Rotating background makes computer really laggy

[deeddawg]

Even though I don't comprehend why the OP would want a 5-second rotation, and the snotty responses make me think of this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE), I figured I'd see what happens on my MBP13.

I set the background to rotate every 5 seconds using the built in backgrounds and am not noticing any real lag.

Activity monitor shows the Dock process popping up at ~9-10% CPU with each transition but generally the CPU is mostly idle. Not seeing much disk activity either, and there's lots of free memory.

I recommend the OP use Activity Monitor to see what's going on; p*ssing and moaning doesn't identify the cause of the issue. My guess is the background images aren't matched to the screen resolution and thus are requiring a bunch of CPU to rescale them for the screen and/or the current application load is overutilizing the available memory.

I'd first report here on what Activity Monitor tells you is going on, then see if the same symptoms occur using the stock backgrounds with little else running.

 

[SDub90]

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I have a core duo MacBook, core 2 duo MacBook pro, and a core 2 duo mini. All of them with rotating wallpapers and all have or at some point had a 5400 rpm drive or 1gb of ram (all have been upgraded at some point). When they were on 5400rpm drives and 1gb/2gb of ram I've never noticed a lag even when the rotations were set to short times.

I would try setting it to 1 minute rotations and if it still lags during the transition, open up activity monitor and check watch the ram and CPU usage

 

[mstrze]

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.

It probably takes 3-4 seconds just to load each picture into memory before it transitions, so in fact, you are actually CONSTANTLY taxing your portable system by making it process new graphics (which may not be the same size as your screen real estate) and displaying them...once displayed it's loading the new one in the background...etc. You are dedicating a consistent portion of your processor power to this task, so you have, in effect, given yourself a slower computer by demanding that it change pictures every 5 seconds. Mind you, when doing things like surfing the web or viewing a movie, you are likely not even seeing these new images as the background is covered up, so you are taxing your system needlessly.

I also share in the recommendations here that if you really need to see a new desktop pictures every 5 seconds, upgrade to more memory and a faster harddrive. The simplest and cheapest suggestion is give your computer a break and switch to a more reasonable time like every 5-10 minutes.

 

[Tonsko]

I wonder if it's just as simple as having massive 20Mb jpegs instead of ones in the MBP default res.

 

[mstrze]

I wonder if it's just as simple as having massive 20Mb jpegs instead of ones in the MBP default res.

Having ones at the standard resolution of the MBP would make things run more smoothly as there would be no additional step to 're-format' the picture for display. It still taxes the processor and drives for 2 seconds or so every 5 seconds....although not as intensely without having to re-size.

 

[aimbdd]

Why in the world would you want a new background every 5 seconds? Headache much? Wow, no need to be so uptight, people were giving you honest advice.
Depending on the photos you were using this might not be as easy as a task as you assume. How much of your cpu is used by doing this? How much free ram do you have?

 

[Tonsko]

Having ones at the standard resolution of the MBP would make things run more smoothly as there would be no additional step to 're-format' the picture for display. It still taxes the processor and drives for 2 seconds or so every 5 seconds....although not as intensely without having to re-size.

Yeh I think I wrote it like a mong. I meant having the 20Mb ones will tax the system and having the 1200x800 ones will naturally be a lot more smooth. But then I note it has already been said before, so looks like I get a double numpty award

 

[Looon]

The files are all less than 1mb
and as far as why I want it to change so often why should it matter? It's my computer if I want the background the change every 1/2 second and they put the ability to do that into the software then my computer should be able to handle it especially considering it's a brand new computer that's supposed to be at least mid range as far as mac laptops go. I can only imagine how bad the regular macbook is if this is how the pro handles something this simple

 

[bayareastudent]

I think everyone's responses explain the typical reasons why your computer will lag trying to do what you're describing. Since you said those reasons aren't, there's only one logical conclusion.

Your pictures are so ugly your weak sauce computer just can't handle it. 1MB of pure ugliness is way beyond what a 2.4GHz chip can normally process. A regular macbook would have fried by now. I'm not sure a i7 would be able to either. If they are pictures of you, i'm sorry, you're just too ugly.

 

[iLog.Genius]

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.

That's understandable if the MacBook Pro is off power, the computer will adjust itself to save power, but the lag happens even when the MacBook Pro is connected to power.

 

[deeddawg]

Be careful of the assumption that a 5 second background rotation is supposed to work well on all systems. I don't think OSX determines what options to show you based on your system or config -- so just because you have the option to do something doesn't meant it will work well.

I'd venture to guess that the quantity of people who really must have their background switching out every five seconds is low. Until this thread it never occurred to me that someone might desire that. I don't understand what could possibly motivate that desire, but as you said it's your choice.

In the end, you have two options -- either the system works for you or it doesn't. If you don't find a simple way to make 5 second background rotations smooth, either change that requirement or switch to a system which meets that requirement.

 

[Saturdays]

The files are all less than 1mb
and as far as why I want it to change so often why should it matter? It's my computer if I want the background the change every 1/2 second and they put the ability to do that into the software then my computer should be able to handle it especially considering it's a brand new computer that's supposed to be at least mid range as far as mac laptops go. I can only imagine how bad the regular macbook is if this is how the pro handles something this simple

The regular macbook is probably exactly the same, the only difference really is the aluminum casing and the backlit keyboard.

Anyway every mac has basically the same software, what your saying is that just because the software has the option to do something then because its there it should work... well it works, but its performing at the level of your set up and hardware.

Also I have seen the same performance decrease when using Windows OS to do the same thing, on a similar set up laptop.

Suggestion: Make a screen cast of you using your laptop, then post it here. Also like everyone else is saying, check Activity Monitor and see what is causing the lag/excess usage.

 

[stevemiller]

to the op:

i have a 15" 2.8ghz core2duo macbook pro from late 2008. i have it connected up to a 23" cinema display.

as a stress test, i set both the laptop screen and the cinema display screen to change wallpaper every 5 seconds. i have each sourcing images from different folders. i also am running an openGL program that rotates a 8000 polygon object on my cinema display at about 1280x1024 resolution. also have activity monitor, adium and 2 chrome tabs running. there was no noticeable slowdown.

however, my machine has the dual graphics options, so i switched from my dedicated 9600gpu to my integrated 9400 gpu. i immediately noticed choppiness in the opengl program whenever the desktops changed. since the 13" laptops only have integrated gpu i'm going to wager this is the source of your problem.

that said, 2 rendering the constant desktop change on two monitors + running a graphically intensive app at the same time is a tall order for an integrated gpu, and when i unplugged the cinema display, the lag went away.

the current 13" mbp should have a slightly newer gpu than my 9400, so if you are noticing this slowdown during everyday tasks like web browsing/itunes/instant messaging, you should probably have it looked at. if you're attempting to run a graphically intensive game, or do video editing, its good practice to turn off unnecessary resource hogs like rotating backgrounds when running such applications, no matter how powerful your system is.