apple/Mac version (but they can be a little bit pricey). There are Windows versions as well (which are much less expensive). And since you have experience with Windows video cards in your Mac Pro…you could give them a try…and hopefully get better than 30fps in your computing tasks.

- Nick
 
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
25,564
Reaction score
486
Points
83
Location
Blue Mountains NSW Australia
Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
What Windows 7? Important the 64bit version installed.
 
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
Messages
117
Reaction score
1
Points
18
Location
The Netherlands
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook Pro 16 inch 2,6Ghz I7 - MacPro 5,1 3,2Ghz-6Core Xeon
The 970 is waaaaaay better than an 5770 or 5870:). Normally when speaking about a 'Bottleneck' means when for example your cpu is a lot more powerful than your gpu. In this case your cpu is bottlenecking your 970 a bit indeed. But i don't think this is the issue since your cpu should be powerful enough. I have the same issues when gaming on mac. My framerate won't go higher than 30fps as if it is locked there. So yes installing a copy of Windows 7 64 bit will definitely help with gaming. once you've done that you should be playing the newest titles at high 60fps ;).

Edit: I did not see you already had W7 installed (Derp) Are you running w7 64 bit though?
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top