iTunes 2 is wayyy too processor hungry
Whenever i'm playing a song with iTunes 2, everything else in os X slows down, not a little, but a lot. I'm running a rev D iMac (333mhz) with 256megs. top shows iTunes to be using 25-45% of my CPU, and that has to be way to much. I remember people complaining about issues such as this with iTunes 1.X and if i recall it only used aroud 25% of my CPU. Why does apple make such CPU hungry apps?!
I know that it is possible to make an mp3 player take far less than this much processor time because Audion doesn't use more than 15-23% when playing the same song that caused iTunes to use as much as 45%.
I love iTunes and will continue to use it, but is there anyway to tweak it so that it uses less CPU time?
I know that it is possible to make an mp3 player take far less than this much processor time because Audion doesn't use more than 15-23% when playing the same song that caused iTunes to use as much as 45%.
I love iTunes and will continue to use it, but is there anyway to tweak it so that it uses less CPU time?
Comments
<strong>Whenever i'm playing a song with iTunes 2, everything else in os X slows down, not a little, but a lot. I'm running a rev D iMac (333mhz) with 256megs. top shows iTunes to be using 25-45% of my CPU, and that has to be way to much. I remember people complaining about issues such as this with iTunes 1.X and if i recall it only used aroud 25% of my CPU. Why does apple make such CPU hungry apps?!
I know that it is possible to make an mp3 player take far less than this much processor time because Audion doesn't use more than 15-23% when playing the same song that caused iTunes to use as much as 45%.
I love iTunes and will continue to use it, but is there anyway to tweak it so that it uses less CPU time?</strong><hr></blockquote>
WHAT?! Apple has a gigalop to play around with. Why should they make anything efficient!?
Playing a mp3 is like unstuffit a sit image.. while playing music at the same time. It takes up a lot of CPU to do that.
<strong>Soundjam took as much CPU time as iTunes. iTunes 1 took just as much too.
Playing a mp3 is like unstuffit a sit image.. while playing music at the same time. It takes up a lot of CPU to do that.</strong><hr></blockquote>
certainly not. There are MP3 players that take 1-5 percent of the CPU out for PCs and some even for the mac. it's not that hard to do.
<strong>
certainly not. There are MP3 players that take 1-5 percent of the CPU out for PCs and some even for the mac. it's not that hard to do.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's obviously not EASY to do. Besides the ones I have seen just play mp3s. They don't do all that fancy eye candy playing.. or have a EQ... or have and kind of Sound enhancing that iTunes and SoundJam had.
<strong>
They don't do all that fancy eye candy playing.. or have a EQ... or have and kind of Sound enhancing that iTunes and SoundJam had.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I also thought that it could be because of the EQs and enhancing but i tried turning both off, and it still used the same amount of processor time.
5% would be nice, but even if they could get it down to less than 15-20, it would be a huge improvement. I hate typing something and watching it appear on the screen after i type it (as i am doing right now with this reply)
[ 11-17-2001: Message edited by: Cosmo ]</p>
<strong>iTunes uses a lot of processor power just sitting there, never mind playing stuff. I have to turn it off or my SETI times go up signifcant;lly. Running properly, I get around 16 hours a unit; with iTunes on, SETI goes around 19 hours.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why would you be running Seti on a computer your trying to do something on? Heh
<strong>
It's obviously not EASY to do. Besides the ones I have seen just play mp3s. They don't do all that fancy eye candy playing.. or have a EQ... or have and kind of Sound enhancing that iTunes and SoundJam had.</strong><hr></blockquote>
you're wrong. none of those things add (or should add) that much to processor usage. there is no eye candy playing as well. even iTunes 1 which had neither sound enhancement or equalizer took the same amount.
While there are less CPU-intensive sound compression formats out there, there are none that are negligable. The only real solution is a processor upgrade.
Applenut, the sound processing required for preamp, EQ, and whatever the hell Sound Enhancement is does require CPU time. If it didn't, then there would be no need for DSPs and other goodies to enable and accelerate the features in audio hardware.
cdhostage, if itunes is sucking up processor power while idling, there's something going very wrong somewhere.
<strong>Yes, there are PC MP3 players that take up 1% of the CPU's power...if it's running on an Athlon XP 1900+. MP3 decoding and playing is a CPU hungry process, and it's no surprise that it's sucking up a good deal of an iMac's time, considering the slow CPU and the crap memory bandwidth and all. For what it's worth, iTunes2 is better than Audion 2 in the CPU usage department.
While there are less CPU-intensive sound compression formats out there, there are none that are negligable. The only real solution is a processor upgrade.
Applenut, the sound processing required for preamp, EQ, and whatever the hell Sound Enhancement is does require CPU time. If it didn't, then there would be no need for DSPs and other goodies to enable and accelerate the features in audio hardware.
cdhostage, if itunes is sucking up processor power while idling, there's something going very wrong somewhere.</strong><hr></blockquote>
lol. you guys are really amusing. you are in such denial.
is it remotely possible for you to ever believe that there may be chance that Apple's iTunes is poorly programmed for efficiency and CPU usage?
<strong>cdhostage, if itunes is sucking up processor power while idling, there's something going very wrong somewhere.</strong><hr></blockquote>
iTunes Idle
iTunes Playing
-Y
<strong>How do I check what percentage of my CPU iTunes is using in the terminal?
-Y</strong><hr></blockquote>
Just type in top into the terminal.
Under MacOS, I use Macast, which has by for the most eye-candy of any MP3 player out there, w/ visual OpenGL EQ's spinning inside the actual player, etc. It uses WAY less than 25% of my 250mhz CPU, as I have it playing alll the time and it never skips or noticeably slows down my system.
What you are dealing with, ye who are in denial, is a processor hogging beast of an mp3 player, w/out any eyecandy to justify the absurd processor usage. I have a Samsung CD MP3 discman... do you really think it has a 100mhz g3 processor in it?!
<a href="http://stimuli.ca/linux/2001_07_03_205813_shot.png"; target="_blank">http://stimuli.ca/linux/2001_07_03_205813_shot.png</a>;
Macast screenshot (gelamp skin, mountainGL BLR plugin): <a href="http://stimuli.ca/Mac/sampledeskshot1.jpg"; target="_blank">http://stimuli.ca/Mac/sampledeskshot1.jpg</a>;
[ 11-18-2001: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
<strong>I think it also depends on your processor. iTunes is going to take more CPU time on a slower chip than a faster one.</strong><hr></blockquote>
duh. but when it takes 25-30 percent on a G4 there is something wrong.
Thanks Sinewave for that terminal command!