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Expose just became choppy on my DP2.0 G5. Can't figure out why. Look at this please

i dont know for you, but, when i did a clean install, it solved the problem... I was the kind of guy that was installing avery new little app from versiontracker just to take a look at them. I dont do that anymore. I dont install anything just for fun, i install what i need, and, for the past weeks, i NEVER saw any osX slow down, every app is opening as fast as it can open, and exposé is never choppy again. I suppose that if you do a clean install and just reinstall every software that was installed before, it will just be normal to see osX slow down again.

and even if it's unix based, i found that a reboot once in a while helps too. I dont have 25 thing in my menu bar now, and i did a favorite folder for my apps, games, etc, in the dock, instead of having 50 icons in it.. For now, i'm very happy to see that osX does'nt slow down by itself, but i'm also sorry to see that it's kinda easy to find an app, even if it should not affect the system, that will slow down things...

goo luck, and keep track of what you install, or just dont install everything at once... If you do a clean install, dont keep your uses and network settings... that worked for me...
 
Originally posted by blue&whiteman
osx is a monster of an os and slows down a bit over time. when first installed it is somewhat snappy but within a few days apps take twice as long to open, expose slows down, everything just slows. its just part of being an osx user I guess..

even though I love osx and would never go back to 9 I must say that since it is unix based its pretty pathetic how much hardware power it needs. unix is an os that before osx was always known to make any older system operate much faster just like linux as they both draw far less juice from your system than a typical windows or mac os. apple needs to work out the hardware draining issues in osx and make it a true unix operating system. although with each release of osx it has gotten a bit faster it is still not near enough of a boost. its not right to have an os that needs the best hardware money can buy to run smoothly.
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That's totally untrue. I run OSX for weeks and weeks at a time without needing to restart or logout or anything. I'm even the type of person that installs hundreds of apps and then removes them later. What you need to do is repair your disk permissions on occasion and also run prebinding. Also if you did an update install when you installed OSX you need to reinstall OSX using the archive option. With 10.3 or 10.2 or 10.1 for that matter running the update installation when going to the new version caused and still causes all sorts of problems. It's well documented and this board alone probably has over a 100 threads dedicated to instructing individuals on the proper way to install a new version of OSX.

Many people are running OSX on G3 400 machines without a hitch. Unix is one of the leanest OS's going and is by far the most powerful. The only reason anyone needs the new machines is to run the new Apps not the OS.
 
There is a thing i noted about synergy (and everything, or every app in the menu bar). It slows down the exposé feature that become choppy when you swith from an app to another, but not when you stay in the same window or app. The more you have in the menu bar, the more choppy exposé is. Anyone else noted something about that ?
 
Originally posted by BIGgui_X_
There is a thing i noted about synergy (and everything, or every app in the menu bar). It slows down the exposé feature that become choppy when you swith from an app to another, but not when you stay in the same window or app. The more you have in the menu bar, the more choppy exposé is. Anyone else noted something about that ?
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I haven't noticed that I have Meteo, and Synergy in the menu bar without slowdown.

I would highly recommend repairing permissions and starting off with new pref files for everything but your mail.

If that doesn't fix it do a reinstall of 10.3 using the archive option.
 
Originally posted by blue&whiteman
osx is a monster of an os and slows down a bit over time. when first installed it is somewhat snappy but within a few days apps take twice as long to open, expose slows down, everything just slows. its just part of being an osx user I guess..

even though I love osx and would never go back to 9 I must say that since it is unix based its pretty pathetic how much hardware power it needs. unix is an os that before osx was always known to make any older system operate much faster just like linux as they both draw far less juice from your system than a typical windows or mac os. apple needs to work out the hardware draining issues in osx and make it a true unix operating system. although with each release of osx it has gotten a bit faster it is still not near enough of a boost. its not right to have an os that needs the best hardware money can buy to run smoothly.
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The operating system portion of Mac OS X (as true as any other UNIX) is lean and definitely gives Linux or traditional text-based UNIX a challenge.

It's the GUI that drains the system. If there was a comparable GUI on Linux or UNIX, one could make comparisons, but there isn't such an item. Any other GUI is lightweight, so of course, it's going to require fewer resources and the whole system will run more quickly.

I'm not sure what is snappy or smooth to you, but I have a PowerMac G3 with a G3/800 upgrade that runs smoothly and is snappy and hasn't slowed down over time. My dual G4/800 is quicker in many ways and would not be considered the best hardware either.
 
going slightly off topic here. BIGgui_X_ mentions that the more that is in the menubar the slower expose and certain other os operations will be. I keep a very minimal menubar. all I have there is the volume control, clock and tigerlaunch. tigerlaunch is the one 3rd party app/haxie that is totally worth having there. I have it set as a login item.

its great for all the apps you don't want in your dock yet still want to get at fast. I swear by it check it out: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16689
 
Originally posted by BIGgui_X_
There is a thing i noted about synergy (and everything, or every app in the menu bar). It slows down the exposé feature that become choppy when you swith from an app to another, but not when you stay in the same window or app. The more you have in the menu bar, the more choppy exposé is. Anyone else noted something about that ?
Click to expand...
I have noticed this as well on my 15" PB (1.25). I keep a relatively clean menu bar (bluetooth, airport, volume, battery, date and time) with Synergy being the only item out of the ordinary. When Synergy is running, switching between apps in Exposé is more choppy than it is without it. Like BIGgui_X_ said, staying within the same app produces no ill effects.

Note that although I certainly find the slowdown noticeable, it isn't terribly blatant: it usually amounts to the new window popping up without the smooth scaling effect (or with a few hiccups along the way). In other words, I can see how some people might not notice it.
 
Originally posted by steely
I have noticed this as well on my 15" PB (1.25). I keep a relatively clean menu bar (bluetooth, airport, volume, battery, date and time) with Synergy being the only item out of the ordinary. When Synergy is running, switching between apps in Exposé is more choppy than it is without it. Like BIGgui_X_ said, staying within the same app produces no ill effects.

Note that although I certainly find the slowdown noticeable, it isn't terribly blatant: it usually amounts to the new window popping up without the smooth scaling effect (or with a few hiccups along the way). In other words, I can see how some people might not notice it.
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We also have a 15" 1.25 and we run with Airport, Battery, Sync, iChat, Classic, Synergy, and Meteo in the menu bar. We have no Expose choppiness and I would notice is windows were opening without scaling. It just runs very smooth just like my desktop.

If you are having any of these sorts of problems on a high end Mac as these then it's not 10.3 and it's not the hardware. You need to be looking for system hacks or incompatibilities or possibly a bad system installation or disk or permission errors.
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
We also have a 15" 1.25 and we run with Airport, Battery, Sync, iChat, Classic, Synergy, and Meteo in the menu bar. We have no Expose choppiness and I would notice is windows were opening without scaling. It just runs very smooth just like my desktop.

If you are having any of these sorts of problems on a high end Mac as these then it's not 10.3 and it's not the hardware. You need to be looking for system hacks or incompatibilities or possibly a bad system installation or disk or permission errors.
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Hmm... I still notice the problem even after repairing permissions. My powerbook is running off a clean installation of panther, and the closest thing I have to a system hack is ShapeShifter (which is disabled anyway). As for incompatiblities, I suppose it is possible given the moderate number of applications I have installed on this system -- I'll look into it. I can get the problem to exhibit itself right after rebooting using a Safari window and, say, Mail, and it's not like I have much running in the background immediately following a reboot. Again, I'll check up on what little is running and report back with any interesting findings.

Truth be told, I'm not concerned enough about this little issue to reinstall the OS. Plus, I'm not quite ready to accept that this problem is any fault of a bad installation or an ill-advised system-hack, mainly because I've only had this PB for a month or so and I make every attempt to keep it in tip-top shape. On the other hand, this is also my first Mac, so perhaps I just don't know what I'm talking about :) .
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
You can do it from the terminal but for someone that doesn't want to delve into that I recommend using a program like OnyX. If you use OnyX the option is called system optimize.
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what steps and commands are involved for prebinding from the terminal? I would feel better using that than some 3rd party app that doesn't even list panther compatibility.
 
Do those of you having trouble have machines with more than 512 MB RAM? I didn't see any numbers, so I thought I'd ask. That's the minimum amount of memory I would recommend--the more, the better.

Here's another command to run from the prompt: vm_stat

Check the percentage toward the bottom. It cites the effectiveness of the virtual memory. If it's a low number, virtual memory is using the disk drive quite a lot and that could cause your choppiness.

It's low on both of my machines--14 to 15 percent--and they're still responsive, but then, I don't use Exposé.
 
Whoops.... sorry, forgot to include that. I've got 768 MB. vm_stat spits out a 32% hit rate, but I've also got quite a gnarly collection of apps running right now ( the uber-system-hog dreamweaver, and a bunch of random browsers for testing). Like I said in my earlier post, I can get the problem to exhibit itself right after a reboot.

BIGgui_X_, is your system still having the same problem even after your clean install? Or are you just remembering back prior to the installation?
 
I did a clean install, everything was fine untill i re-installer Synergy (I bought it, so, want to use it). The last time i got a choppy exposé, i told to myself that i would pay attention when installing a new app, to see if exposé become choppy... So, the first time it became choppy this time is when synergy was on. I click Start, exposé is choppy, I click Stop, it's smooth... Not THAT choppy, but, enough to anoy me
 
Originally posted by BIGgui_X_
I did a clean install, everything was fine untill i re-installer Synergy (I bought it, so, want to use it). The last time i got a choppy exposé, i told to myself that i would pay attention when installing a new app, to see if exposé become choppy... So, the first time it became choppy this time is when synergy was on. I click Start, exposé is choppy, I click Stop, it's smooth... Not THAT choppy, but, enough to anoy me
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Hmm that's odd. Like I've said no problems here. Even with lots of programs running.

I can even have UT2003 running and be folding and put UT2003 in window mode and then open up a couple quicktime movies and use Expose on the whole mess and it's smooth. This is with Synergy, Meteo, Monitors, iSync, iChat and the Classic menu items all running.
 
Originally posted by steely
Whoops.... sorry, forgot to include that. I've got 768 MB. vm_stat spits out a 32% hit rate, but I've also got quite a gnarly collection of apps running right now ( the uber-system-hog dreamweaver, and a bunch of random browsers for testing). Like I said in my earlier post, I can get the problem to exhibit itself right after a reboot.

BIGgui_X_, is your system still having the same problem even after your clean install? Or are you just remembering back prior to the installation?
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Between the 768 MB and Dreamweaver, that says a lot. I just checked Macromedia's latest MX 2004 applications and they're using Mac OS 9.x style resources. At least one of them, had a reference to PowerPlant, which is a Mac OS 9-optimised application framework from Metrowerks. Despite this, they claim to require version Mac OS X 10.2.6 but if they're still using the System 6 event loop, they're really eating up the processor time doing nothing.
 
Originally posted by bousozoku
Between the 768 MB and Dreamweaver, that says a lot. I just checked Macromedia's latest MX 2004 applications and they're using Mac OS 9.x style resources. At least one of them, had a reference to PowerPlant, which is a Mac OS 9-optimised application framework from Metrowerks. Despite this, they claim to require version Mac OS X 10.2.6 but if they're still using the System 6 event loop, they're really eating up the processor time doing nothing.
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Right, I would expect Expose performance to suffer with 3 or 4 Dreamweaver windows open, not to mention Safari, Camino, Mozilla and IE running in the background. However, the problem still occurs even if I only have a couple applications open (Safari and Mail, for example), as long as Synergy is running. As soon as I quit out of Synergy, application switching in Expose reverts to being smooth as silk (I'm testing this right now, as I type out this message).

To MacBandit, the only thing I could suggest would be to look very, very carefully maybe ?? I'm certain you would have noticed it by now, though, so there must be something I'm missing. Maybe it has something to do with the size of your music library? I don't see why this should affect the performance of Synergy (especially since the problem still occurs when iTunes isn't even running) but it's about the only thing I can think of right now. Just for reference, I have a pretty sizable music collection: a little under 5500 songs (35.4 GB), most of which include album covers (not sure what that has to do with anything, but I figured I'd throw it out there).
 
Originally posted by steely
......To MacBandit, the only thing I could suggest would be to look very, very carefully maybe ?? I'm certain you would have noticed it by now, though, so there must be something I'm missing. Maybe it has something to do with the size of your music library? I don't see why this should affect the performance of Synergy (especially since the problem still occurs when iTunes isn't even running) but it's about the only thing I can think of right now. Just for reference, I have a pretty sizable music collection: a little under 5500 songs (35.4 GB), most of which include album covers (not sure what that has to do with anything, but I figured I'd throw it out there).
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No I'm positive there is no jumping or strange behavior with Expose or window zooming or anything else graphics driven. My iTunes has 15GB and all them have album covers and I have Synergy pop up with the maximum pop up size with the album cover using transparency. Even when this is happening Expose is smooth.

I'm beginning to wonder if A) you didn't somehow install some video drivers or copy over some drivers or prefs that are incompatible with the video card in your machine or B) you have a hardware level problem with the video card.
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
No I'm positive there is no jumping or strange behavior with Expose or window zooming or anything else graphics driven. My iTunes has 15GB and all them have album covers and I have Synergy pop up with the maximum pop up size with the album cover using transparency. Even when this is happening Expose is smooth.

I'm beginning to wonder if A) you didn't somehow install some video drivers or copy over some drivers or prefs that are incompatible with the video card in your machine or B) you have a hardware level problem with the video card.
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Yeah, the fact that Meteo produces the same problem over here would seem to indicate that the music collection has nothing to do with the issue.

You may very well be right about it being a hardware issue; it'd be a shame if this is the case, seeing how the machine runs absolutely beautifully otherwise. I find it extremely odd that the problem only occurs when menu bar applications are running, but at this point, I think I'll just live with the minor annoyance. Besides, I've done the "expose application switch" routine so many times today (in order to convince myself that the issue actually exists) that it actually seems kind of normal now :).
 
Originally posted by steely
Right, I would expect Expose performance to suffer with 3 or 4 Dreamweaver windows open, not to mention Safari, Camino, Mozilla and IE running in the background. However, the problem still occurs even if I only have a couple applications open (Safari and Mail, for example), as long as Synergy is running. As soon as I quit out of Synergy, application switching in Expose reverts to being smooth as silk (I'm testing this right now, as I type out this message).
...
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You should let the people who wrote Synergy know, even if you don't expect an instant response.
 
Originally posted by bousozoku
You should let the people who wrote Synergy know, even if you don't expect an instant response.
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I've had correspondence with the guy in the last few weeks and he's not the most communicative person but I'm sure on a unique problem such as this he would reply personally.

He is working on 10.3 update for Synergy and hopefully a fix for the cover art. I don't think he has an expected date for it though.

I wonder if there isn't some sort of corrupted system pref or something for the menu bar icons? Probably just as likely that it's a problem with the video card.
 
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