Slowing Down?

[pbnj]

Don't know if this is a bug report or a call for help, but here goes.

I just bought v1.1 at Micro Center. I've got a G4/400 with plenty of RAM. The video card is stock. I'm running OS 9.0.4 and I loaded OpenGL 1.2.1 after I read the package.

Anyway, the problem I have is that in both application and screen saver modes, the frame rate drops to low levels after a short time. Changing settings has no effect.

What am I doing wrong?

We love the software and want to enjoy it to the fullest.

Thanks.

[JimO'Connor]

G4/400 -- what? Powerbooks have processor cycling and other battery/heat saving mechanisms which cut in after a lack of user input. There is a control panel which controls this feature. This is the most common cause of performance drops on Powerbooks.

Nothing comes to mind if you have a desktop -- I'll have to think about it.

[pbnj]

Jim,

Sorry, its a desktop.

[JimO'Connor]

If you boot with only the required extensions does the problem still occur? How much of a slow down? From what fps (use the 's' key) to what?

[pbnj]

Marine Aquarium settings:
6 fish (none random)
shimmer off
bubbles and sound on
widescreen off
60 fps
fullscreen resolution 1024x768 thousands of colors

Computer settings:
1024x768 85Hz
thousands of colors
VM is on (641M)

In both 600x450 and 1024x768 modes, when the mouse is moving, the fps hovers around 50+. When the mouse is still, however, the fps cycles between >50 and <3 fps.

I checked my extensions and rebooted with a 9.0.4 + HP Deskjet resulting in the performance numbers shown above. I don't know what constitutes a "required extensions" set.

Thanks for your time Jim.

[JimO'Connor]

You SURE that isn't a PowerBook? :^)

9.2 doesn't give me any processor cycling (also called processor performance) in the Energy Saver panel on my desktop machine. Could you give your Energy Saver extension a very thorough going over?

The way to get only the required extensions is to boot with the shift key down, then the boot process skips all extensions except those required by the machine. I think that Energy Saver is in the base set of extensions, so it would be operating unless you explicitly turn it off in the Extension Manager or boot with the shift key down.

Please give feedback to www.orderndev.com with your e-mail and we'll try some other things.

[Michael Babin]

Originally posted by pbnj
I don't know what constitutes a "required extensions" set.

Open the Extensions Manager and select the Mac OS 9.x All set (where the 9.x corresponds to your system version). Basically, you want to try to get back to the basic set of extensions that shipped with the system so we can determine if some extension/control panel/background application is causing the slow down to occur.

[pbnj]

Jim and Michael,

I think Jim lead me in the right direction by investigating the Energy Saver Control Panel. I had the "allow processor cycling" option checked. I turned it off and viola (!) a consistent >50fps with 7 random fish and shimmer turned on.

Thanks for working with me on this.

Cheers,

Paul