Some Things are Still Better on 10.5???

[ajmaudio]

Been doing tons of testing while I have machines and time available and came across something fun... When running 10.6 on my late 2008 machines(all I have) I get very unstable behavior of gpu and disk usage IF i have video inputs turned on. The gpu usage and disk usage will randomly go through a couple of seconds of HUGE spiking during which time most active layers will drop a few frames. If I run 10.5 on same machine running same exact content off of same drive etc etc I have no issues whatsoever. I have also noticed this on other machines in the past year but didnt know what to attribute this weird behavior to until now. Turning off the video inputs causes this to go away in 10.6. Everything was identical in the test setup... Anyone else noticed this or have any input?? I would love to use 10.6 more as it performs MUCH better save this issue which makes the extra layer playback capacity of 10.6 a moot point if one is using video input.

[SourceChild]

Yep, I have noticed this on 2008 machines. I don't see it on 2009 machines though.

[ajmaudio]

thats just great.... would you say that you have played with this enough to call that a certainty? I wonder what the deal is/can it be solved

[samsc]

Been doing tons of testing while I have machines and time available and came across something fun... When running 10.6 on my late 2008 machines(all I have) I get very unstable behavior of gpu and disk usage IF i have video inputs turned on. The gpu usage and disk usage will randomly go through a couple of seconds of HUGE spiking during which time most active layers will drop a few frames. If I run 10.5 on same machine running same exact content off of same drive etc etc I have no issues whatsoever. I have also noticed this on other machines in the past year but didnt know what to attribute this weird behavior to until now. Turning off the video inputs causes this to go away in 10.6. Everything was identical in the test setup... Anyone else noticed this or have any input?? I would love to use 10.6 more as it performs MUCH better save this issue which makes the extra layer playback capacity of 10.6 a moot point if one is using video input.

not enough information about system you are using to determine anything
what you are seeing is a sign that you are trying to do something the computer simply cannot handle

computer resources are not infinite

the more stuff i add to software - the easier it becomes to break it.

to make any sense of this - you need to test up from nothing - nothing happening - and then add one thing at the time- and see what happens- then you have determined the limits-

That is - you dont turn everything on at once - and say - "It doesnt work"
you turn one thing on at a time - with everything off at first
you try video input on its own.
Then you can video input and 1 layer
etc etc



Just because i let you do something - does not mean it works.
There is nothing at all i can do to make any specific machine do more than its telling you it can do
the limits dont come from me - they come from the specific thing you are trying to do - and how this works on this machine

[ajmaudio]

I think if you reread my post you will see that it is not at all a resource thing.. its OS related. I have tested this quite a bit. It makes no difference how many videos I am playing or of what size. basically if you are running a couple layers of stuff in cat and then enable say a few lfg inputs... and dont even assign them to a layer... the GPU usage will become very unstable and periodically go through bouts of huge spikes for a few seconds causing frame drops etc... this can happen while only using a small percentage of available gpu. This is ONLY IN SNOW LEOPARD.... if I play the exact same videos and turn on the inputs on the same machine in LEOPARD this problem no longer exists... it will run perfectly stable. To satisfy your question about my system:

late 2008 octo core 3.2ghz macpro
8GB ram
8800gt gpu
m257
intel X25mG2 160gb ssd

Once again this happens in instances where playback is in no way demanding on the machine. I have now encountered this on my machines and others.

[samsc]

I think if you reread my post you will see that it is not at all a resource thing.. its OS related. I have tested this quite a bit. It makes no difference how many videos I am playing or of what size. basically if you are running a couple layers of stuff in cat and then enable say a few lfg inputs... and dont even assign them to a layer... the GPU usage will become very unstable and periodically go through bouts of huge spikes for a few seconds causing frame drops etc... this can happen while only using a small percentage of available gpu. This is ONLY IN SNOW LEOPARD.... if I play the exact same videos and turn on the inputs on the same machine in LEOPARD this problem no longer exists... it will run perfectly stable. To satisfy your question about my system:

late 2008 octo core 3.2ghz macpro
8GB ram
8800gt gpu
m257
intel X25mG2 160gb ssd

Once again this happens in instances where playback is in no way demanding on the machine. I have now encountered this on my machines and others.

thats a little more information - thanks-
you didnt say what video inputs you were using- or how you were using them- which makes it impossible to figure out anything

exactly which OS version? Snow Leopard is not specific enough either.

thanks

[samsc]

thats a little more information - thanks-
you didnt say what video inputs you were using- or how you were using them- which makes it impossible to figure out anything

exactly which OS version? Snow Leopard is not specific enough either.

thanks

but to speed up this thread-

there have started to be problems observed with 10.6.4- ( which is why the exact version is necessary )

poor playback/graphics performance in 10.6.4 observed on 4870 but not GT120- so its graphics driver dependant-

there are internet reports of similar things - but i saw it myself last week with a dutch system
http://boardreader.com/thread/Snow_Leopard_10_6_4_graphic_problem_5p2wzX1gvkb.ht ml

Apple is rushing out some graphics driver fix thing - but its not public yet.

Looks like something got broken in 10.6.4

[samsc]

Yep, I have noticed this on 2008 machines. I don't see it on 2009 machines though.

there is an evolving ( not fully determined ) graphics driver problem with 10.6.4 in some but not all systems

[ajmaudio]

Hey.. thanks for the fast replies... sorry I didnt give u the version.. it is the current version..10.6.4. as far as what I am doing with the inputs it doesnt seem to matter.. Just having them on does it. Assigning to a layer etc appears to have no effect. I dont recall if having the global video enabled with no inputs actually digitizing caused the same problem. I can get back to you on this in a couple days if you wish. I was using LFG cards for input.

I will downgrade one of my OS drives to 10.6.3 if I have the time on upcoming gig this week. Seems like the best way to confirm or eliminate this Apple issues as the actual issue here.

What else can I provide u with?

[samsc]

Hey.. thanks for the fast replies... sorry I didnt give u the version.. it is the current version..10.6.4. as far as what I am doing with the inputs it doesnt seem to matter.. Just having them on does it. Assigning to a layer etc appears to have no effect. I dont recall if having the global video enabled with no inputs actually digitizing caused the same problem. I can get back to you on this in a couple days if you wish. I was using LFG cards for input.

I will downgrade one of my OS drives to 10.6.3 if I have the time on upcoming gig this week. Seems like the best way to confirm or eliminate this Apple issues as the actual issue here.

What else can I provide u with?

might be the graphics problem in 10.6.4 then

there is no way to confirm or eliminate

suggest dual partition with 10.6.0 on one - partition - see if this makes problem go away. keep 10.6.4 partition on disc
dont know which snow leopard version started this potential problem

[SourceChild]

Apple just started Seeding developer builds of 10.6.5. The are asking testers to focus on certain things. Two specifically are 3D graphics and quicktime.

This information is based off of preliminary discussion but there are no details on what things in QT or 3d graphics.

However, based on noise around tech forums, there's a hope there might be a fix.

Please do not take this information as fact. However, optimistically 10.6.5 might have solutions that will help us with our problems.