Rotating background makes computer really laggy

[Looon]

Is there any reason why I can't have my macs background change every 5 seconds without it affecting what I'm doing on the screen at the time? It makes the computer slow while it's happening I really wanted to be able to have it rotate but not if it's going to choke the computer up. The mac is the current 2.4ghz 4gb model

 

[bniu]

upgrade the thing to 8gigs of ram and add a SSD

 

[goMac]

Shouldn't be too bad, but I know it's noticeable under Windows 7. It'll lock up whatever game I'm in while the desktop rotates.

This depends entirely on your desktop pictures. If they're big pictures, you might want to scale them down to your screen's resolution, or upgrade to a 7200 RPM hard drive.

The 7200 RPM hard drive is an upgrade that everyone should do anyway..

 

[Looon]

Shouldn't be too bad, but I know it's noticeable under Windows 7. It'll lock up whatever game I'm in while the desktop rotates.

This depends entirely on your desktop pictures. If they're big pictures, you might want to scale them down to your screen's resolution, or upgrade to a 7200 RPM hard drive.

The 7200 RPM hard drive is an upgrade that everyone should do anyway..

Um no. I already spent 1200 why should I have to spend more

 

[iLog.Genius]

For some reason, the lag/choppy feel during the transition from one picture to another only happens on the portables but never on desktops like the Mini and iMac from my personal testing.

 

[vant]

This feature kills battery life greatly.

 

[cys920622]

Are the background images on an external drive? Maybe it's the spin time.

 

[Looon]

Are the background images on an external drive? Maybe it's the spin time.

Nope.

 

[Dalton63841]

I have a late-2009 model with 4GB ram, and a folder with about 30 wallpapers set to rotate every minute. Never even once noticed a lag during rotation. I put my wallpapers in a folder of their own in the /Library/Dektop Pictures/ folder. I can't see how that would make a difference though.

 

[AdamRock]

lol no.

? adding 8gb of ram would decrease the lag. the ssd has nothing to do with the lag though.

oh and are you effing high? you want to set a interval of 5 seconds for a 2.4ghz? stop smoking dope.

set it to like 5-10min interval.

 

[chaoticbear]

? adding 8gb of ram would decrease the lag. the ssd has nothing to do with the lag though.

oh and are you effing high? you want to set a interval of 5 seconds for a 2.4ghz? stop smoking dope.

set it to like 5-10min interval.

Are you effing high? Why wouldn't an SSD help? You are reading from the disk, often while doing other things; why wouldn't lower latency help?

 

[AdamRock]

Are you effing high? Why wouldn't an SSD help? You are reading from the disk, often while doing other things; why wouldn't lower latency help?

for a background changer an ssd wouldn't effect it. just ram and cpu speeds.

 

[iLog.Genius]

If the first Core 2 Duo Mac Mini's can handle the transitions smoothly (at 1440x900), I don't see why a C2D or a i5/i7 MacBook Pro wouldn't be able to do it.

 

[AdamRock]

If the first Core 2 Duo Mac Mini's can handle the transitions smoothly (at 1440x900), I don't see why a C2D or a i5/i7 MacBook Pro wouldn't be able to do it.

its because hes setting the interval to 5 seconds.

 

[perfectshadows]

why do u need it to rotate so much ? mine rotates once a day anymore is just plain pointless...

 

[jenzjen]

Um no. I already spent 1200 why should I have to spend more

Because, based on what you want to do with it at the speed you expect it to happen, you don't have enough umph. The price you paid is irrelevant.

 

[TopHatPlus]

Because, based on what you want to do with it at the speed you expect it to happen, you don't have enough umph. The price you paid is irrelevant.

$1200 for a hard drive is obserd!

I suggest the 7200 upgrade or maybe even try out the seagate momentous XT, i just put one in my mbp and it works really great!

 

[Looon]

Because, based on what you want to do with it at the speed you expect it to happen, you don't have enough umph. The price you paid is irrelevant.

So you're saying if I paid $50,000 for a car that can only go 40MPH I shouldn't be able to complain when a car that only costs $15000 can

There are no words to describe how dumb what you said is

 

[iLog.Genius]

its because hes setting the interval to 5 seconds.

So a Mac Mini can do it (at 5 second intervals) but a MacBook Pro can't?

 

[jenzjen]

So you're saying if I paid $50,000 for a car that can only go 40MPH I shouldn't be able to complain when a car that only costs $15000 can

There are no words to describe how dumb what you said is

No need for insults. If you're struggling to follow along, I can use crayon if that is more your speed.

There are many cars that cost less than $40k that are faster, turn better, etc than a $100k Mercedes, but do you see the Mercedes owner complain? No, he may realize the faster acceleration is a nice-to-have, but as an entire package, his Mercedes is better off than those lesser cars. He bought his car for the entire package. If he needed a car for the fastest 0-60, then he chose poorly again with the price he paid being irrelevant - he simply chose poorly.

Same here. You chose poorly given what you want to do with your equipment. If you knew you wanted to rotate what reads to be large images every 5 seconds, you would have been better off with a manufacturer that lets you get even better video GPU upgrades.

Remember, no one *forced* you to buy the Apple product. If you're unhappy with its performance (btw, nowhere did Apple guarantee your rotating images every 5s would be seamless), you can sell it and buy the other laptop that does what you need it to do.

 

[JKK photography]

All of the hardware improvements that have been suggested would help. I'm not sure why you are being so rude to input that would probably solve your problem. A 7,200 rpm drive is a worthy upgrade.

However, if the images are formatted correctly, at the right resolution, etc. then it should be fine. I don't recommend having it do this, though, because you will see a noticeable hit on battery life.

The reason why the Mac Mini can do this so easily is that it has a constant power supply. I'm sure the Macbook Pro tones down some of the graphics/processing power in the interest of saving battery when it isn't plugged in. You could try playing around with the power settings, too, though I'm not sure what you would mess with.

 

[Saturdays]

Is there any reason why I can't have my macs background change every 5 seconds without it affecting what I'm doing on the screen at the time? It makes the computer slow while it's happening I really wanted to be able to have it rotate but not if it's going to choke the computer up. The mac is the current 2.4ghz 4gb model

I feel like i'm being trolled but here is a possible solution:

Only get background that are your EXACT resolution 1280x800, that way it looks nice and your Mac is only reading a 1280x800 res picture instead of anything bigger with a bigger possible filesize.
Use jpegs, as opposed to png.

The reason why the Mac Mini can do this so easily is that it has a constant power supply. I'm sure the Macbook Pro tones down some of the graphics/processing power in the interest of saving battery when it isn't plugged in. You could try playing around with the power settings, too, though I'm not sure what you would mess with.

Also the above is very true.

Understand whats going on when you do this: you are constantly every 5 seconds asking your mac to pull a picture of considerable size and display it on the desktop for 5 seconds, meanwhile you are probably trying to watch a movie, or browsing the web, or something else. You probably also have a 5400 RPM hdd, with a 8MB of cache. 4GB of RAM and 2.4GHz of processing power don't really do much in this case, their part is being played to the best of their ability, but most likely ur hdd is killing u here. i would also compare performance at every 1 min, just to see what happens.

 

[Looon]

No need for insults. If you're struggling to follow along, I can use crayon if that is more your speed.

There are many cars that cost less than $40k that are faster, turn better, etc than a $100k Mercedes, but do you see the Mercedes owner complain? No, he may realize the faster acceleration is a nice-to-have, but as an entire package, his Mercedes is better off than those lesser cars. He bought his car for the entire package. If he needed a car for the fastest 0-60, then he chose poorly again with the price he paid being irrelevant - he simply chose poorly.

Same here. You chose poorly given what you want to do with your equipment. If you knew you wanted to rotate what reads to be large images every 5 seconds, you would have been better off with a manufacturer that lets you get even better video GPU upgrades.

Remember, no one *forced* you to buy the Apple product. If you're unhappy with its performance (btw, nowhere did Apple guarantee your rotating images every 5s would be seamless), you can sell it and buy the other laptop that does what you need it to do.

Like I had any idea that it wouldn't be able to handle something as simple as changing the background. I didn't choose poorly I was mislead

 

[croooow]

I would think the Mac would be able to handle something that is built into the OS. If the OP has a MBP he should not have to upgrade the RAM to have rotating backgrounds.

Looon, does it choke on all tasks? I guess if your doing something very intensive, then maybe 5 secs rotation may be too much. But if you're just checking your email or browsing the internet then that isn't a good sign for the MBP.

I should try it on mine to see what happens. I changed my background but I did not think of rotation.

 

[jenzjen]

Like I had any idea that it wouldn't be able to handle something as simple as changing the background. I didn't choose poorly I was mislead

If you were mislead, blame the one who led you to buy the laptop.

Jobs never advertised the MBP as a digital photo frame replacement.

It comes down to non standard use (digital photo frame) even though it is in the OS - brakes are a standard on every car, but if you start stomping on them every 5s, then the 10th stop is going to take longer than the 1st stop, the standard brakes are simply not made for that type of use. Upgrade to better brakes for your specific use.