Quartz Compositions

djbuddha

Hey! So I'm using a brand new MacBook Pro i7 (with ScratchLive 2.0 and ME 1.5) .. I've tried this with different versions of ScratchLive and it hasn't made a difference. (from 1.93 to 2.1.1). For the tag re-write issue, I try to only use ScratchLive 2.0. I'm noticing that with some of the Quartz Compositions that came with ME, I notice that when I play songs that don't have video, at most resolutions (from 800x600 all the way up to 1080p at 60hz), the 3D compositions are a bit choppy. Even the ScratchLive interface becomes choppy. I have 'Automatic Graphic Switching' in OSX DISABLED and I've even disabled 'Synchronize Output To Screen Refresh' in ME. Is there some tweaks I should apply that I'm unaware of? Or are there any recommended Quartz Compositions I should be using even at 1080p @ 60hz? (I've also tried different refresh rates but have not seen any noticable differences at lower / higher resolutions, there are no noticeable differences I can notice anyway). My Macbook Pro specs are as follows: Mac OS X 10.6.4 (the only available software update I didn't install is iTunes 10.0.1) Intel Core i7 @ 2.66 4 GB Ram HighRes Anti-Glare (if that matters any) 500GB HDD @ 5400 RPM (again .. if that matters any). My mixer is the TTM 57SL (once again .. if that makes a difference lol). Thanks for any feedback anybody can provide! djbuddha UPDATE: When I check my Activity Monitor, with both decks running the compositions which cause my displays to run very choppy ... my IDLE CPU usage sits around: 85-90% .. my free RAM is around 1.65 gigs.... this is about the same that it's at when I run videos... the thing is; if I hit a cue button even with my keyboard, it's not very responsive at all ... I find it quite strange that so much of the CPU is not in use but it's very sluggish... any thoughts?

djbuddha

I uploaded a video to youtube to show what I'm talking about ... watch in HD if possible lol ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oISpzlMm1Ys

djjaketheripper

I am having the same problem.. I even turned down my quality and it becomes a little less choppy but still choppy

djbuddha

Hey djjaketheripper.. What specs are your MacBook?

djjaketheripper

exact same.. i have the 500 gb 7200 rpm. i also tried to turn off graphics switching. you might try turning down your update preview ratio

Nick

Hey - so, the problem here is that there is too much going on for you graphics card. I'm guessing that when you play videos that all is fairly smooth. The problem is that using Quartz Compositions will hold up a lot more use of your GPU resources than playing videos. This is different for every Quartz Composition - as obviously it is dependant on what they are doing. In particular, the QC that you have playing on your left deck, while it may look fairly simple, will actually place a high strain on your GPU - as it uses a Gaussian blur patch, which slows things down a lot (which is made even worse at high-resolutions). What I recommend is that you set MixEmergency up so that it has a rendering pipeline size (viewable from the Info window) of around 640x480. You can influence this size both by reducing the dimensions you have your output monitor set to, and/or by lowering the Quality slider in MixEmergency's preferences. I have thought about adding a separate quality slider in MixEmergency for Quartz Compositions alone, as they really are something that can use a lot of graphics resources.

djbuddha

Hey Nick, Thanks for the response! So the new MacBooks that we're using are utilizing an nvidia 330 chipset which I thought is supposed to help offset 3D processing. If it's too much for my system- how come my CPU utilization is so low? If it's strictly capping out my video card, how come serato isn't very responsive (like I show in the video with the hot cues)..? Thanks for the help! djbuddha

Nick

Yes, your graphics card does offset a lot of the "3D" (and obviously 2D, in the case of most of our video effects) processing. If it weren't for the graphics card, and you were processing all of the effects/transitions with your CPU, then I'm sure your CPU would be at maximum. Quartz Compositions (this is a generalisation, so not always true) don't often take a lot of CPU cycles. Some specific things might actually stall the CPU while it is waiting for the GPU to complete an action. Perhaps I should try and label the QC examples with some something that lets people know the relative amounts of processing that they will require. I would suspect the reason that Scratch Live becomes unresponsive is this: the part of the software that handles the keyboard input is most likely being blocked while updating the graphics. And the updating of the graphics of Scratch Live has become much slower because of the overall increased demand on the graphics processor.

djbuddha

Very interesting ... You would think with all the headroom this would be handled better at the kernel level... Wonder if Apple can optimize the "3D" performance .. It really shouldn't bog down like this with... Thanks for the quick responses! PS- I actually had a quick question for you Nick (which is un-related to the thread).. Can you send me an email so I can privately correspond with you? djbuddha

Nick

Yep - just sent one through to you.

djbuddha

Hey Nick! So dropping the quality seems to help a lot. Maybe you can insert that feature in a future update? (the quality slider for Quartz Compositions?). That way the music videos can play optimally and the QC's can run smoothly as well. I'd definately look forward to seeing that in an update! djbuddha

djbuddha

Hey Nick! Awesome job on 1.6.1! (I'm assuming you probably had forgotten this thread being as busy as you are) .. Just wondering if you were going to implement a quality slider under display that was independent of the video quality setting (mainly to control the pipeline that the quartz compositions were rendered at). Some of my gigs I can run 720 or even 1080p natively doing video without worries, but as soon as I play a track that doesn't have a video, the quartz composition makes my system crawl. If I drop the quality of the slider (like you had suggested), the actual video loses quality. It'd be nice if the quartz comp. quality could be decreased while keeping the video at full quality. Your thoughts?

Nick

I haven't forgotten about it. It's on my list of things to do, but didn't make it into 1.6.

djbuddha

Awesome .. thanks Nick!