NVidia GT 120 and intermittent low frame-rate with Expose, Dashboard...

I have an iMac early 2009 with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 (256 Mo) graphic card.
I have intermittent low frame-rate problems with Expose, Dasboard and several other large animations...
For example, when I trigger Expose or Dashboard, the animation may sometimes be choppy (with few intermediate images) to very choppy (practically no intermediate images)...
The second after, the same animation may feature a very high frame-rate...
Neither Apple diagnostic tool nor TechTool Deluxe finds any hardware problem.

I have the same iMac, and also have this same problem.
When I first activate Dashboard, the animation is choppy. If I activate it several times in a row very quickly, the animation smooths out noticeably. It's as though the video card is asleep, or cycled down, and then wakes up and springs into action.
This is testable. If I run the command line utility OpenCL Bench immediately following a restart, my iMac's GT 120 gives a time of 14 seconds. If I open iTunes, turn on the visualizer, and then run OpenCL Bench again, the GT 120 gives a time of 1.7 seconds! If I turn off the visualizer, wait a few seconds, and re-run OpenCL Bench, the GT 120's time increases to 5.6 seconds.
The same performance increase/decrease shows up with Dashboard. If I open Dashboard with the iTunes Visualizer running, right off the bat, Dashboard's animation is very smooth. If I turn off the visualizer and wait about 30 seconds, Dashboard's animation is back to choppy.
This is not dependent on the iTunes Visualizer. I can have the "OpenCL Procedural Grass and Terrain Example" running, for example, and get the same results from OpenCL Bench and Dashboard.

Similar Messages

9400M intermittent low frame-rate : let's get heard !

hello
i have the exact same problem described on this thread
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2085771&tstart=1
" Has anyone else noticed, the performance of the NVIDIA 9400M graphics chip is intermittent. Sometimes everything will be fast and smooth and fluid, and suddenly it will switch to having a low frame rate.
A good example of this is in iPhoto's Full-Screen Edit mode. As you tap through the image with the right/left arrows, the animation can be quite jerky and slow. Then suddenly it will switch to being really fast.
Have Apple just not optimised the NVIDIA 9400M graphics drivers yet? Will its performance be better in the near future? "
sam problem, except it's on a 24" iMac . (latest one - 2 X 2.66 ghz + 4go RAM + 9400m)
the problem happens constantly when i use my firewire soundcard. guess what : i'm a musician, and my firewire soundcard is on all the time !
it also happens when i copy files from my external firewire hard disk, or if i use my macbook on target mode.
the only way to make this problem disappear is to switch to 1280 X 960 resolution (or below). therefore the 9400M has enough power to overcome the drain created by ... either bad drivers or a problem with firewire... i don't know.
anyone knows when the drivers will be updated ? if a new firmware is in the work ?
thanks
Message was edited by: Bontempi

i guess not so many people use the firewire 800 port.
had to pay 15 euros to get a 800>400 cable, so no wonder ...
here's my bug report
hello
here's my setup :
iMac 2.66 ghz / 4 gigs of RAM / 640 go HD / Nvidia 9400M graphic chip
Leopard 10.5.7
when any firewire device is in use, the frame rate switches from fast / fluid to slow / lag-ish.
simply launching Dashboard shows the frame rate drop. same problem with Expose.
the problem happens exactly the same weither i use my firewire soundcard (echo audiofire 8), my external hard drive (WD mybook 750 go) or my macbook in target mode.
the problem disappears when i turn off my soundcard, or when the external hard drive is idle. another way to "fix" the problem is switching to a lower resolution ( 1280 X 960 ).
i've spent more than 30 minutes with apple on the phone, we did a lot of tests, and the technician came to the conclusion the computer was perfectly working.
this definitely looks like a driver problem.
i've started a discussion about the matter here :
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2085911&tstart=0
some users have the same problem :
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1959109&tstart=0
please keep me up to date
thanks
matthieu
Message was edited by: Bontempi

Low Frame rate with new Apple TV.

Hi,
I just watched a purchased TV show (Top Gear) on my new Apple TV, connected to a 42" flatscreen, and I am not impressed at all with the quality. Apart from the resolution, which we all now, the image is jittery, and the frame rate is so low that when somebody moves his arm you can wee it jump from one frame to another.
Looked at settings on my TV (Sony Bravia) to see if there is something there, but I don't see any setting that might affect this.
Anyone else has this experience?
Kind Regards,
Erwin

Same issue with a British movie I just tried to stream and I didn't think this would help, but it worked like a charm! Definitely the cinemotion. I didn't even know I had that setting. It's way to the left under picture in my Bravia onscreen menu. Just make sure that you turn it off for the correct input. Im more used to using the motion enhancer toggle under options, but that wasn't it.

Low frame rate with mac to pc video chat

I have a mac with isight using Ichat and 10.4.3. My brother has XP with AIM 5.9 with the latest and greatest Logitech USB 2.0 webcam.
We are able to connect and start a video chat. We see each other. The frame rates from the isight are great on both ends. However, the frame rates from the logitech are about 1 fps on both his computer and mine. We have tried adjusting settings and installing the AIM patch that was referred to in one of the articles.
what to try next.
thanks in advance

No Problem.
New Discussions ReponsesThe new system for discussions asks that after you mark your question as Solved. You should take the time to mark any posts that have aided you with the tag and the post that provided your answer with the tag. This not only gives points to the posters, but points anyone searching for answers to similar problems to the proper posts.
Alternatively, you can change the status to Answered.
If we use the forums properly they will work well...
Ralph

Low frame rate with mask

I added a mask to a mpeg1 .mov file to remove the letterboxing, and now it plays at like 6-7 fps. I had no trouble with the original file, and my computer should obviously have no problems keeping up (the file is only 320x176). Any ideas on what the problem is or if this is common?

That is not an inherent problem with masking mpeg1 files. I just did it in QT 6 to a similar sized 29.97 FPS mpeg and it didn't slow down the FPS playing rate. Perhaps you should try it with a different mpeg and see if the problem is unique to that first one. If it is a general problem with mpeg then try it with a .mov file. If the slow down remains when masking then it probaably should be reported to the QT team at the feedback page:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/contactqt.html

Low frame rate with a wired hotel connection

My wife is staying in a hotel and we were trying a video chat. When we're disconnected she gets 15 fps video preview. When we're connected, she gets 15 fps for about 2 seconds and then it drops to 1 fps and it looks choppy on her end and my end. My signal is 15 fps and plays back smooth on her end and my end. She has an iBook g4 1.2 and an external iSight.
So I 'm trying to figure out whether it's her machine that can't handle the video when we're chatting since only my video is 15 fps or if the hotel is limiting bandwidth. If they were limiting bandwidth wouldn't my video appear choppy as well? Unless they have REALLY low upload limits and moderate download limits?
I don't know enough about how hotels deal with this sort of thing, but I suspect bandwidth limiting since her fps drops rapidly after we've connected - as if her usage is being detected and then cut off.

wickerbone,
iChat does monitor what it detects as the apparent bandwidths available to it, and dynamically adjusts input/output. And, hotel networks are just plain junk.
I really couldn't say with much authority whether her iBook might handle video chatting well or not. I do know that a 1.42 iBook has no trouble with it, and I'm pretty sure that Apple built defined limits into what architectures/speeds would be supported by iChat (in other words, iChat would let you know if it would be problematic on her machine). The only way to know without doubt would be to try a "Bonjour" chat across your own private network.
I do know first-hand that it is difficult, at the very least, to get iChat working across hotel wireless access. Ethernet tends to be a bit more solid, when available, but their access is usually poor. Typically, the hotel is employing a single DSL or cable modem connection, and using a standard, off-the-shelf router (wireless or otherwise). The network, itself, tends to get rather clogged up, and you have a situation where many users are attempting to connect through the one bottleneck. Let's not forget that this is a network that was put in place something like 5 years ago, with 802.11a (ssslllooowww) technology. And with perhaps 30 people connected to the network, what are the chances that at least one of them is running P2P software on their POS PC? Humph.
More times than not, I had better results in iChat when I went outside the hotel and connected using a Verizon connection card, instead of the hotel's (supposedly) broadband service.
Scott

Bootcamp Vista and Low Frame Rates

Hey Guys,
I've got a MBP Santa Rosa, and I've loaded Vista (both 32bit and x64) at varying stages onto bootcamp, and I seem to get very low frame rates. In TF2 I'm only topping out around 50 to 60 (vsync isn't on)
I've tried the official bootcamp drivers and also some from Laptopvideo2go. I'm at a bit of a loss here.
Can anyone recommend a decent driver set or at least provide some numbers on what they're getting in TF2 or the Source engine stress test?
Screen settings are at 1280x1024 with all settings at default recommendation.
Tried 3dmark06 but it runs at about 15FPS in the first test and I bail out cause I can't bare to watch it like that.

Fair point Sorry

One swf running on lower frame rate

Hi,
I have a basic loader swf, which loads several external swf's and displays them in a browser. Now all the other swfs work just fine, at 24 fps, but one particular swf drops down to 12 or 11 fps in the middle of the timeline. Why is this happening?? And how can I get it to run at the same frame rate as the others.
There is some heavy animation in all the external swf's but that does not seem to affect any other files, only this one. Also, the animation is not heavy throughout, though the low frame rate persists...
What could be wrong???Any help will be greatly appreciated..as the entire site is looking bad because of this file...:|

Have you tried just loading the problematic file? Does is play better? Does this problematic file play correctly alone?

Why lose mbps when conform to lower frame rate?

When I export a QT pro res HQ movie out of MOTION 4, with the same settings as the sequence (Pro res HQ 422, 59,96 fps 1280x720p), it renders out a good, same 221mbps file, but when I then take that file into Cinema Tools and conform it to 23.98fps, the file is now 88mbps? Why and how, and did losing 140mbps somehow lose also color correction and other quality capabilities?
Why does CT lose many mbps when conforming to lower frame rate?
Thanks
K

Thanks fo replies - I shot in 60 fps 720p to purposely slomo the shots in MOTION using Optical flow - then I conform to 23.98 using Cinema Tools, though I guess I could do the same by exporting to 23.98 out of MOTION 4. Wonder if there is any advantage or otherwise using CT over MOTION export to 23.98?
Nick is right, I can see a decline in visual quality/sharpness in the footage now conformed at 23.98. Should I export out of MOTION at PR HQ or 4444 or uncompressed? Hoping to preserve what I think is 10-bit footage recorded on ATOMOS NINJA at PR HQ422, which is 10 bit correct? But when I choose PR HQ 422 in MOTION export, it says (at the bottom summary of my codec) that it's HQ at 8-bit? Why and how to preserve 10-bit for color grading?

Poor performance / low frame rate

Hi
Well I have a scenegraph with some objects imported
from vrml files and a lot of boxes (1200 Box objects)
So when I move the view (camera) to see my model
when i pass near the boxes i have a very low frame rate
3 ,4 ,5 max.
When I don't include the boxes into my scenegraph
i get a better frame rate 15 16 17 max.This scene contains about 30 objects loaded from vrmk file.
apx. 1000 boxes are so hard to render?
they are grouped together like in a container terminal.
what can cause this?
is this scenegraph to large?
The computer is very good 2Gb DDRAM, a very good graphic card (128 Mb).
Please answer to me or give a hint
Regards
Cristian
PS. I have also noticed that when I tried the well known java3d HelloUniverse program with 1000 colored cubes it was very slow when i resized the window?
Do i do something wrong or java3d is slow ?
Thx again

Well, 1200 boxes equals 14,400 faces/polygons (2 per side of the cube) to be rendered. Plus, with the addition of the objects imported it'll be higher.
The graphics adapter may not be powerful enough to render this amount at an acceptable frame rate. Having 128MB of RAM doesn't mean it's fast.

NX8800GTS T2D512E Low frame rate problems.

Recently installed this card and my frame rates are half of what they used to be with my old XFX 8600GT 512DDR3 which only had 32 stream processors. Mainly play BF2 and COD4 and would like to play Crysis again but my last card really struggled with crysis at the end. I used to get 90 FPS in BF2 and 60+ in BF 2142 and now I only get half of that! I ran 3Dmark06 and scored a 8700 and thought that was low in comparison to like systems. Please help anyone, it would be greatly appreciated. Driver version installed is 7.15.11.6906.
System:Quad 6600,Gigabyte P35C-DR3R with latest bios, 4 gigs @ 667, PC power and cooling 610 watt with 49 amps on the 12v rail, cooler master 690 case with 6 fans, card doesn't get hotter than 50c° with the fan at 52%.

Reinstalled drivers as suggested by Frankenputer using the driver sweeper method. Used the MSI drivers on disc. Ran 3Dmark06 and scored 6500 on all stock settings. Did a little overclocking from 2.4 to 3.0 on CPU and kept ram clocked at 667. Overclocked card ( D.O.T. -level 6 Commander ) and ran 3D again to a score of 7900. Ran crysis and it seemed to run better at a lower res and mixed settings at medium and high. Also ran BF2 and got my frame rates back in the 70's. I'll try 2142 and COD4 Saturday and see what results I get. Everything in case is still running cool. I think the real test will be some of the later stages in crysis to see if the 8800GTS does better than the old card. I don't know if I'm worrying too much about frame rates or 3dmark scores, i just thought I would see a increase in performance at stock settings like I ran my PC when I had the 8600 GT, not a decrease in performance. I don't really have another computer I can try this card in as none of my friends have the affliction I have. I still have the feeling something is not right with the card. I have never had to RMA anything before. Any thoughts?
Thank you for your input and troubleshooting help.

JPEG viewing low frame rate.

Hi, I am trying to play a list of jpeg files using player, as if it is a jpeg movie. But I am getting low frame rate, like 10 fps. However, by using the same jpeg files, and make it in a .mov file, the player could play it at 30 fps (the setting during making the stream). The .mov file is produced using the same setting as the program JpegImagesToMovie posted on the forum.
The testing applet that run the movie in full rate is (simplified, without exception catching):
url = new URL(getDocumentBase(), mediaFile);
mediaFile = url.toExternalForm();
MediaLocator mrl = new MediaLocator(mediaFile);
Player player = Manager.createPlayer(mrl);
player.start();
For the JPEG file stream, the player is created as:
Player player = Manager.craetePlayer(customdatasource); // refer to below for the custom data source class
1. Is it I need to make the data source format to something else , so that the player will play it with 30 fps instead of the slow 10 fps rate?
2. How would a player render a jpeg image faster? I checked the timing, the loading time for each jpeg file is less than 1 ms, but it took the player around 100 ms to render the loaded image.
I created my own PullBufferDataSource and PullBufferStream. Below is the list of my program. I make the datasource and datastream to load a image file each time the:
read( Buffer buf)
method is called in the datastream class.
public class MJPEGDataSource extends PullBufferDataSource {
protected InputStream sourceStream = null;
private MJPEGDataStream streams[];
public MJPEGDataSource(int width, int height, int frameRate, String sourceFile) {
     streams = new MJPEGDataStream[1];
     streams[0] = new MJPEGDataStream(width, height, frameRate, sourceFile);
public void setLocator(MediaLocator source) {
public MediaLocator getLocator() {
return null;
public PullBufferStream[] getStreams() {
return streams;
public String getContentType() {
return streams[0].getContentDescriptor().getContentType();
public void connect() {
public void disconnect() {
// TODO: Add your code here
public void start() throws IOException {
public void stop() throws IOException {
public Object getControl(String parm1) {
return null;
public Object[] getControls() {
return new Object[0];
public Time getDuration() {
return Duration.DURATION_UNKNOWN;
public class MJPEGDataStream implements PullBufferStream {
protected boolean eofMarker;
protected ContentDescriptor cd;
String sourceName;
     int width, height;
VideoFormat format;
FileInputStream infile = null;
public MJPEGDataStream(int width, int height, int frameRate, String sourceFile) {
eofMarker = true;
this.width = width;
this.height = height;
sourceName = sourceFile;
format = new VideoFormat(VideoFormat.JPEG,
new Dimension(width, height),
Format.NOT_SPECIFIED,
Format.byteArray,
(float) frameRate);
cd = new ContentDescriptor(ContentDescriptor.RAW);
try {
infile = new FileInputStream(new File(sourceName));
catch (IOException ex) { }
public boolean willReadBlock() {
if(eofMarker)
return true;
else
try {
return infile.available() == 0;
} catch (IOException ex) {
return false;
public void read(Buffer buf) throws IOException {
if (infile.available() <= 0) {
System.err.println("Done reading all images.");
buf.setEOM(true);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(0);
eofMarker = true;
return;
byte data[] = null;
if (buf.getData() instanceof byte[])
data = (byte[]) buf.getData();
byte byteSize[] = new byte[4];
infile.read(byteSize);
int size = byteToInt(byteSize);
if (data == null || data.length < size) {
data = new byte[size];
buf.setData(data);
infile.read(data, 0, size);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(size);
buf.setFormat(format);
buf.setFlags(buf.getFlags() | buf.FLAG_KEY_FRAME);
public Format getFormat() {
return format;
public ContentDescriptor getContentDescriptor() {
return cd;
public long getContentLength() {
return SourceStream.LENGTH_UNKNOWN;
public boolean endOfStream() {
return eofMarker;
public Object[] getControls() {
return new Object[0];
public Object getControl(String controlType) {
return null;
public int byteToInt(byte in[]) {
if(in.length > 4) return -1;
int result = (in[3] << 24) + ((in[2] << 16) & 0x00FF0000) +
((in[1] << 8) & 0x0000FF00) + ((int)(in[0]) & 0x000000FF);
return result;

Hi again.
I found the solution to my problem. In the read(Buffer buf) function, the buf timestamp and sequencenombur should be set in order to play at the expected frame rate (30 fps in my case):
public void read(Buffer buf) throws IOException {
if (infile.available() <= 0) {
System.err.println("Done reading all images.");
buf.setEOM(true);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(0);
eofMarker = true;
return;
byte data[] = null;
if (buf.getData() instanceof byte[])
data = (byte[]) buf.getData();
byte byteSize[] = new byte[4];
infile.read(byteSize);
int size = byteToInt(byteSize);
if (data == null || data.length < size) {
data = new byte[size];
buf.setData(data);
infile.read(data, 0, size);
buf.setOffset(0);
buf.setLength(size);
buf.setFormat(format);
buf.setFlags(buf.getFlags() | buf.FLAG_KEY_FRAME);
// ====== added line ========
long time = (long) (seqNo * (1000 / format.getFrameRate()) * 1000000);
buf.setTimeStamp(time);
buf.setSequenceNumber(seqNo++);
Thanks for reading.
Ryan

Okay so i had an iphone 5. I backed it up on icloud. Then i got the new iphone 5s i restored ot from icloud from my previous iphone 5. Now everything works find execept now the games are slowy and drops the frame rate and look choppy. Please help.

Okay so i had an iphone 5. I backed it up on icloud. Then i got the new iphone 5s i restored ot from icloud from my previous iphone 5. Now everything works find execept now the games are slowy and drops the frame rate and look choppy. Then i restarted my iphone 5s as a new device downloaded the same apps even the ones optimized for ios 7 and the games still lag. And i just got my iphone 5s replace. The funny thing is. While im playing games and their running choppy and slow and if i take a snap shot inside the phone. They run smooth and HD but just for a few seconds and boom they go back to slow and choppy. Is it the ios 7 or the iphone 5s it self? Like i said this is my replacement iphone 5s because the other 5s did the same thing. And it was running slowly.

As far as I know you can't delete the primary email address for an iCloud account. It's assigned when the account is created. But your neighbor wouldn't have been able to get into your iCloud account without your Apple ID and password. Are you sure the account wasn't still on your phone when you gave it to him?
You could migrate a copy of your data to a new iCloud account but I would still be concerned that someone else was using my old account, which presumably still has your data in it.
I'm fairly certain that you're going to have to have iCloud support help you sort this one out as they may have the ability to make changes to an existing account that users can't. Make an appointment with the genius bar at a nearby Apple store and have them take a look at it. If necessary, they should be able to contact iCloud support for you.

Support MIDI and dynamic change FRAME RATE

What MACROMEDIA says about support by FLASH, midi files and
dynamic change FRAME RATE of the movie?
this is two nuances that does not suffice me.
And what about macromedia FLASH 9? When it comes?

For dimension changing use something like this (is a part of a bash script for video edition so ...) :
# Le quitamos el over-scan al ancho. OJO!! debe seguir siendo MULTIPLO de OCHO
WIDTH_SCALED=$(($OUTPUT_V_WIDTH-$OUTPUT_OVS*8)) #multiplicamos el overscan por 8(4 pixeles a cada lado)
# Obtenemos relacion de aspecto de forma mas precisa
if [ "$OUTPUT_V_ASPECT" == "1.7777" ]; then # formato panoramico
ASPECT_PRECISE=`echo "16/9"| bc -l`
else
ASPECT_PRECISE=`echo "4/3"| bc -l` # y el formato normal
fi
HEIGHT_SCALED=`echo "(${INPUT_V_HEIGHT}*${OUTPUT_V_HEIGHT}*${ASPECT_PRECISE})/${INPUT_V_WIDTH}"| bc -l`
# Necesito que el alto sea MULTIPLO DE CUATRO para que la longitud del PADDING sea PAR y simplificar el codigo... introduzco un error de 3.999999 pixels (en el peor de los casos)
HEIGHT_SCALED=$((`echo "scale=0 ; $HEIGHT_SCALED/4"| bc -l`*4))
# Calculo el Padding
OUTPUT_V_PAD_WIDTH=$(($OUTPUT_OVS*4))
OUTPUT_V_PAD_HEIGHT=`echo "scale=0 ; ($OUTPUT_V_HEIGHT-$HEIGHT_SCALED)/2"| bc -l`
Don't bother about the comments . Is spanish .
What you want is :
HEIGHT_SCALED=`echo "(${INPUT_V_HEIGHT}*${OUTPUT_V_HEIGHT}*${ASPECT_PRECISE})/${INPUT_V_WIDTH}"| bc -l`
About frame rate - this is video edition and i think you can not do this in java . Is more complicated than a simple calc . Under linux i'm using ffmpeg to change fps and encode from avi to mpeg2 .

Is this how i control frame rate with IMAQdr property node?

Is this how i control frame rate with IMAQdr property node? if not, can someone point me in the right direction? for some reason, it doesnt work..
Attachments:
pic.JPG ‏75 KB

Please see this related thread http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/IMAQdr-Property-Node/m-p/1642950/highlight/false#M590168
Matt
Product Owner - NI Community
National Instruments

NVidia GT 120 and intermittent low frame-rate with Expose, Dashboard...

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for