Expert
who are these 'rental' machines from ??? -
I look after 18 in the UK and tend to rebuild from scratch if they've been out for a long time. Some shorter gigs only get 'cleaned' but thoroughly tested, and re-build if not up to spec and I;m not happy with them.....
1st advice is - Check all the settings and ensure that it is in optimal performance and that theres nothing else running in the BG. Also check the ATI panel settings and disk permissions....
Member
This is coming from a programmer who routinely gets Catalyst units from alll different vendors.
Some vendors are great and will do a good reinstall of everything after shows, others... not too much.
Personally what I've started doing is whenever I have a show I open up the mac, make sure everything is well seated, no connectors in side broke or damaged.
then I'll give the HDD a good once over to make sure there isn't anything excessive installed on the machine that could create conflicts.
Member
So when you " rebild " what all do you do ?
Cameron
Expert
Take the whole machine apart - check all the card serial numbers (make sure they are ours...) blow out all the dust - clean the fans, clean the case. Re-install cards, wipe content drive. in cases where other software has been installed. I wipe the system drive and re-install from a disk image I've created - it has the best optimised settings, and all relevant software and drivers installed etc. Output panels and scan converters etc usually need checking and some re-wiring
Now that V4 is comming along - I'm starting to build dual partition so still got option of either version (once v4 is properly released)
Then soak test it all for about 4 hours and check al outputs. Its a bit of a long process - but some of it gets done when the catalysts come back off jobs - so that theres a quick turn around when they go back out...
Developer
for file tearing try v3.31
this was caused by apple changing a graphics algorithm after 10.3.5
Member
So preferred versions are v3.31 running osx 10.3.5 ???
Cameron
Expert
Unfortunately 3.31 is still tearing. I just gave it a major workout on 10.3.9 and it still tears.
Haven't tried 10.3.3 + 3.31 yet but 3.3 is stable on 10.3.3.
My systems use dedicated OS X drives which I reformat on a regular basis and I am pretty religious about only having a basic install on these. I use external SATA RAIDS and have a second disk in the machine which I use to boot from if I need to edit onsite or use the G5 for something els.
Cheers
Toby
Expert
If you still have an 'old' style G5 and are lucky enough to be able to run 10.3.3 with all relevant updates - this is the most stable solution for V3.3 G21. However, If you have a 'newer' G5 which came with Tiger installed - you wont be able to downgrade back to 10.3.3 - so in this case - 10.3.9 with all relevant updates and V3.3 G21 is most stable. However, you will have to select 'slow disks' to get arround issues of catalyst crashing. (an open GL bug - i've been told....)
As for a stable platform to run v3.31 - in theory - the answer is 10.3.9 with all relevant updates and up to date ATI drivers etc. However, I havent had a chance to fully test this yet.... So I'll be sticking to 10.3.3 + V3.3 G21 until I can prove that v3.31 is show worthy and stable on 10.3.9. At the moment we're staying away from tiger...
Developer
you dont want to use 'slow disc' mode in 3.31 it kills performance. ( and in 3.3 )Originally Posted by Mr_P
it was a driver sync bug when a new movie loaded. related to other changes around 10.3.5
it is fixed in 3.31
Developer
it gets to be show worthy by people using it and reporting problems....apart from that there is no magic wand i can wave.
having to deal with the mulititude of endless hardware and software changes from apple the last year has been just about impossible.
this is an open platform - not fixed like a lighting console.
end users can install their own software and hardware.
there is no way that any more than a small number of configurations can ever be tested.
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