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Snow Leopard Quartz Debugger - disable Beam Sync for smoother Spaces

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polobreaka

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 10, 2009
801
1
Huntington Beach, CA
There has been topics about choppy/stutter Spaces and other animation problems but no real solution. I've done numerous searches on google, mroogle, and the search function on the forum. most of the post about choppy animations did not provide with permanent solutions. if there were solutions, it was about how to disable Beam Sync.

Choppy animations such as stuttering spaces or expose seemed to have happened since back from Tiger. People have been able to disable Beam Sync in Quartz Debug tool from developers tools for smoother transitions.

i am finding mix reviews about disabling this, i would like to start a thread for people with experience on how this work and how to make your animations better.

Please try this and let us know if this is also working out for you guys:

Install Quartz Debugger from the SL disc if you dont have it. in my UTD disc, it was under Xcode.pkg.

- Open Quartz Debugger (i searched under spotlight)
- drop down Beam Sync
- click "Disable"
- Now move Spaces around and see if you can tell a difference
- on the net it says to Force Quit for this setting to stick, but it is not working for me. So i leave Quartz Debugger open, since i dont reboot/shut down my laptop, so its not a problem to leave open and it doesnt take up much resources. Ive been running with it disabled for a while and watched movies, i do not notice any tearing or anything anyone has claimed negatives about it. it works prefect for me under SL and that was probably my only 'annoyance' from SL. i am wondering is there a way in Terminal to make it stick?
 
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vega07

macrumors 65816
Aug 7, 2006
1,269
18
for me quartz debug says beam sync is automatic every time I open it, but I know it's disabled because my animations are now smooth as silk. you don't need it to open all the time.
 
P

polobreaka

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 10, 2009
801
1
Huntington Beach, CA
yea ive been on that site. did exactly everything he posted. not working for me. i think i might just go back to Leopard also. i have a clone of my Leopard drive as a backup just in case SL wasnt working out. i booted externally with the Leopard and tried spaces, it is way smoother than SL.
 
S

surrealhope

macrumors newbie
May 26, 2008
14
0
Canada
1HKeV.jpg

Switching from Space 2 to 1, Safari window flying in from the left. Macbook Pro; Intel C2D 2.5GHz; 8600M GT

TL;DR conclusion: It's fast, but ugly. Whether you want to keep Quartz Debug opened (or even install dev tools if you haven't) to see fast spaces artifacts is up to you.



Few things I noticed:

  1. To anyone who can't find it in Spotlight, OP means Quartz Debug NOT Quartz Debugger
  2. Force quitting the app does not retain the beam sync setting
  3. Disabling beam sync, while does improve the perceived "speed" (framerate, smoothness, etc.) it seems to do ease the motion to the eyes by compromising the animation quality.

The "tearing window" effect was not created by camera blur, and was clear to the eye every time I quick-switched spaces either via the menubar or my keyboard shortcuts. Horizontal motion (e.g. switching between spaces 1 and 2) are the worst, vertical being a lot less noticeable, and diagonal animations somewhere in between the two.

I'd rather wait for Apple to fix it up.
 
TheSpaz

TheSpaz

macrumors 604
Jun 20, 2005
7,032
1
surrealhope said:
1HKeV.jpg

Switching from Space 2 to 1, Safari window flying in from the left. Macbook Pro; Intel C2D 2.5GHz; 8600M GT

TL;DR conclusion: It's fast, but ugly. Whether you want to keep Quartz Debug opened (or even install dev tools if you haven't) to see fast spaces artifacts is up to you.



Few things I noticed:

  1. To anyone who can't find it in Spotlight, OP means Quartz Debug NOT Quartz Debugger
  2. Force quitting the app does not retain the beam sync setting
  3. Disabling beam sync, while does improve the perceived "speed" (framerate, smoothness, etc.) it seems to do ease the motion to the eyes by compromising the animation quality.

The "tearing window" effect was not created by camera blur, and was clear to the eye every time I quick-switched spaces either via the menubar or my keyboard shortcuts. Horizontal motion (e.g. switching between spaces 1 and 2) are the worst, vertical being a lot less noticeable, and diagonal animations somewhere in between the two.

I'd rather wait for Apple to fix it up.
Click to expand...

The reason for keeping beam sync enabled is to prevent tearing because the graphics will refresh at the same rate as the display. Keeping those things in sync shows a more visually pleasing effect. Keep beam sync on.
 
W

wankey

macrumors 6502a
Aug 24, 2005
600
296
I believe BeamSync is currently bugged. Leopard was pretty smooth... it should be fixed eventually.
 
P

polobreaka

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 10, 2009
801
1
Huntington Beach, CA
i definitely dont see that on my screen. mine is really smooth. its pretty much like how Leopard was. i downgraded back to Leopard because the choppieness of animiation was a bug to me.

in snow leopard mine came up as Quartz Debugger. in Leopard/Tiger, its Quartz Debug.

so this seems like a hit or miss for some people. it worked perfect for me and looked terrible for others.
 
B

bbrik

macrumors newbie
Aug 30, 2009
7
0
Hi, I have a unibody MacBook 13. Spaces and Exposé are really choppy compared to Leopard, specially when connected to ACD 24".

The beam sync on Disabled improves a lot and I don't see any tearing. But the setting doesn't stick, even with force quit.

Another weird thing is that, when iTunes is playing, it gets a lot more choppy. Does anybody get that too?
 
C

chromescreen

macrumors newbie
Sep 7, 2009
5
0
Use Leopard's Quartz Debug (ger) in Snow Leopard

Yes, Snow Leopard's beamsync settings don't stick, but if you use Leopard's Quartz Debug, disable beamsync and force quit the app, it will stick.

Copied 10.5.x's Quartz Debug from a previous backup. Simply works.
 
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chromescreen

macrumors newbie
Sep 7, 2009
5
0
Ol!ver said:
Can you expand on this please? Are you saying if you replace the app in Snow Leopard with the one in Leopard, all the problems go away ?
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about any particular problems. It's just about disabled beamsync setting that doesn't stick if i try and force quit 10.6's Quartz Debugger (my experience), but sticks if I use Leopard's Quartz Debug instead (disable beamsync and force quit the app). Just happens that it works for me. And UI's speed increase is noticeable with beamsync off, it's choppy in the original setting, and I hope Apple fixes this (bug?) soon.

EDIT: And of course, the setting sticks only until restart, which is good enough for me :)
 
C

coolbits

macrumors regular
Nov 1, 2006
103
12
disable beamsync with
Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Compositor -dict deferredUpdates 0
At least this worked on leopard... You need to reboot after entering this command.
Change the 0 to 1 to go back to normal.
 
mabaker

mabaker

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2008
1,209
566
Having the very same choppiness problems described here and on the lengthy thread in the official Apple Support forums. Got the 9400 chipset running and I doubt much it is its fault as the animation under Leopard were super soft and easy on the eye.

Disabling Beam-Synch didn't really help much - there is only minor improvement.

Also what I observed is that as soon as you hiz the Expose or Spaces activation keys a couple of times, the animations become smoother and smoother each time. But after you switch to another application, load a web page etc it's all jerkiness all over again. And that is not nice at all.

Seems like a driver issue to me.
 
F

fpena

macrumors newbie
Mar 30, 2010
13
0
It's been some days since the last reply in this thread...

Anybody got news about this problem? I have been searching for a solution...
 
mabaker

mabaker

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2008
1,209
566
The only thing you can do is revert to the old Leopard Expose via the Snow Leopard Dock hack.

It makes Expose visibly smoother, yet the problem doesn’t seem to go away completely.
 
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