Battle.net

I have 2 Mac Pros one in Houston, TX and one in Chattanooga, TN they both are effected by the same problem. When I play custom games my performance suffers greatly. When I play standard games, i can use very high settings and still have great performance.

Specifically "Special Forces: Elite:" and also "Fleet Assault". Both are very popular at the moment. When the game starts everything is smooth, but near mid game I REALLY start to notice a performance hit.. it's gradually increasing. Near end game I usually quit because the performance is so terrible, 2fps or so. Even if I'm looking at virtually nothing on the screen and all my units are dead. I communicate with other players and they don't see the problem or lag like I do. I have all the video settings to the lowest when playing these maps and I still have the issues.

The same goes with Fleet Assault, I start off smooth, but quickly performance drops and my fps is so low the game isn't fun.

This is true with both my Mac Pro machines. They are both MacPro2,1 models so older generation ones. They have 16GB RAM, 2 quad-core processors at 3GHz, and updated video cards. TN = ATI Radeon HD 5870 TX = ATI Radeon HD 5770 (i think). I am running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on both.

My internet connection is fiber optics and generally runs at 30Mbps up and down. I am behind a router. Netgear mid level one. I port forwarded the recommended ports to this IP on my TN computer. I am plugged in via a rj-45.

Let me know if an additional info would help.

Really? It's usually the opposite for mac users right now. Melee games (ladder/custom) are creating huge lag issues for us.

"us" being Windows OS users?

Bentrix, do u like leave any external programs like Browsers open? Coz those take up alot of memory.

Also, are u using a laptop? If there's one thing i noticed, some players play on Power Saver mode, which cuts down your processing power by huge margin.

Hey Kildare, like I mentioned in my original post, these are Mac Pro machines so they are graphics workstations not laptops. I do sometimes have a browser open, sometimes not though. I guess I figured with the 16GB of ram, memory wouldn't be an issue. It doesn't seem dependent on what I have running in the background normally though, I do usually close everything I can though just in case.

Thanks for the suggestions

Play on low everything, if your computer can handle it being very high then just make models to high, and everything else low.
The graphics may not seem that good when you play on low, but I don't really have any problem playing with it and playing on med to high isn't that good in the first place. If your computer can handle ultra without that much lag, then go for it, but if not, then I say you should put everything on low.

You should also try updating your graphics card, or whatever core drivers you use.(Not sure how things work with MAC)

Your systems should be rocking on Ultra!! do each of your vid cards have at least 1 gb of memory? Even with something like online open in the background, those Mac Pro's are beast's. I don't understand either what is happening with your mac's. Let me know when you find out. I'm running a 27" imac 2.93 i7 with only 4 gb memory and Radeon HD 5750 1gb and rock most games. Maybe you should look into better cooling. Especially if its happening mid way thru gaming. I have an external fan i run in the back and it really helps. I have a friend of mine who has a similar set up like you have and he had to put an external fan on his too..Just my 2 pence!