SDI Video Input and Layer Playback Performance

I have Catalyst v3.3 on a dual 2Ghz on Mac OS 10.3.9. I was on 10.3.3 but there appears to be a bug in the Aurora Pipe driver installer that forced us to upgrade. I have a SCSI 2nd drive set up with a Maxtor 15K drive and two SDI video input cards, one Decklink and one Aruora.
If I am playing one QT mov at 720x540, Photo-Jpeg Med movie, I get playback at 30fps. If I turn on at Catalyst one video input, playback on that layer drops to 25fps, and turning on the the 2nd Catalyst video input drops playback rate even further.
I need to keep both video inputs on to switch between cameras and content. What should I be looking for either at the Mac or at the card drivers, to keep my performance at it's best?

its possible you have hit the graphics card bug that appeared after 10.3.5-

what is the graphics performance showing in the statistics HUD - when you do these operations?

And how many monitors do you have connected - and at what resolution are they running at?

graphics performance in the statistics HUD

HUD1 1.1-2
HUD2 0

Monitors:
Monitor 1: 800x600 mix of layers 1-3 w/fx
Monitor 2: 1024x768 sep. no fx

I so wish I could go back to 10.3.3 but the Aurora bug makes this impossible now. The machines are now going in transit to a preprogramming location and I can do further work on them tomorrow night (Sunday NYC time by 4pm).
Any thoughts, I will put into action then and can continue on Monday.
Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Laura

graphics performance in the statistics HUD

HUD1 1.1-2
HUD2 0

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the overall graphics performance shown at the bottom of the hud its a percentage.

indicate what it is with one movie playing, with video input 1 on and video input 2 on.

[QUOTE=Laura]Monitor 1: 800x600 mix of layers 1-3 w/fx
Monitor 2: 1024x768 sep. no fx

/QUOTE]

suggest you set both monitors to the same resolution- this was part of the problem after 10.3.5

try both monitors set to 800x600 and then both monitors set to 1024x768.
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do not use the catalyst gui to do this.
make sure that catalyst is not set to change the screen size at startup of catalyst-

quit catalyst and set these display resolutions to be the same on both monitors using the system preferences - then as an extra precaution reboot the computer.
repeat at other resolution.

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the problem is potentially related to issues that 1024x768 and 800x600 do not run at the exact same frequency - you would think they both run at 60.00HZ - . No they dont. at 1024x768 the display runs at 60.02Hz, and at 800x600 the display runs at something like 59.97Hz.
Very confusing, but this can and doees affect the performance of catalyst, which gets very confused by the slightly different refresh rates on each monitor

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samsc

the problem is potentially related to issues that 1024x768 and 800x600 do not run at the exact same frequency - you would think they both run at 60.00HZ - . No they dont. at 1024x768 the display runs at 60.02Hz, and at 800x600 the display runs at something like 59.97Hz.
Very confusing, but this can and doees affect the performance of catalyst, which gets very confused by the slightly different refresh rates.

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and there is an additional bug that is still not fixed by apple which does not report the correct frequency with these screens. when they run at different sizes

Well I'm happy to report that between the ATI driver and the adjustments to the screen outputs, and other tweeks to the SDI card drivers (turning off desktop preview, etc) I am getting smooth playback of two layers, one at 30fps and the 2nd at 28-30fps.
Graphics performance at the HUD is reported at 100% with the occasional small drop that comes back up to 100% before I can read what it is.
Are there other elements I could watch out for too boost performance at all?
Laura

Ooops, spoke too soon. There seems to be a conflict between the ATi system pref of "Vertical Sync" on and the SDI cards. If the SDI cards are off at the Catalyst Control window and Vertical Sync is on, I get good playback. If Vertical Sync is on and the SDI cards off, good playback. Turn all on, big problem.