Apple's New 27-Inch iMacs Experiencing Performance Issues?

[doug in albq]

It needs to go away ASAP.

But it isn't gong anywhere. Jobs and all the extreme Apple fanbois need to get this through their well-fortified craniums, and make flash work better on OS X.

This flash/Adobe vs Mac thing reeks of a sloppy, drunken, drug-induced bar fight between two extreme egoists…can't we all just make up and get along?

 

[Subcide]

Quick OP update: Pulling down the airport dropdown until it "Searches for networks" resolves the problem the same as cycling wifi off/on (but without loss of connection). Also I've been told it only effects people using the 2.4ghz wireless band for some reason, and 802.11n users *should* be sweet.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Flash does suck though, and always has on multiple platforms, however it's generally been worse on OS X, and this issue adds on top of it. So no, it's not solely Adobe's fault, but seeing as how Silverlight and other video playback methods work better, I wouldn't say the problem is solely Apple's either.

Have you used Linux... ever? They're using an outdated wrapper made for Netscape (NSPLUGINWRAPPER), but the wrapper cant handle more than one instance of a plugin at once. So if you run more than one instance of flash (That includes ads) flash player crashes and you have to restart Firefox!

I wish Microsoft would buy licensing for Flash so we can run Flash in Silverlight.

 

[macUser2007]

Some CPU measurements on Mac and Windows

O.K., I decided to check the same video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdOevbchxOc) on both Mac OS 10.6.1 and Windows 7, and in Safari and another browser.

Here are the results for CPU usage:

--------------------
Windows System (my HTPC, it's AOPEN 45-DR)

Windows 7, 32bit, on an Intel C2D P9500 2.53 GHz, 4GB RAM (3GB used under W7-32bit), Intel onboard GMA X4500MHD graphics with Intel Beta W7 driver.

Safari: SD=10%-15%
HD=15%-20% (occasional spike to 25%)

IE8: SD=1%
HD=1%-3% (occasional spike to 5%)

--------------------
Mac System

OS 10.6.1, 24" iMac, 2.4 GHz. 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD2600

Safari 64bit: SD=43%-46% (234MB Real Mem)
HD=67%-77% (209.8MB Real Mem)

The SD value is the combination of Safari itself (HD=8%-9% (205MB Real Mem)), and the Flash Player (Safari Internet plug-in, which Safari calls for HD content, and which registers additional 35%-37% CPU and 29MB Real Mem).

The HD value is the combination of Safari itself (HD=13%-15% (175.1MB Real Mem)), and the Flash Player (Safari Internet plug-in, which Safari calls for HD content, and which registers additional 54%-62% CPU and 34.7MB Real Mem).

Camino 2.0b3: SD=34%-35% (102.6MB Real Mem)
HD=47%-49% (101.2MB Real Mem)

Firefox 3.5.4: SD=30%-33% (91.6MB Real Mem)
HD=43%-44% (99MB Real Mem)

--------------------

The way I look at this, performance-wise and resource-wise, Safari basically sucks, compared to both the Mozilla browsers, and IE8. I really do not see, how anyone half-way reasonable, can keep blaming Adobe for this kind of abysmal performance in Safari.

Also, when I open my iGoogle home page, Safari takes noticeably longer to load everything, than either Camino or Firefox. On Windows 7, Safari is noticeably faster to load the same page, than on the Mac.

 

[Dahl]

No matter if the problem is real or not, it's causing enough bad word of mouth, that many are waiting to buy.

I was so ready to buy the 27 inch myself, but I think I'll wait just a little bit.

 

[locust76]

Have you used Linux... ever? They're using an outdated wrapper made for Netscape (NSPLUGINWRAPPER), but the wrapper cant handle more than one instance of a plugin at once. So if you run more than one instance of flash (That includes ads) flash player crashes and you have to restart Firefox!

I wish Microsoft would buy licensing for Flash so we can run Flash in Silverlight.

I just loaded up two separate instances of Firefox, opened up Youtube and played two different videos simultaneously without crashing under 64-bit Linux. CPU @ 35%.

 

[IVIIVI4ck3y27]

Here's to hoping that Youtube fires up an option to support HTML 5 video controls and streaming. It'd be nice to cut Flash out of the ecosystem over there. I'm sure performance would jump by leaps and bounds.

 

[zetzetone]

I know of two people now who will not buy a 27" because of this
Apple step in!!

 

[CQd44]

Ding, that worked CQ. Copying the contents of the CD over to the desktop, and running the executable from there fixed the problem. Weird, but that worked for me too on a couple apps under Beta and RC. He's happy, since he really never uses anything beyond what PS7 offers, yet likes the interface enough that he doesn't want to switch to GIMP or PaintShop Pro.

For VMW5, he'll probably just download VirtualBox, as it's got more features than VMW did in v.5 anyway, and it works great under Win7 x64.

BTW, Skype's screen sharing utility is outstanding. I was full screening his desktop to walk him through stuff, then sharing my screen (the one with the Win7 VM) to show him other stuff. Way cool.

Glad to hear you got it working! I know I've had to install some things in compatibility mode, but I haven't had to copy the contents of a CD to my computer before. Weird, but at least it worked :]

 

[MorphingDragon]

I just loaded up two separate instances of Firefox, opened up Youtube and played two different videos simultaneously without crashing under 64-bit Linux. CPU @ 35%.

Well I can recreate the results quite easily, you use tabs like very other normal person. I could just be listening to music on Youtube or listening to some online rant and browsing other pages and flash crashes. (This isnt just on Fedora)

 

[macUser2007]

Here's to hoping that Youtube fires up an option to support HTML 5 video controls and streaming. It'd be nice to cut Flash out of the ecosystem over there. I'm sure performance would jump by leaps and bounds.

IE8: SD=1%
HD=1%-3% (occasional spike to 5%)

What part of these numbers do you have a problem comprehending, while whining about "performance?"

See my post above for some real world comparisons.

 

[locust76]

IE8: SD=1%
HD=1%-3% (occasional spike to 5%)

What part of these numbers do you have a problem comprehending, while whining about "performance?"

See my post above for some real world comparisons.

@MacUser2007: Read my post more carefully.

@MorphingDragon: No, I opened up two instances of FireFox with one tab each.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Flash OS X sucks. Fix it, Adobe, or an enterprising upstart will gladly take your place.

I work on a Mac in Flash about 40% of the time. It pains me to say I totally agree with you.

 

[MorphingDragon]

@MacUser2007: Read my post more carefully.

@MorphingDragon: No, I opened up two instances of FireFox with one tab each.

You have to be like the few who still do that. (No Offense)

*Cold hard speculation
I think its because NSPluginWrapper cant juggle multiple plugins, but two instances of Firefox creates two instances of NSPluginWrapper each with its own instance of Flash.

That said why do I have to use two instances of firefox. It just creates visual clutter.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Does anyone know if the problem also exists on the 21.5" iMac or the 24" with Quadcore?

There is no 24" quad core iMac. The 27" quad core iMacs aren't yet shipping, so nobody would know if there are any problems with those.

Some people are experiencing problems with both the new 21.5" and 27" iMacs, while many others are having no problems at all. It seems to be about 25% or less of people are having problems.

 

[zaphon]

O.K., I decided to check the same video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdOevbchxOc) on both Mac OS 10.6.1 and Windows 7, and in Safari and another browser.

Here are the results for CPU usage:

--------------------
Windows System (my HTPC, it's AOPEN 45-DR)

Windows 7, 32bit, on an Intel C2D P9500 2.53 GHz, 4GB RAM (3GB used under W7-32bit), Intel onboard GMA X4500MHD graphics with Intel Beta W7 driver.

Safari: SD=10%-15%
HD=15%-20% (occasional spike to 25%)

IE8: SD=1%
HD=1%-3% (occasional spike to 5%)

--------------------
Mac System

OS 10.6.1, 24" iMac, 2.4 GHz. 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD2600

Safari 64bit: SD=43%-46% (234MB Real Mem)
HD=67%-77% (209.8MB Real Mem)

The SD value is the combination of Safari itself (HD=8%-9% (205MB Real Mem)), and the Flash Player (Safari Internet plug-in, which Safari calls for HD content, and which registers additional 35%-37% CPU and 29MB Real Mem).

The HD value is the combination of Safari itself (HD=13%-15% (175.1MB Real Mem)), and the Flash Player (Safari Internet plug-in, which Safari calls for HD content, and which registers additional 54%-62% CPU and 34.7MB Real Mem).

Camino 2.0b3: SD=34%-35% (102.6MB Real Mem)
HD=47%-49% (101.2MB Real Mem)

Firefox 3.5.4: SD=30%-33% (91.6MB Real Mem)
HD=43%-44% (99MB Real Mem)

--------------------

The way I look at this, performance-wise and resource-wise, Safari basically sucks, compared to both the Mozilla browsers, and IE8. I really do not see, how anyone half-way reasonable, can keep blaming Adobe for this kind of abysmal performance in Safari.

Also, when I open my iGoogle home page, Safari takes noticeably longer to load everything, than either Camino or Firefox. On Windows 7, Safari is noticeably faster to load the same page, than on the Mac.

Well I'm not sure I can take your numbers completely accurate as I just did the same. Using Firefox 3.5.4 on SL 10.6.1 on my Early 2008 Mac Pro with 16GB of ram running at 2560x1600. While yes the youtube video does indeed register a load via top of about 40-45% on Normal and 60-65% on HQ, that load is based on a single processor. It's not like the Hulu app that puts that kind of load on all 8 of my processors, instead all 8 of my processors barely show ANY load at all, as the load is evenly distributed.

So I'm not sure your comparing apples to apples here.

 

[Infrared]

Did not see anything in the video.

Your post says numerous complaints, some people will complain just to complain and than you have some that just want to join the crowd and have no idea of what the problem is.

Didn't you see the CPU usage in Activity Monitor?
Playing back that YouTube video was maxing out
a CPU core on his iMac.

I think I found that video. Here is the CPU usage
under Windows 7:



[Click the image above to see it full-size.]

Not even close to maxing out a core there. In fact,
it's hardly even registering any CPU usage.

 

[Infrared]

Every time new hardware is introduced, Apple or anyone else, there are bugs. It is simply impossible to test every single hardware/software/application combination for every possibility.

Indeed. And watching a video on YouTube in Safari is such an
outlandish possibility, you can be sure they never tested that ;-)

 

[inkswamp]

I know of two people now who will not buy a 27" because of this
Apple step in!!

Wow, this is rapidly turning into a PR disaster. Phil Schiller just released this statement:

We at Apple are shocked and saddened that those two guys that zetzetone on Macrumors.com knows will not be buying 27" iMacs because of this earth-shakingly critical issue that we can never possibly solve and could likely bring an end to the entire computing industry and the Internet as we know it today. Our goal was to make sure those two guys that zetzetone knows were satisfied and happy customers, but we now realize our incompetence will never let that happen. We regret their decision but fully understand that, as two big time important guys known by zetzetone, they have better things to do with their time than to wait around for us to get our act together. We wish them well and send our sincere apologies.

 

[Adidas Addict]

Wow, this is rapidly turning into a PR disaster. Phil Schiller just released this statement:

We at Apple are shocked and saddened that those two guys that zetzetone on Macrumors.com knows will not be buying 27" iMacs because of this earth-shakingly critical issue that we can never possibly solve and could likely bring an end to the entire computing and Internet world as we know it today. Our goal was to make sure those two guys that zetzetone knows were satisfied and happy customers, but we now realize our incompetence will never let that happen. We regret their decision but fully understand that, as two big time important guys known by zetzetone, they have better things to do with their time than to wait around for us to get our act together. We wish them well and send our sincere apologies.

Thanks for that, had me in stitches

 

[Infrared]

Heck, SL on a 2005 iMac and ZERO issues.

SL can't run on a 2005 iMac.
All 2005 iMacs were PPC machines.
SL doesn't run on any PPC machine.

 

[RazHyena]

But it isn't gong anywhere. Jobs and all the extreme Apple fanbois need to get this through their well-fortified craniums, and make flash work better on OS X.

This flash/Adobe vs Mac thing reeks of a sloppy, drunken, drug-induced bar fight between two extreme egoists…can't we all just make up and get along?

Yeah, but apparently it's funner to rag on Adobe. Get used to it. The fanbois won't like Flash until Jobs says it's ok to like Flash.

Forget the Mojave project and those laptop hunter ads, Microsoft could just casually mention that Apple's $1700.00 AIO "wonder" can't even play Youtube clips and it'd have more effect.

Off Topic: My whitebook with the X3100 connected to a 20 inch external HP monitor reports a 29% CPU usage for the Flash plugin.

 

[avidmacuser]

Flash performance in Safari is ridiculously bad.

A bug was filed at Adobes JIRA almost one year ago and it still hasn't been addressed.
The example provided to illustrate how bad it is:
One vector circle, animated at 60fps.

Results on my 3.06GHz MBP: stuttery, choppy animation.

This is really, really BAD.

However, the SAP (Stand Alone Flash Player) is not having any problems and performance is extremely smooth.
So what is the issue here? Is it Adobe that has to fix something, or Apple?
Clearly there is some limitations in how 3rd party plugins can draw in the browser (Safari).
Flash runs much more smoothly in Firefox, which shows that Apple has something that needs to be fixed.

Link to the bug report, and provided samples to illustrate how SLOW Flash is in Safari:
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-842

If you are a JIRA member, please vote on this bug.

Similar poor results in Firefox.

 

[valuedguest]

Not iMac-specific

Probably already said above within the 15+ pages of Apple vs Microsoft nonsense but..

Running an early 2008 octo-core Mac Pro here with SL upgrade: Flash consumes UP TO 115% CPU both in Safari and Firefox. Flash still runs smoothly as there is roughly 680% (8 cores = 800%) untapped.

Clearly this is NOT related to the new iMac of any dimensions. And news items or headlines should be updated to reflect that fact.

Having not bothered to watch CPU activity attributed to Flash before, I couldn't say whether it is a new occurence in SL or happened in 10.5 as well.

As it happens in FF, it's clearly not Safari-specific either.

This is running on a hard-wired Gigabit ethernet connection so, it's not related to Wifi/Airport.

No other Mac application that I've used sucks up this much CPU time, so my guess would be that's it's an Adobe problem.

It *could* be something in OS X itself, or even the ATI drivers, but I'm not sure how this could be proven.

Ideas?

 

[polaris20]

Have you used Linux... ever? They're using an outdated wrapper made for Netscape (NSPLUGINWRAPPER), but the wrapper cant handle more than one instance of a plugin at once. So if you run more than one instance of flash (That includes ads) flash player crashes and you have to restart Firefox!

I wish Microsoft would buy licensing for Flash so we can run Flash in Silverlight.

I don't appreciate the condescending tone. Yeah, I administrate Linux everyday. What do you do? And who are you referring to when you say "they're"? Because there are hundreds of Linux distributions, all doing things differently.

And you're quite inaccurate with it crashing with Flash and Firefox. I've never had these issues in the 8 years I've been using it. Granted that's my experience, but your statement of it crashing that much certainly isn't universal.