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MacBook Pro users with poor Leopard graphics?

catachip

catachip

macrumors regular
Original poster
I have a new C2D MacBook Pro, 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB Ram, 256 video. I installed Leopard as an "Erase and Install" and I am noticing that many of the graphics effects are pretty poor. The dock icon bounces, magnification, into and out of dashboard, minimize and restore are all low frame rate (not the usual smooth as liquid as in Tiger).

Interestingly, some graphics have improved. The cube effect to "login" screen and widget "ripple" effect are much smoother.

What is the word from other users, and the hope of getting a fix soon!?
 
catachip said:
I have a new C2D MacBook Pro, 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB Ram, 256 video. I installed Leopard as an "Erase and Install" and I am noticing that many of the graphics effects are pretty poor. The dock icon bounces, magnification, into and out of dashboard, minimize and restore are all low frame rate (not the usual smooth as liquid as in Tiger).

Interestingly, some graphics have improved. The cube effect to "login" screen and widget "ripple" effect are much smoother.

What is the word from other users, and the hope of getting a fix soon!?
Click to expand...

Did you install it within the last few hours?
If you did, Spotlight's MDS process is most likely causing the choppiness.
 
I think people have said that the graphics suck on battery, and really zip when plugged into the wall.

Apple definitely has some fine tuning to do.
 
Sun Baked said:
I think people have said that the graphics suck on battery, and really zip when plugged into the wall.

Apple definitely has some fine tuning to do.
Click to expand...

I noticed that in Tiger, but, these graphics problems or poor performance occur while plugged and get worse while on battery. Also, moving the dock to the side (to make it 2D) improves the graphics performance, although it is still not the same quality as Tiger.
 
I know for a fact its not spotlight, to those of which suggest that to be the culprit. I've had Leopard installed since day one and I've been having the exact same issues as the OP, and many others.

I believe that its likeliy a video card driver problem, which should be resolved in a future (near, hopefully) update.

I guess we've all got to be patient for now. 🙁




Sun Baked said:
I think people have said that the graphics suck on battery, and really zip when plugged into the wall.

Apple definitely has some fine tuning to do.
Click to expand...
To the guy who said that the performance sucks on batter power, I've actually noticed that the performance is actually the same on batter power as it is while plugged in; surprisingly enough, because Tiger was choppy on battery but silky on AC. Leopard = semi choppy on both batter and AC, no diff to me at least.
 
Arkanok said:
To the guy who said that the performance sucks on batter power, I've actually noticed that the performance is actually the same on batter power as it is while plugged in; surprisingly enough, because Tiger was choppy on battery but silky on AC. Leopard = semi choppy on both batter and AC, no diff to me at least.
Click to expand...

You're right! I was just going based on my assumptions from Tiger. The graphic performance is the same with battery and with AC power. I think they may have some glitch in the drivers that is putting on power saving mode while plugged in.

This is very annoying...
 
I've got a MBP 2.4 GHz C2D, 4GB RAM and did an erase and install. It's all fine for me no choppy graphics.

One thing though, today my keyboard stopped working, did a reboot and it's fine now, phewh! Never happened with Tiger.... Hmmmm.
 
skp574 said:
I've got a MBP 2.4 GHz C2D, 4GB RAM and did an erase and install. It's all fine for me no choppy graphics.

One thing though, today my keyboard stopped working, did a reboot and it's fine now, phewh! Never happened with Tiger.... Hmmmm.
Click to expand...

I think there may be varying degrees of anal-retentive tendencies at play here. Is it possible you just don't notice the graphics are poorer? They are generally not stuttering, just lower frame rate.

Not trying to contradict you here, just trying to determine how identical configurations could be different.
 
I just did a clean install on my 2.2 MBP with 2GB. Everything is smooth. expose, dashboard.

the only thing that is slow is opening frontrow... damn... it takes so long to open after i press the button. i want the old frontrow back..
 
catachip said:
I think there may be varying degrees of anal-retentive tendencies at play here. Is it possible you just don't notice the graphics are poorer? They are generally not stuttering, just lower frame rate.

Not trying to contradict you here, just trying to determine how identical configurations could be different.
Click to expand...

Good point. Some people may have a different idea of what they considder "choppy". Some, such as myself, notice even the slightest imperfection, because we expected perfection. However; I'll be honest and say, it doesn't bother me THAT much anymore because I'm pretty confident that Apple will address the issue soon. Other than the slightly less-than-perfect animations, I feel as if Leopard is a great OS, and don't regret buying, and installing it.
 
theman said:
I just did a clean install on my 2.2 MBP with 2GB. Everything is smooth. expose, dashboard.

the only thing that is slow is opening frontrow... damn... it takes so long to open after i press the button. i want the old frontrow back..
Click to expand...

Yep I'd agree with that, where's the funky animation gone with the desktop fading away? Bring it back!
 
skp574 said:
Yep I'd agree with that, where's the funky animation gone with the desktop fading away? Bring it back!
Click to expand...

Yeah, wasn't that a bizarre thing to remove? Probably one of the first instances where Apple removed a graphical eye candy with a new version. I for one would like to see it come back.
 
I am rather curious as to why they removed that.

I guess it might be possible that Apple have changed the priority of which parts of the system get priority for being smooth? On my MBP some things seem faster, some slower. It could just be bugs, but I was wondering if it could be that Apple have increased performance of things like Quartz Compositions, Safari, Quicktime, Motion 3, other apps, at the expense of some of the OS animations?

I guess Id like to know whether core animation is now being used for some of these effects, and it performs worse than it should, or maybe they have just throttled back the OS graphics so that core animation will be supersmooth in apps of the future that use it?

Im probably completely wrong though as some of these animations are only slow sometimes, suggesting something else is hogging things sometimes. But that doesnt explain why they took a step back with the frontrow animation.

Either way its mildly depressing, the smoothness of Apple's stuff is an important part of their look, feel & appeal, just look at the iphone for instance.
 
I've had no problems at all on my 2.16 C2D MBP (2GB RAM). It's been smooth as silk since install except for when Spotlight tried to index my Time Machine drive. There was another thread on here with people having these problems, and it seemed that doing another erase and install fixed it. Something about messed up installation files. Don't quote me on that though.
 
As far as animations go, I've noticed a few choppy things. Stacks can be a bit jerky at times, Spaces is noticeably 'juttery' (although it's almost there), time machine seemed absolutely fine though.
 
Killyp said:
As far as animations go, I've noticed a few choppy things. Stacks can be a bit jerky at times, Spaces is noticeably 'juttery' (although it's almost there), time machine seemed absolutely fine though.
Click to expand...

Yes, I noted that above as well. Not all graphics and poorer, and indeed some have improved (as least for me) over tiger. Widget ripple, user account cube transition and time machine are examples where the graphics are flawless.

Minimize/restore, enter/exit dashboard and the dock are where I am seeing problems.
 
catachip said:
I have a new C2D MacBook Pro, 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB Ram, 256 video. I installed Leopard as an "Erase and Install" and I am noticing that many of the graphics effects are pretty poor. The dock icon bounces, magnification, into and out of dashboard, minimize and restore are all low frame rate (not the usual smooth as liquid as in Tiger).

Interestingly, some graphics have improved. The cube effect to "login" screen and widget "ripple" effect are much smoother.

What is the word from other users, and the hope of getting a fix soon!?
Click to expand...


SAME annoying issues man. Must be the lovely Nvidia drivers. He it only took Nvidia 6 months to delivera quality Vista driver, so by March we should be good...
 
DoreanGrae said:
I've had no problems at all on my 2.16 C2D MBP (2GB RAM). It's been smooth as silk since install except for when Spotlight tried to index my Time Machine drive. There was another thread on here with people having these problems, and it seemed that doing another erase and install fixed it. Something about messed up installation files. Don't quote me on that though.
Click to expand...


And ths would be becasue your MBP has an ATI Graphics card inside...
 
my 2.33ghz C2D mbp is running perfectly fine after an archive and install. All graphics (except for viewing very large stacks in grid mode) are very smooth.
 
Burnsey said:
my 2.33ghz C2D mbp is running perfectly fine after an archive and install. All graphics (except for viewing very large stacks in grid mode) are very smooth.
Click to expand...

Clearly (as suggested in the post above) this is a problem with nVidia graphics drivers. Ironic that a technically inferior graphics card is producing superior graphics performance - highlights the importance of good software drivers!
 
The ATi drivers are more mature thus most likely perform better. I'm sure nVidia will get things sorted out in no time.
 
I notice some choppiness when moving into and out of the dock with magnification on. Scrolling back and forth along the dock is super smooth.

It's hard to define the choppiness. It's not really that noticeable. It's almost like watching a tv show that's 29 frames per second instead of 30, if that makes any sense.

If I turn the reflective dock off as mentioned in another thread, it is super smooth (same with having the dock on the side).

I experienced the same choppiness in Tiger only when I had several apps open or when a large task was being performed. This choppiness occurs in Leopard with zero apps open.

I should note that this is happening on both the MBP (2.16 Ghz Core 2 Duo) and the iMac (2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo Aluminum).
 
I also notice some choppiness here and there. Thank god they fixed the issue with battery performance. My expose was so poor while using the battery with Tiger. That is fixed, but there sure is some issues here and there. Maybe there are different video drivers in different computers which why some of us have issues and not others?

I have a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT in mine. Anyone have something different and not noticing some jitterbugs?
 
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