help

hi,

im using marine aquarium 2.0.6 on a powerbook running 10.3.7.

this is a phenomenal screen saver, but there must be something wrong.

it consistently uses near 100% of the cpu. i know its quite graphics intensive, but it cant possibly use resources like that!

is this a bug? am i doing something wrong?

thanks,
emory

[AKcrab]

Which powerbook? Processor speed and amount of RAM would be very helpful.

[patscarr]

There is a check box with a slider to limit frame rate. Try that.

[JimO'Connor]

You need to limit the frame rate using the check box for "limit fps".

my powerbook is a 17" 1GHz G4 with 1GB RAM

i have tried reducing the fps, which results in the cpu usage dropping from around 98% to around 65% (and makes the screen saver considerably choppier) ...

oops!

i take that back ... it actually goes down to more like 35% with the limited fps (could have sworn it was higher last time i tried). i guess 35% is tolerable, although it still causes the fan to come on ... which is fairly effective in drowning out the sound of the bubbles ...

also, selecting "desktop/screensaver" in system prefs while ma is the selected screen saver, then selecting any other system prefs module, and then trying to select "desktop/screensaver" again consistently causes system prefs to die immediately.

thanks,
emory

[JimO'Connor]

If the system prefs module dies then it will leave a crash log, which would be very helpful to me. Look in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/System Preferences.crash.log, with the ~ being your home folder. If you leave feedback on the Order N Dev web site I'll mail you how to get it to me. There could be useful info in the console.

You can reduce the "Shimmer" setting to reduce the amount of work which is done for each frame, which will further reduce the CPU load because of the screen saver.

As a screen saver we are a relatively low priority for CPU time so we can be pre-empted by file sharing or other system services or applications. This can cause jumpiness even though the frame rate is relatively high. For instance, Safari and this web page cause the screen saver to run at 78 fps on my Powerbook, but it is not smooth with the largest pause between draws being on the order of 85 ms and the lowest around 8ms. Any pause over about 33ms will show a stutter. Lowering or turning off the shimmer, limiting frame rate to 40 fps gives a pause between frames is a consistent 24ms for me, which is very smooth. The pauses between frames info is only available in debug builds, so you'll have use subjective measures of smoothness.

Your mileage will vary.

Please get in touch with me about the crashes, and any further info you have for me with this performance issue.

thanks jim,

ill keep playing around with it ... cpu isnt that big as long as i make sure to disable the screen saver whenever im doing something like burning a disc or if the powerbook is unplugged.

i pasted the entire contents of my system prefs crash log into the feedback form on order n dev. i included my email so let me know if youd prefer me to email it as an attachment.

emory

well, looks like it got truncated when i hit submit.

like i said, send me an email if youd like the full log.

-e

[JimO'Connor]

The section you gave me was sufficient. I fixed this bug when writing Goldfish, but I don't think we'd ever actually had any documented crashes from it in Marine Aquarium, it was more of a "hmm, this could be a problem" type thing. I've been working on getting MA going with the GA code base, but it isn't a small chore.

[Jim Sachs]

Don't waste your time on the old MA. It's about to undergo a radical revision.

[feldon34]

"about to" means October, but which year?