Low FPS (how to increase fps?)

[gpvillamil]

Hey guys, did anyone managed to find any solution? I am running avenue on a high spec mac with extra ram and all, and I am getting 15fps playing 640x480 videos on a second screen output, that's really bad - no way I can use this playing gigs...
(I am using DXV codec, have all my videos 640x480 as well as my composition and second screen resolution)

Hmm. Try creating a Windows partition on the Mac, and run Resolume from there? I've heard people have had good results with this...

[gradek]

I'm curious to know more about what you're talking about here. I'm a bit confused about the terms you're using though: PAL for instance is not 1024x1024...
Joris

Joris, I think what HerrHieDa is trying to say is that the way Resolume uses texture memory for video playback is causing performance issues due to the power of 2 issue with textures.

To my understanding OpenGL recommends that textures are stored in powers of 2. 128x128 256x256 512x512 or 1024x1024.

So a PAL Video at 720x576 would be scaled/stored to the next power of 2, 1024x1024 in the graphics card memory. where as a 640x480 video would only be scaled to 1024x512.

According to Wikipeida graphics card with OpenGL 2.0 (circa 2004) specifications should be able to handle "Non-power-of-two Texture" but I'm not sure if Resolume utilizes this feature or not.

I wonder if OS X uses some sort of graphics card memory for the DVI to VGA adapters or just lots of memory for external output in general. So external monitors usage would slow down the graphics card causing a drop in frame rate.

I'm pretty sure its an OS X issue since I didn't have such a big drop in frame rate when using the same old MBP running resolume 3 on windows installed via boot camp. so I think gpvillamil has the best suggestion for performance increase on older MBP. just use windows. Alas, its the last thing I want to do.

[Joris]

Joris, I think what HerrHieDa is trying to say is that the way Resolume uses texture memory for video playback is causing performance issues due to the power of 2 issue with textures.

To my understanding OpenGL recommends that textures are stored in powers of 2. 128x128 256x256 512x512 or 1024x1024.

So a PAL Video at 720x576 would be scaled/stored to the next power of 2, 1024x1024 in the graphics card memory. where as a 640x480 video would only be scaled to 1024x512.

According to Wikipeida graphics card with OpenGL 2.0 (circa 2004) specifications should be able to handle "Non-power-of-two Texture" but I'm not sure if Resolume utilizes this feature or not.

Thanks for the clear explanation, GradeK, I gathered as much eventually as well

To answer your question, there are hardly any GPUs out there still that do not support non-power-of-two textures. Resolume now handles any composition size natively, so there's no need to limit resolution on that account. Should you still own an older GPU, Resolume does a check for the support during startup, and does a fallback if the extension is not supported.

The drop in frame rate on certain OSX setups is a thorn in our eye as well. The strange thing is that it is happening only on particular setups, and even is sometimes not repeatable on the exact same model of MBP! A hard bug to stomp., to say the least. So much as I hate to admit it, Gates has got Jobs beat on this one

[manoeuvre]

I have this problem too, I lose roughly half my fps when the second monitor is enabled on my mac.
After doing a few tests I have found the the Apple DVI to VGA Adapter seems the fastest option over the SVid Composite Adapter. VGA Settings of 640 comp/640 out/ 640x480 second monitor seem roughly 20% faster than TV Out options.