iMac G4/800: Low video performance in Panther?

Veljo

Veljo

Mac Enthusiast
I don't understand what's going on with Panther. I mean, I used to have 256MB RAM in my iMac: in iTunes if you turn 'Cap frame rate at 30 fps' off it used to do a minimum of like 45 frames per second. Now, after my install to Panther, it jumps between 14 and 27. And this is with my extra 512MB RAM chip now too (I have 768MB RAM). Not only that, but jumping opening apps in the Dock don't bounce smoothy, and when you click on a system preference in System Preferences when the window resizes and fades it does so very chunky. Also, when I use fast user switching with the spinning cube it doesn't run too smooth. Minimizing windows is 100% smooth and wonderful, though after using my system for about 3 hours minimizing becomes chunky too, even with nothing open. What's going on? I feel like my CPU is 700MHz slower, all this with triple my RAM!

I read somewhere that Panther ships with dodgy nVIDIA drivers but I'm not sure. Any thoughts on my situation?

P.S. Apart from this Panther absolutely rocks!
 
Did you do an upgrade install? Some people are having problems after the "upgrade" a Jaguar installation, rather than doing an "Archive & Install" or a clean install.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Did you do an upgrade install? Some people are having problems after the "upgrade" a Jaguar installation, rather than doing an "Archive & Install" or a clean install.
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I formatted and then installed it fresh. I even tried installing it onto my other partition this morning thinking it was a dodgy installation but it's no different.

Any ideas? It's really bugging me.
 
Took the extra 512MB RAM out, nothing. The system just runs a little slower. Any other ideas? Surely my 32MB DDR video card can't be that slow already!?

Even dragging thing into the Dock proves chunky.
 
Strange and surely NOT normal! Anyways, what other apps, games, haxies, etc. are you installing after Panther's install? Also, what other hardware devices are you using? Try to remove/unplug everything but keyboard and mouse and then format and install Panther...
 
it could be a flaky NV driver...but nvidia doesn't provide any drivers and digging through apples support site didn't reveal anything...hmm
 
I thought it was really weird too. Just to make sure I installed Jaguar back onto my other partition to see if the same thing happens. iTunes' visualizer does its normal 45-50 frames per second in Jaguar, but every once in a while it jumps back to 20 or so now; it especially chunks when the song name and artist fade away. It seems like ever since I installed Panther now that even Jaguar doesn't run well, even after a fresh format.

As for any devices that I have installed, I have nothing. Only my keyboard, mouse and pro speakers. I don't run any haxies at all, I like running a clean system, so all I have installed are apps like Photoshop, DVD Studio Pro 2, Office, etc.

And by the way, I've installed Panther 6 times now. Still nothing. After my 6th install it seems that after I have running the system for a while (I was using it for about 5 hours last night without any restarts or logins) minimizing remained 100% smooth which was surprising. Still though the icons don't bounce smooth when things are opening and things sure as hell don't run smooth in the iTunes visualizer. I really don't get this...
 
Although my mere iBook/800 (G3) doesn't give me much FPS in iTunes visuals, all the QuartzExtreme effects run quite smoothly. I even have less RAM than you have (640 MB) and my graphics card should be a lesser one, too.

My guess is that "something's wrong", too. nVidia drivers: Could be. But I haven't heard many similar voices for those iMacs... I'm changing the thread's title, so that other iMac users might get attracted...
 
fryke, good idea, thanks.

All of my 6 Panther installations were done onto a 4.34GB partition. The full Panther install ended up being something like 2GB so there's plenty of other space. The file system is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and I install my apps on this partition too. The other partition is Mac OS Extended (so I can defrag) and all of my documents go on here (the other 51.? GB that adds up to 60GB formatted space).

I really hope I can get this fixed. As for the Quartz Extreme effects, the only one that'll run smooth is minimizing. That runs flawlessly. The spinning cube only runs smooth in thousands of colours, the System Preferences window resizing and fading isn't smooth no matter what resolution/colour depth I have set.

I don't want to make this topic a nuisance, but I really want this problem solved! Many apologies in advance!
 
Also, I just read this post:
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38502

This guy says that in Apple System Profiler that his PC133 RAM is listed as PC100. That's the same as me! Is this an OS flaw or is there something weird going on with our RAM (like is it running only at 100MHz?)

I've attached a screenshot of my System Profiler.
 

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hmm....still thinking about this and I really have NO idea what it could be. I'm running 10.3.1 right now on an iBook 700 and i have no speed problems during minimizing or doing any quartz stuff....I have a 16mb video card in this thing and in itunes while playing a song with opengl checked off and no cap set i get from 15-25fps..that's in "large" mode. when i choose "faster but rougher" i get 35+ fps in itunes.
 
Total Konfuzion I think your nickname is perfect for this situation. I want this fixed! I feel so frustrated, like I want to shoot my Mac right now!
 
If you have an Apple Test CD, run that and check the hard drive. Haven't used one in a long time, but it may have a loop test for the HD.
 
Total Konfuzion said:
hmm....still thinking about this and I really have NO idea what it could be. I'm running 10.3.1 right now on an iBook 700 and i have no speed problems during minimizing or doing any quartz stuff....I have a 16mb video card in this thing and in itunes while playing a song with opengl checked off and no cap set i get from 15-25fps..that's in "large" mode. when i choose "faster but rougher" i get 35+ fps in itunes.
Click to expand...

how do you choose "faster but rougher" ?
 
chevy said:
how do you choose "faster but rougher" ?
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There's an option to double the pixels in the visuals... you get to it by clicking the little button at the top right of the visuals in window mode.
 
Veljo said:
Total Konfuzion I think your nickname is perfect for this situation. I want this fixed! I feel so frustrated, like I want to shoot my Mac right now!
Click to expand...
Could it be that you have the iDisk-automatic-sync enabled in the .mac-preferences pane?
I noticed the same frame-drop as you did in iTunes, but after I switched from automatic to manual iDisk-syncinc, everything went back to normal :)
 
hey. In 10.3.4 I had the same fps problem with macmame and UT2003. I switched to 10.3.2 and it sorted it out, but I for some reason cant get into desktop/screensaver prefs without it crashing.
 
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