Am I destined for 20 FPS?

[sjm0418]

Hello,

First off I want to say thank you for the great program. I have used it many nights working solidly on a single 1920x1080 output in Resolume 4 and Resolume 5.

Over the summer I bought a brand new Macbook Pro with the AMD Radeon graphics card. I recently had a job using two 1920x1080 outputs. Arena ran relatively smoothly with a composition size of 1920x1080, however I was not able to use the space in the way that I wanted to. When I widened my composition to fit my output map my frame rate dropped significantly. That's when I switched back to a 1920w composition with little problems.

Once again, I find myself in a similar situation: a wide stage with two 1080p outputs and a low FPS. I've recently updated to the newest OS yet still find with a composition of 3360 wide x784 high, and two layers running my FPS does not exceed 20. It doesn't look terrible, however its still a bit frustrating.

I've been thinking and thinking of work arounds that do not include decreasing my composition width. I tried running a 720p composition to the new MBP through a capture card and turned off the Blending modes and although the single source will play back at 30fps, if I wanted to run the Chaser plugin (which I really really want to do) on another layer, my FPS will again drop to 20.

Please don't post a "you should have bought a PC" comments. I am realizing that this would be a huge fix to the problem, but with the time given, and my plans for the New Year, I am not in a position to make the switch. Basically I would love to hear from anyone else with this machine/a work around, or if, as the title says, I am doomed for always have 20 FPS. Thanks in advance for your input and time.

[Oaktown]

Are all your videos in DXV3 format?

Also, can you describe your composition and hardware setup?

[sjm0418]

Some of my clips are still dxv 2.2 but I have absolutely no issues with them on a standard single 1080p output. Right now on a single output I'm running at constantly 60fps with all 4 layers triggered.

Like I stated above: I have the new MacBook Pro with 2.5 ghz processor and amd Radeon graphics card. I don't use any more than 4 layers in a composition and less than 32 clips in a deck. The comp that I am having problems with is 3360x784 and 2 1080p outputs. With one layer triggered I get between 30-40 fps but when More than 2 are triggered it drops and stays at 20 even with all four layers going.

[sjm0418]

You've definitely got me watching and thinking some more now. I've always been in denial about my dxv 2.2 clips bc I didn't want to reconvert everything and I've never had an issue with it. But it's definitely something to try. I'll load in a deck of dxv 3 clips next time I get a chance to set up the two outputs.

[Zoltán]

Please don't post a "you should have bought a PC" comments.

if it's the drivers, you could always try to Bootcamp Windows7.
my 2012 MBP performs 20 percent better under win7 with the nvidia gt 650.

edit: btw I can run 5 layers of 3840x1080 composition with DXVs to 2*1080p outputs. with 40 fps on this old machine. under osx,

[Oaktown]

@ sjm0418, DXV 2.2 should be fine as well so I wouldn't spend too much time converting all your clips but it if you can test the same comp wiht DXV3 media, let us know whether that changes anything in terms of FPS.

You have the new MacbookPro with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X GPU and on paper it all looks like it should be working fine but I'm thinking that your problem may come from your DVI adapters.

AMD cards are notoriously very finicky and if you're using more than one output, you should probably be using active adapters. Note that the Apple Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter is a passive one. I've been using the Accell B087B-006B adapters for years with Eyefinity 6 cards and they work fine but I've had one fail which was replaced under warranty by Accell.

Here is an interesting comparative article on the AMD Radeon R9 M370X vs GeForce GT750M GPUs.

As a side note, I've personally always had issues with AMD drivers and Resolume on our Windows machines (GPU freeze, dropped FPS, etc...) so I switched all of our PC servers to Nvidia cards (GeForce GT980) and all issues have magically disappeared. I've been holding on purchasing new Macbook Pros because they switched to AMD until I can read positive reports of Arena 5 working flawlessly with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X so your thread is not encouraging to me.

[joshuadmello]

I've been having weird frame issues as well the the 2015 macbook pro and 2 outputs. I think it has something to do with the refresh rates as well.

Just switching from 60hz to 50hz and 60hz again seems to help sometimes. It's all very erratic.

[sjm0418]

Thanks for the input all. I ended up using a composition size of 1920x1080 and just scaling down my input slices. I also had blend modes off the entire night. I was solidly between 19-29 fps the entire night, which i was pretty happy about.

I've been recently having another issue when I made the switch to 5.0.1 that proved to be a great nuisance during the NYE show. Whenever I plug in anything in the USB Resolume freezes and either completely crashes or drops a frame every 10 seconds or so. I tried to combat the issue by plugging in everything at the beginning of the night however just after midnight, my midi controller completely crapped out, froze everything and it took about three restarts to finally get it running smoothly again. Even then I could tell something happened on the controller as my colors for my deck were all off (I use a midi fighter twister.)

Hopefully this will be a bug addressed in a further update. I've seen a few other posts about it with no real resolution. Has this happened on any one's PC? Or is it just a Mac issue?

[Oaktown]

I've been having weird frame issues as well the the 2015 macbook pro and 2 outputs. I think it has something to do with the refresh rates as well.

Are you using active or passive adapters?

[joshuadmello]

Passive. The apple mini display to DVI. Im going to order the accell active adapters and check it out.

Ive tried connected an HDMI directly to my HDMI port as well. No difference.