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Leopard Sluggish Observations - Need Others Input Here Please!

zepharus

zepharus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 7, 2007
684
2
I will tell you both systems that I own first

MBP 2.2 stock replaced with a week 38 on Oct 6th.

Alu iMac 20" 2.4 stock Purchased on Sept 15th


I have installed Leopard on both machines via the Upgrade method with the retail version.

Alu iMac is VERY VERY smooth, and the upgrade was flawless
MBP was VERY VERY choppy with dock magnification and genie effect animations after upgrade.

I then was not please with my MBP performance so I did a Clean & Install and wiped the drive. Still VERY choppy after the clean install, with a wierd caveat...dock animations somewhat smooth when mousing over the left side with apps, but choppy as hell when mousing over the right side with docs and system folder. ODD!


With the setup out of the way I went to looking at what the differences were with these machines as they are hardware wise in the same ballpark and very close in processor and chipset.

MBP 120GB 5400 HD vs. iMac 320 GB 7200 HD Adv. iMac
MBP 2GB RAM vs iMac upgraded to 2 GB Wash
MBP 2.2Ghz C2D vs iMac 2.4 Ghz C2D Adv. iMac
MBP SR Chipset vs iMac SR Chipset Wash
MBP 1440X900 display vs iMac 1650X1080 display Adv. MBP
MBP 8600GT vs iMac 2600HD(XT) Adv MBP


Honestly looking at these machines this way they are VERY evenly matched to run leopard smoothly, so subpar smoothness on the MBP boils down to 3 things in my book.

1) HD ACCESS SPEED
2) VIDEO CARD DRIVERS
3) BACKROUND ACTIVITY


Now I threw in the last becasue I noticed something when trying to figure out why the family iMac was smooth when my MBP was not... I was randomly tooling around going back and forth on the dock and it was silky smooth when all of a sudden BACKUP pooped up and prompted me to do so (BACKUP to .mac services etc). I clicked accept for the home folder and settings. IT began to back up larger data from the homefolder to another area local on the iMac. I INSTANTLY noticed the dock magnification animation became choppy as I scrolled back and forth across it. I continued to do so until the backup stopped and INSTANTLY as it stopped, the animation became smooth as a baby's ass again. BUTTER even!

To me this a a large hint at what might be causing issues on my MBP and also why some others with MBP are NOT experiencing this. 5400 vs 7200? perhaps? Nvidia vs ATI driver? Perhaps?

The only other observation is that I have a new External HD hooked up via FW 800 and time machine activated on the MBP..I noticed that when it runs im choppier..not running still choppy.


Folks just my observations.. please post yours and hopefully we can figure this out. Im odd, but it sort of ruins my experience somewhat...
 
Just noticed that the right side of the dock is now EXTREMELY choppy on all animations
 
It appears related to the Spotlight process.

If you give it about 24 hours to sit unused, performance should increase quite a bit. Also, after each reboot it seems to need ~30 minutes to get ready to go.

Additionally, you can try just killing the spotlight process and see performance increase dramatically.

This will certainly be one of those things that Apple fixes in 10.5.1 as it really is one of those MAJOR issues.
 
I also have a MBP, did a clean install, and have been experiencing similar things. I wouldn't call the choppiness severe, but the framerate of the genie and expose effects is lower than it was in tiger and enough to make me grunt everytime. Has nothing to do with spotlight, as it's been done for a couple days now, and activity monitor says it's not doing anything.

I mentioned in another thread that I have a friend at nVidia who said they have had a hard time with the drivers for leopard. My guess is that it's just a video driver optimization issue and these things will be ironed out. There's no reason a MBP should experience these kinds of issues.

So just know that there are lots of us experiencing these kinds of things, which means Apple is no doubt aware.
 
Drivers sounds very likely. Im hoping for a fast fix... not sure why some expierence it while others do not however... Tres odd
 
Me: White 24" iMac with nVidia GeForce 7300GT. Leopard upgrade. Spotlight indexing done.

Sometimes I get really choppy animation using Cover Flow and Spaces. And when this happens, my mouse cursor would just accelerate. Really annoying.

Maybe there's a problem with Core Animation.
 
I've found leopard quite choppy too. Definitely much more than tiger, and tiger was smooth like silk. When I use spaces, the system takes up to 80% of its memory and even though the animations are sluggish. The same for grid mode stacks and for general use with 5-6 apps open.
I'm running a core duo 17" iMac with 2gb ram and I think it should run much faster. If there isn't a early update, I surely will change to tiger.
 
I'm getting the same problem with the animations (genie and scale)... and I think it has to be with the video card driver... let's hope we see a new update driver soon
 
nukiduz said:
I've found leopard quite choppy too. Definitely much more than tiger, and tiger was smooth like silk. When I use spaces, the system takes up to 80% of its memory and even though the animations are sluggish. The same for grid mode stacks and for general use with 5-6 apps open.
I'm running a core duo 17" iMac with 2gb ram and I think it should run much faster. If there isn't a early update, I surely will change to tiger.
Click to expand...
That is what I'm thinking to do...
 
Have you tried something like iStat Pro to see what is really going on? I upgraded both a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro, and I have seen zero "chopiness" issues.
 
I am pretty happy to see it's not just me. I am running a MDD dual g4 867 w/9800pro and 2GB of RAM. So to see even intel machines with much newer graphics chips are having this issue is a relief and a sign that this will certainly be worked out in a future point release.

I get the same choppiness with dock magnification turned on. Expose seems just as fast as ever though. I get a little choppiness in spaces. Genie and scale is about the same as Tiger was before it. These UI enhancements are almost totally graphics card based. So if it's running the same on my older computer, be certain it will get better in a future update.

Overall I am super pleased with Leopard from a PPC perspective. With the amount of under the hood changes that Apple did to push intel performance to the next level and I can honestly say that overall Leopard is running about the same as 10.4.10 and I'm sure it's going to continue to get better!
 
Could this be related to Spotlight re/indexing all the files on the HDD and hogging all the system resources? How long have you been using Leopard for?
 
It is definitely not spotlight, I could post a screenshot of activity monitor showing all my processes, but I'm hoping you'll just take my word :)

I just want to reiterate again, we're not talking about severe jaw dropping jerkiness, it's just not as yummy smooth as Tiger was when doing these animations. Many people might consider what we're seeing as still being smooth. But expose definitely hiccups with only a few windows, whereas I used to be able to do at least 20 windows smoothly.

I've just noticed something odd. In my rampant testing of genie smoothness, the "minimize" button on all my windows has become grayed out. I cannot minimize ANY window right now, not even by double clicking the title bar. Hmm, If I make open a new window, it has it. Very interesting :)
 
Fender321 said:
It is definitely not spotlight, I could post a screenshot of activity monitor showing all my processes, but I'm hoping you'll just take my word :)

I just want to reiterate again, we're not talking about severe jaw dropping jerkiness, it's just not as yummy smooth as Tiger was when doing these animations. Many people might consider what we're seeing as still being smooth. But expose definitely hiccups with only a few windows, whereas I used to be able to do at least 20 windows smoothly.

I've just noticed something odd. In my rampant testing of genie smoothness, the "minimize" button on all my windows has become grayed out. I cannot minimize ANY window right now, not even by double clicking the title bar. Hmm, If I make open a new window, it has it. Very interesting :)
Click to expand...

Spot on . Something just isnt quite right. feels odd but it just is not as smooth as tiger. Im hopeful a fix will be coming.
 
I see the same problems with my brand new Mac mini. I went to the Apple store and called Apple customer service and they have not heard of any of this, so please let Apple know.
 
It looks like it only happens on Macs equipped with NVIDIA or GMA graphics. I just hope Apple won't let us GMA users down, i'm afraid they will just ignore us as they're rolling out X3100 macbooks >_<

PS: I spoke to Apple this morning on the phone, apparently they weren't aware of such issue :mad:
 
I have the ATI X1600 in my MBP, so it's not just nVidia and GMA.

I think there has been at least one person that has said they are experiencing this issue with each possible machine, and at least one person that has said they're not for each.

Maybe I should go play at the apple store and test all their machines, I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Stay tuned :)
 
I've been to the Apple store, so save your time - some machines have it and some don't - they almost all have the issue with the grid opening slow. Also, because of the way they install Leopard at the store, they told me it may already be slower there. They have not heard of this issue, so just you know.
 
@Applecandidate: thanks for the heads up mate. If a lot of people are getting this problem, chances are Apple will fix it soon, which is a good thing. I guess I'll just have to live with it for the time being, but I have to admit, turning OFF magnification ruins the dock :mad:
 
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