Proof that Panther improves graphics

[Powerbook G5]

I just set my screen saver to be my background again under terminal and was blown away:

Marine Aquarium w/7 fish under Jaguar:

~38-58 fps usually

Marine Aquarium w/7 fish under Panther:

~85-115 fps usually

Marine Aquarium as screen saver under Jag v. Panther:
(highest usually)

140 v. 190

I know they aren't Quake 3 or Unreal 2 fps benchmarks, but something simple like setting the screen saver as background normally slows down your system to a crawl and causes a lot of hiccups but I am using it like normal with no real slowdown and over 100 fps, which I find pretty impressive.

 

[Counterfit]

Re: Proof that Panther improves graphics

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
I just set my screen saver to be my background again under terminal and was blown away:

Wow, that is such a great idea. How does one do that?

 

[Powerbook G5]

Open Terminal and type:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Screensaver.framework/Resources/ScreensaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreensaverEngine -background

Then just hide Terminal and enjoy. It's really cool to impress people. I did it one time at CompUSA on a G5 when I saw Marine Aquarium running on all of their multiple monitors, so I set it as the Finder background and soon after there was a whole crowd of people in front of the G5 commenting on how cool it was that the wallpaper "moves" and that they never seen that on their computers. I wonder how many Macs they sold that day.

 

[joker2]

how many sold that day...

And how many were returned when they couldn't get their new machines to do the same thing?

 

[Edot]

Re: Re: Proof that Panther improves graphics

Originally posted by Counterfit
Wow, that is such a great idea. How does one do that?

I don't know about you guys, but It breaks Exposé permanently (until you restart(log out?)). Is there a way to do this without breaking Exposé, or a way to get Exposé functionality back after using a background screensaver? I have used Backlight, and it must use the same method as the terminal commands because Exposé is broken permanently with that app as well.

 

[Powerbook G5]

It doesn't break Exposé for me. When I invoke Exposé, it temporarily stops the screensaver background and uses your standard Finder background and works fine, then when you exit Exposé, the screensaver pops back instantly again.

 

[Counterfit]

Ooohhhh, I thought you meant as the Terminal background. Drat

 

[tpjunkie]

if you don't want to use the terminal, you can also download Xback, which lets you set a screensaver as your background and puts a little menu next to the clock that lets you adjust the screensaver settings, and it also starts the screensaver desktop automatically when you start up.

 

[Edot]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
It doesn't break Exposé for me. When I invoke Exposé, it temporarily stops the screensaver background and uses your standard Finder background and works fine, then when you exit Exposé, the screensaver pops back instantly again.

What are your expose settings? The mouse gestures still seem to work, but mouse buttons and F-keys are not functional for expose. Weird.

 

[Powerbook G5]

I have fn as "show all windows", F11 as "app windows", and F12 as "desktop" and they work just fine with me with the screen saver active.

 

[Counterfit]

Yeah, so I tried a different app from the suggested one to set Marine aquarium as my desktop. It set my screen to black and I couldn't get back in. Not even by ssh from my roommates iMac.

 

[Powerbook G5]

I find it just as easy to add the line to Terminal than to use a program. I've heard so many horror stories about one program that I definitely won't use anything that I can reasonably do in Terminal.

 

[Counterfit]

That app wouldn't happen to be Desktop Effects would it? either I'm doing something wrong, or it's the worst app I've ever used, including M$ stuff

 

[Powerbook G5]

I don't remember the name, I just remember someone suggesting it, so I checked it out on Version Tracker and found it to be a Beta software, which I generally stay away from and when I checked the feedback it was just lots of nightmare stories of how it caused them to do a reinstall of OS X after it messing up the system. I don't see what it could have done to be such a pain when all it really needs to do is invoke one basic line from Terminal.

 

[bousozoku]

You could probably just do that in an AppleScript that could be double-clicked that would run that line and minimise the Terminal application.

I tried the following, as a test, but I'm not sure what they use to minimise windows and/or applications.

tell application "Terminal"
activate
do script "cd /etc; ls -l"
minimize
end tell

On the line where I've used do script, you can enter your line between the quotation marks. You'd still have to find out how to minimize Terminal, but it might be something simple.