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Snow Leopard + 3870 = Slow?

V

ventro

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 23, 2006
692
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I'm experiencing some massive graphical slowdowns after upgrading to Snow Leopard.

- Expose is REALLY choppy. Sometimes I only see like 1-5 frames of the animation.
- Quicklook is also quite choppy.

I'm wondering, maybe SL overwrote the drivers that came with the 3870 on the CD? Should I re-install the drivers off of the CD? Any ideas?
 
OK, I've got a 1,1 and a 3870. I did a clean install of SL then did a Time Machine restore of my 10.5.8 setup. ATI drivers should be later than 10.5.x - try that.

I'm not experiencing massive slowdowns, but benchs are lower than 10.5.8. Not that much, though.

JP
 
ventro said:
I'm experiencing some massive graphical slowdowns after upgrading to Snow Leopard.

- Expose is REALLY choppy. Sometimes I only see like 1-5 frames of the animation.
- Quicklook is also quite choppy.

I'm wondering, maybe SL overwrote the drivers that came with the 3870 on the CD? Should I re-install the drivers off of the CD? Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm having the same problem. COD4 is dog slow as well. Slow as in 10-15 fps when I was getting 70-80 fps before.
 
JPamplin said:
OK, I've got a 1,1 and a 3870. I did a clean install of SL then did a Time Machine restore of my 10.5.8 setup. ATI drivers should be later than 10.5.x - try that.

I'm not experiencing massive slowdowns, but benchs are lower than 10.5.8. Not that much, though.

JP
Click to expand...
The slowdowns aren't everywhere, for example opening up a grid-view stack is very fluid and faster than Leopard. But Expose and Quicklook are two areas where the performance is quite choppy. This is at 2560x1600, btw.
 
ventro said:
I'm experiencing some massive graphical slowdowns after upgrading to Snow Leopard.

- Expose is REALLY choppy. Sometimes I only see like 1-5 frames of the animation.
- Quicklook is also quite choppy.

I'm wondering, maybe SL overwrote the drivers that came with the 3870 on the CD? Should I re-install the drivers off of the CD? Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2GHz/3870, running two monitors (Cinema 23" and Samsung 215TW), and I'm not seeing any performance issues in Expose or QL at this point. How many windows are you dealing with in Expose? How much RAM do you have?
 
rnb2 said:
I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2GHz/3870, running two monitors (Cinema 23" and Samsung 215TW), and I'm not seeing any performance issues in Expose or QL at this point. How many windows are you dealing with in Expose? How much RAM do you have?
Click to expand...
Happens with 2 or more windows. I have 10GB of ram.
 
ventro said:
Happens with 2 or more windows. I have 10GB of ram.
Click to expand...

I tried Expose with three Finder windows (I have 9GB of RAM), and have no issues. I did an upgrade install of Snow Leopard, though I did have to boot off the DVD to get the install to work (had to do the same on two other machines - only my unibody MacBook worked via running the installer from within Leopard).

Don't know what to tell you beyond that - the only thing I've noticed is that the fan on my 3870 is running faster under typical load than in Leopard, but the performance is fine thus far.
 
I've heard that some peoples' upgrades are going smoothly, and others aren't. Could be an install/stuff you had in your system issue for all we know at this point. The fact that there's no pattern to it yet is a bit worrisome.

Might be worth trying a clean install on another drive or partition? Just in case?
 
RE: Snow Leopard + 3870 = Slow?

I've been experimenting with my Mac Pro 1,1 this morning and I can't figure out why COD4 has slowed down. I have 16GB of RAM and a 3870 in my box and after a couple of reboots, I'm not really seeing the sluggishness in exposé and dashboard, or even Aperture which is my main work environment on this box. But COD4 gets really slow when there is a lot of action/players involved in a small area/scenario, i.e., "Killhouse". I guess this isn't a big deal as I could just quit playing (Yeah right! COD4 is like crack to me! :eek:), but it does bug me a little. What say you all?
 
Very strange, more than 48 hours later, and Expose and Quicklook are suddenly extremely smooth! I don't know how long this will last, but I'll take it :)

It's quite weird, it just fixed itself. I didn't even restart or anything.
 
My Mac Pro (v1.1) has a 3870 which I installed about a year ago. It always worked well under Leopard - fan was reasonably quiet except when under load (playing video or a game).

Upon upgrading to Snow Leopard (not a clean install), my 3870 fan is running full speed at all times. Apple Tech Support is at a loss on this one.

Aside from the fans running, I don't see any major system/graphics slow-downs.

Anyone else experiencing the fan issue?
 
Mac Pro 1, 1 8gbs ram, 3870

seems to be working fine on this machine... I don't have COD 4 but I do have blender installed and a 5000 faced model seemed smooth during rotation.
 
mc123 said:
My Mac Pro (v1.1) has a 3870 which I installed about a year ago. It always worked well under Leopard - fan was reasonably quiet except when under load (playing video or a game).

Upon upgrading to Snow Leopard (not a clean install), my 3870 fan is running full speed at all times. Apple Tech Support is at a loss on this one.

Aside from the fans running, I don't see any major system/graphics slow-downs.

Anyone else experiencing the fan issue?
Click to expand...


Yes I'm getting my IO fan at 2138 about 100O RPM to many. Tried an SMC reset. Went back to leopard on a back up all cool there:) I'm on a Quad 2.8 mac pro
 
I've the same problem with my iMac (120GT), but with spaces, I've upgraded and re-formatted the HD but the problem remains...
 
I have the same 3870 fan issues as mc123; MacPro1,3 here. When I boot the machine with 10.5.8, everything is fine; but with SL, the fan is always on...
 
DonMega said:
I'm not really seeing the sluggishness in exposé and dashboard, or even Aperture which is my main work environment on this box. But COD4 gets really slow when there is a lot of action/players involved in a small area/scenario, i.e., "Killhouse". I guess this isn't a big deal as I could just quit playing (Yeah right! COD4 is like crack to me! :eek:), but it does bug me a little. What say you all?
Click to expand...
I'm experiencing the exact SAME problem!

24" iMac october 2007 - 4GB RAM - set up along a 24" Dell WFP panel
Snow Leopard (upgrade, not a clean install)

No clue what might be wrong. When asking online (in game), other people are experiencing the same problems...
 
3870 = Better Now

I'm not sure what fixed my problem with Hulu streaming but after trying several things I've getting less choppiness in a full-size pop-out screen in Hulu. It also works better with TheWBCom. Oddly I was getting great Speednet speed tests even while I was having the problem. Full-Screen, not pop-out streaming never gave me issues. QT HD streaming never gave me issues. Just Hulu and TheWBCom.

What did I do?

1. Clean install.

2. Quit Using OpenDNS and reverted to the Mediacom server.

3. Used Airport Utility to up the Multi-Cast rate full on (reduces range).

4. Dumb luck?

I don't know what finally fixed this. Maybe the multi-cast rate or SL worked out some kinks. I've had this happen before with other upgrades.

I really need to abandon Wifi and go ethernet I think.
 
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