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

[BobbyCat]

Back To Leopard

Well guys, let's face it. This situation is becoming a pain in the a**. The problems are so deep and wide, nobody really knows what's going on, and there's no solution in sight in the near future. Apple needs to quickly come out with a statement, specifying the cause of the whole mess, and a timeframe for when they expect the problems to be solved.
In the meantime, I'm going back to 10.5.8: hello again WindowShade and FruitMenu! No more beachballs and random crashes. I'm also postponing the 27" I was planning to get this week, until I know for sure it can run Leopard.
I've been a fanboy since 1984 and I don't intend to change anything about that. I'm just surprised and annoyed like many of us, but I guess we'll survive that blow too.

 

[zachplaysguitar]

MacBook Pro 13" 2.53 GHz C2D, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Mac OS X 10.6.1 (Snow Leopard)
Safari 4.0.3 (6531.9)
Flash Player 10.0.r32

Watching the same JTV Gotye video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdOevbchxOc), CPU usage:


High Quality:
Safari 64: 47%

Same specs, same video

High Quality:
Safari 64 = 13%
Firefox 32 = 52%

 

[awee]

Yes, people do use Macs to make studio albums and movies. But there are a bunch of studios switching over to PC based Avid and away from Logic in general as well. Apple's tight lipped never-tell-the-customer-what-is-coming method of doing things does NOT work well in the pro "whatever" industry. Same with the pro apps. Their handling of Logic has been nothing short of abysmal, going from a bug ridden 8.0.2 to (a bug ridden) version 9. Many users SWORE there was no way version 9 was coming out soon since Apple hadn't even fixed the two year old bugs from version 8. Yet some of those bugs still live on. FCP equally benefits from entrechment. It is behind the other software packages as well pretty much.

Hi TennisandMusic,
1st thing 1st, let me tell you I understand your whole statement, but I think it's somehow untrue.

Logic is not as buggy as some want to say, not more than any other DAW out in the wild.
Every once in a while, you'll find something a software is missing, a bug you find annoying, or something you'll love to see featured in your favourite music creation soft.
And it is also true for PC versions of Cubase, Live... You name it.
So it's not mac or apple related.
A soft just CANNOT be perfect.

Logic has never (and I doubt it will ever) got left for PC-based solutions (whatever software & configuration) by pros.
The opposite is very often true, but a rollback is somehow rare and does not happen often (if not AT ALL) in the professional industry.
EVERY (real) professional studio features (at least) a Pro Tools along with an apple workstation.
Logic is, used for composing most of the time, not mix & master, since it's a rather more easy-to-use MIDI+Audio solution.

This is no "hype", it's just stability & PROVEN quality from Apple combinated hard&software.

Next, I don't see NO pro moving to PC workstation to work in Avid.
That is one of the most stupid things I've ever read really, you must REALLY ignore about this industry for saying such crap in just one phrase (sorry if I sound rude).
The opposite is, again, true.
And more than ever since G5 & Mac Pros (Late 2006).
FCP is only used as a notebook notepad before getting things on Avid, most of the time.

So you might like Windows 7 & it's great (?) softs & stability (again, WTF ?!!!) but don't just argue with ignorance rather than real facts.

 

[AidenShaw]

At WWDC 2006, there were many sessions about developing 64-bit Carbon applications. At WWDC 2007, 64-bit Carbon was canceled. Adobe found this out the same time everyone else did, at WWDC. By canceling 64-bit Carbon so suddenly, Apple screwed Adobe.

Big companies don't invest millions in unnecessary rewriting of code (at least not intentionally).

With Apple talking about Carbon64, showing how to port to it - why should Adobe tear apart their code?

If Apple would have laid out a roadmap, telling developers what to expect, and when - then I'd have less sympathy for Adobe. As it was (and still is), major products from Apple were still Carbon, and the roadmap showed Carbon64. Until the "just kidding" part at WWDC 2007.

Similarly, if Carbon and 32-bit application support are disappearing from 10.7, developers should already have been told.

Don't keep your major ISVs guessing about your plans.

 

[MacDSmith2]

First, its Smalltalk-like syntax has some advantages over traditional C-like OO languages. For instance, method names describe their arguments unambiguously:

[myString stringByPaddingToLength:20 withString:myString startingAtIndex:10];

Vs. the Java/C# style syntax:

myString.stringByPaddingToLength(20, myString, 10);

The second example is shorter, but you can't be certain which integer is which without looking up the method's signature. In the Objective C example, the meaning of each argument is clear.

I like the C# example better! I wish there was a dot NET development enviornment for Mac. C# is the one thing Microsoft has done right over the years.

 

[AidenShaw]

[myString stringByPaddingToLength:20 withString:myString startingAtIndex:10];

Vs. the Java/C# style syntax:

myString.stringByPaddingToLength(20, myString, 10);

The second example is shorter, but you can't be certain which integer is which without looking up the method's signature. In the Objective C example, the meaning of each argument is clear.

I like the C# example better! I wish there was a dot NET development enviornment for Mac. C# is the one thing Microsoft has done right over the years.

The first one looks too much like COBOL - too many words that to me interfere with understanding the code.

And as to the "you can't be certain which integer is which without looking up the method's signature" complaint, the IDE can solve that.

With Visual Studio, for example, as soon as you type the opening parenthesis of the method a tooltip pops up listing the arguments and their types. (If overloaded, the tooltip is a dropdown list showing all of the overloads.) Also, when you hover over any object (method/member/routine/struct/element/variable) a tooltip pops up to show that object's attributes.

 

[I WAS the one]

always wait for revision B hardware from Apple... it's has been like that since the beginning. My MDD, My G3, My Pismo, My 12" PB, My new iMac... revision B is faster, cheaper, and reliable. let the Mac junkies spend the money first... and then you go buy your. that's my motto.

 

[BVeritas]

Update NVidia Driver

Gee, both Windows 7 and OSX have the same problem. Wonder if Windoze ever had a driver problem. LOL

Re: NVidia GT 120 and intermittent low frame-rate with Expose, Dashboard...
Posted: Oct 11, 2009 3:40 AM in response to: Kazuma Illustra...
Reply Email

I've done some testing under boot camp.

The problem we all have here also exists when running windows 7 with the nvidia driver that comes with boot camp 3.0. The problem is noticeable when triggering flip3d (windows version of expose)

There's a tool called "GPU-Z" which lets you read out info on graphics cards.
It also monitors temps, core clock and memory clock speeds.

The Core Clock and Memory Clock speeds of the GT120 are 500MHz and 792MHz.
But, when idle it clocks down to 169MHz and 100MHz. This is when the animations get choppy. After triggering flip3d some more, the Core and Memory clocks back to default values and all is smooth again...

Now, I've installed the latest nvidia driver for windows 7 (191.07) (which won't recognize the GT120 btw, but will update via device manager.)
With this driver installed, the GT120 will still clock down to 169MHz and 100MHz when idle, but, when triggering flip3d it clocks back fast enough for the animation to be instantly smooth.

So, what do we learn from this?
Our problem can be fixed with a driver update.

iMac '09 Mac OS X (10.6.1) 2,93Ghz - 4Gb RAM - GT120

 

[djellison]

A) most "revision A" Apple products have issues,

The morning of new iMac release, Apple still said "The New iMac" on their iMac page describing the now old iMac. There's no such thing as a revision B Apple product. They don't fix the problems, they just move on and make new ones.

I'm utterly astonished that dozens and dozens of people rated this story POSITIVE?

 

[AidenShaw]

Gee, both Windows 7 and OSX have the same problem. Wonder if Windoze ever had a driver problem. LOL
...
Now, I've installed the latest nvidia driver for windows 7 (191.07) (which won't recognize the GT120 btw, but will update via device manager.)
With this driver installed, the GT120 will still clock down to 169MHz and 100MHz when idle, but, when triggering flip3d it clocks back fast enough for the animation to be instantly smooth.

So, what do we learn from this?

Or we learn not to run graphics drivers supplied by Apple, but to go directly to Nvidia.

 

[MacDSmith2]

So, what do we learn from this?
Our problem can be fixed with a driver update.

iMac '09 Mac OS X (10.6.1) 2,93Ghz - 4Gb RAM - GT120

If that's true, then the update 10.6.2 which Apple is preparing, SHOULD supply the correct drivers and fix the problems; right Apple? Apple??

 

[iBug2]

Or we learn not to run graphics drivers supplied by Apple, but to go directly to Nvidia.

The drivers supplied by Apple are also original Nvidia drivers. You just get the latest driver by downloading it directly from Nvidia.

 

[iBug2]

Gee, both Windows 7 and OSX have the same problem. Wonder if Windoze ever had a driver problem. LOL

Re: NVidia GT 120 and intermittent low frame-rate with Expose, Dashboard...
Posted: Oct 11, 2009 3:40 AM in response to: Kazuma Illustra...
Reply Email

I've done some testing under boot camp.

The problem we all have here also exists when running windows 7 with the nvidia driver that comes with boot camp 3.0. The problem is noticeable when triggering flip3d (windows version of expose)

There's a tool called "GPU-Z" which lets you read out info on graphics cards.
It also monitors temps, core clock and memory clock speeds.

The Core Clock and Memory Clock speeds of the GT120 are 500MHz and 792MHz.
But, when idle it clocks down to 169MHz and 100MHz. This is when the animations get choppy. After triggering flip3d some more, the Core and Memory clocks back to default values and all is smooth again...

Now, I've installed the latest nvidia driver for windows 7 (191.07) (which won't recognize the GT120 btw, but will update via device manager.)
With this driver installed, the GT120 will still clock down to 169MHz and 100MHz when idle, but, when triggering flip3d it clocks back fast enough for the animation to be instantly smooth.

So, what do we learn from this?
Our problem can be fixed with a driver update.

iMac '09 Mac OS X (10.6.1) 2,93Ghz - 4Gb RAM - GT120

Yes that's the powermizer technology of Nvidia. You can turn it off from Nvidia control panel under Windows though. But you cannot turn it off on OS X. Even with GTX285 expose/dashboard animations will be choppy unless some 3D app is running on the background.

 

[spanading]

27inch iMac problems ? Really ?

Dear all

Am I the only one who finds this video a little dodgy? Firstly the picture is much too long to be a standard format video shot and there is a lot of wobble suggesting a very close shot. Secondly while the person shooting the picture is careful in their filming not to shoot the actual mac that is having the problems there are a couple of bits at the very beginning (may be about 30 seconds) where I swear I can see white edges to the screen which means this is not the 27 inch new mac but at best it is a 2006 iMac and at worst a G5. Now both of these macs should cope perfectly well with the apparent thing that is running, but the activity monitor does not stay in shot very long and so we cannot see how many apps are running. Also the video is still downloading although the progress of this download does seem to be a long way in front of the progress of the video.

That having been said I found my 2006 Core2Duo iMac (20 inch 2.16 Ghz) a little sluggish after installing snow leopard over the top of leopard. However a fresh install from scratch and taking the RAM from 2 to the max of 3GB seems to have solved the problem. Maybe this is something the person who posted the video should try. If this is a 27 inch iMac prove me wrong and show the whole mac in shot showing the problem, if not then take the steps above and stop trying to dis apple!

Spence

 

[MacinDoc]

Dear all

Am I the only one who finds this video a little dodgy? Firstly the picture is much too long to be a standard format video shot and there is a lot of wobble suggesting a very close shot. Secondly while the person shooting the picture is careful in their filming not to shoot the actual mac that is having the problems there are a couple of bits at the very beginning (may be about 30 seconds) where I swear I can see white edges to the screen which means this is not the 27 inch new mac but at best it is a 2006 iMac and at worst a G5. Now both of these macs should cope perfectly well with the apparent thing that is running, but the activity monitor does not stay in shot very long and so we cannot see how many apps are running. Also the video is still downloading although the progress of this download does seem to be a long way in front of the progress of the video.

That having been said I found my 2006 Core2Duo iMac (20 inch 2.16 Ghz) a little sluggish after installing snow leopard over the top of leopard. However a fresh install from scratch and taking the RAM from 2 to the max of 3GB seems to have solved the problem. Maybe this is something the person who posted the video should try. If this is a 27 inch iMac prove me wrong and show the whole mac in shot showing the problem, if not then take the steps above and stop trying to dis apple!

Spence

Can't tell from the video which model of iMac it is, but it does appear to be running Snow Leopard. Unfortunately, the video carefully avoids showing how much virtual memory is being used by the processes, so there's really nothing more to go on, based on the linked video, at least. Having said that, it is not the only reported performance issue.

For what it's worth, the same video runs just fine on my C2D iMac and MacBook Alu (although flash occupies a whopping 45% of CPU usage).

 

[AidenShaw]

Now, I've installed the latest nvidia driver for windows 7 (191.07) (which won't recognize the GT120 btw, but will update via device manager.)

Any idea which version of the driver is shipping with boot camp?

I noticed that Microsoft is shipping 185.93 with Win7 x64. I've just downloaded the 191.00 drivers for my Quadro systems - but haven't seen issues with 185.93. (Of course Quadro and GeForce use different drivers, so that proves nothing.)

(edit) After updating to the 191.00 driver, neither the Microsoft shipped 185.93 driver, nor the WHQL 191.00 Nvidia supplied driver, have a power management setting in the control panel. (The MS driver doesn't have the Nvidia control panel at all.)

 

[MorphingDragon]

I like the C# example better!

Only because you code in C# and can understand it.

I wish there was a dot NET development enviornment for Mac. C# is the one thing Microsoft has done right over the years.

Theres MONO but MONO is so Karp you'll want to throw up!
http://mono-project.com/Main_Page

 

[MorphingDragon]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)



OK, but do explain why I've never experienced these issues across over a hundred machines? Seems a little weird, don't you think?

Well how often do you use flash regularly on those machines. On multiple tabs
with some type of content running?

 

[SimonMW]

Its strange. Many supposed problems with Macs I have never come across myself (not saying I never will). PC's have lots of problems too, again that I didn't encounter. I built nearly ever PC I ever owned, and even after reading reviews of which motherboard to buy etc I could pretty much guarantee than there would be forums filled with people complaining about driver issues, poor build quality etc.

Can we have some perspective please. Unless you personally own the computer type in question AND you are suffering from the same problem, then I'm afraid the problem doesn't exist in your world. So if your personal computer is working fine then stop whining.

 

[polaris20]

Well how often do you use flash regularly on those machines. On multiple tabs
with some type of content running?

All the time. They're the users' main workstations, not a separate box for engineering-only tasks.

I'm not trying to argue, I just find it quite curious, that's all. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a big Flash fan to begin with anyway, and that precedes my days of OS X.

 

[NSMonkey]

That wasnt a joke.

Cryptic, aren't we?

 

[NSMonkey]

The first one looks too much like COBOL - too many words that to me interfere with understanding the code.

Yeah, just like COBOL. The words interfere with your understanding of the words.

And as to the "you can't be certain which integer is which without looking up the method's signature" complaint, the IDE can solve that.

Not when you're reading code, it can't. Unless you like to read your code with a mouse and pause constantly.

With Visual Studio, for example, as soon as you type the opening parenthesis of the method a tooltip pops up listing the arguments and their types. (If overloaded, the tooltip is a dropdown list showing all of the overloads.) Also, when you hover over any object (method/member/routine/struct/element/variable) a tooltip pops up to show that object's attributes.

Anyone using Eclipse or IDEA has the same thing. In Xcode, you have to hit the escape key to get it. It's funny, a lot of your comments sound like ads for MS products -- which is kind of strange on a Mac forum.

 

[zetzetone]

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

@ Inkswamp
What a stupid, ignorant and needelessly sarcastic post. If I know of two people already in my immediate surrounding who will not buy a computer because of a (stupid?) rumor/hype, I (the computer company) should be very worried about the effects posts like these and people like you have. It is not because I (me moi) know those people, but the fact THAT there ARE two people who will not buy because of (non-fundament?) hypes. Two will become six, etc. if a rumor explodes. Talk to Canon or Nikon about how they love the rumors. Of course you cannot stop the hay heads from spreading around nonsense. But you (apple, whoever) can bid against them with some facts if (anonymously) stepped in. Many people dont see that this site is mostly about rumors and personal frustration. A problem is rarely world-wide, affecting all models or softs, but 'discussions' like this, make it look that way, influencing peoples judgements. People tend to follow trends, This here is a wrong trend. Make fun of it, please do. I like humor. But if this goes the wrong way it will hurt the company and the products you make your money with. Instead of trying to steer away from it, you with all your knowledge make fun of it and thats cheap and far away from what you actually should be doing..

 

[NSMonkey]

Don't keep your major ISVs guessing about your plans.

Millions of visual basic developers agree with you.

 

[Ubuntu]

So, as my post above shows, it basically requires a reset / reboot to fix it.

So how many times a day do you have to reboot your netbook and don't you wish you could fix Windows problems with a reboot. I haven't rebooted my macbook since I upgraded to SL.

In all honesty, not often. The last time I had to essentially restart the netbook was when I installed Windows 7 on it.

But then that's not really fair on the iMac, as the iMac would be used for a lot more - thus more opportunities for something to go wrong somewhere. The netbook isn't my main computer, so its workload is rather relaxed.

EDIT: Should note that on my dell (which is still running Windows Vista until the free upgrade arrives D: ), Flash seems to really screw up Google chrome, recently. I can have one youtube page open and sometimes Chrome will just freeze and identify the cause as being the flash plugin. Eh.