Post Your iTunes Framerates!!!
Isn't iTunes just the most amazing program ever? Those visual effects are amazing. By the way, are they truely random? If there's a computer company out there that can deliver mesmerizing psychedelic images on my screen, it's Apple! Even on my 275mhz 603e with Rage 2MB video card going at 3 frames per second those visuals are just beautiful! I can't imagine how nice and juicy they are on faster cards. So, what kind of framerates do you get with iTunes on your video card?
Comments
Rage128 Pro
128MB RAM
Mac OS X v10.1.4
FPS - 15
I know, I know...I need more RAM.
<strong>Even on my 275mhz 603e with Rage 2MB video card going at 3 frames per second those visuals are just beautiful! I can't imagine how nice and juicy they are on faster cards.</strong><hr></blockquote>iTunes does not utilize the graphics card for the default visualizer. Rather, everything it does is rendered by the CPU. Why? There's too much custom pixel-pushing for them to use OpenGL. Furthermore, it's important to realize that the visualizer takes a speed hit whenever there is an overlay such as the white Apple logo and any text (including the track info, help system, and the framerate display). So, you'll actually get slightly higher framerates by turning off the FPS counter. Strange, huh?
Anyway, with the counter on, I get about 18 FPS full-screen. In the window, I can get upwards of 200 FPS.
dual 500 MHz G4
Rage 128
384MB RAM
10.1.4
25 FPS
I'd like to know how you're doing it as well.
[ 05-20-2002: Message edited by: Ming ]</p>
<strong>I shrink the iTunes window to it's smallest size with the visualizer going</strong><hr></blockquote>Bingo.
Don't forget to turn off the 30 FPS cap and use "faster but rougher display"!
Also, switching to 16-bit color helps slightly.
edit: 240! yeah baby!
edit 2: wait... wait... ah! 300! no... 400!
And, yes, these are real snapshots. No doctoring or Photoshopping at all.
[ 05-20-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
shrinking the window to it's SMALLEST size, I can get 36 fps... but once I open the window up to a decent size (1/4 screen) it drops to about 8-12 fps.
not very impressive evn with 1.5 GB RAM.
EDIT: Not sure if it's relevant, but during my test... there were NUMEROUS other apps running... but this is the "norm" for me... I ALWAYS have a minimum of 7 apps running; DragThing, Suitcase, Desktop Calendar, Mail, Adium, a browser (IE or OmniWeb) and MSN Messenger are ALWAYS running.
On top of those apps... I generally use PShop, Illustrator, FCP, DVD-SP, LightWave... etc...
I tend to NOT use iTunes with FCP or LightWave.
[ 05-20-2002: Message edited by: Scott F. ]</p>
<strong>shrinking the window to it's SMALLEST size, I can get 36 fps...</strong><hr></blockquote>Are you *sure* you've turned off the 30 fps cap? [quote]<strong>not very impressive evn with 1.5 GB RAM.</strong><hr></blockquote>RAM won't matter in this kind of test unless you're doing something in the background that's eating up hundreds of megs of memory and making you page to disk. [quote]<strong>EDIT: Not sure if it's relevant, but during my test... there were NUMEROUS other apps running...</strong><hr></blockquote>The only way these apps would affect iTunes' performance is if any of them are processing something or are Bad Carbon Ports that leak memory and CPU cycles.
Shoot... I've got OmniWeb, Chimera, Mail, Adium, QuickTime Player, Terminal, GraphicConverter, Captain FTP, TextEdit, System Prefs, and Final Cut Pro running and I still average 60-70 fps... *while* capturing a Snapz movie of it!
<a href="http://brad.project-think.com/movies/iTunes-visualizer-01.mov" target="_blank">Click me! I'm only 2 MB!</a>
[quote]just for consistency sake lets say post your full screen fps with visuals on "large", and the "fast and rough" option unchecked<hr></blockquote>Using this new metric, I average 30 fps with the same song I used in that movie.
I bet I could get more from it if I turned that on... but what's the point...? It doesn't look as good.
It also might be the fact that I am runing both displays at 1600 x 1200. The iTunes window was on the "Main" AGP Window... but I think MY AGP card is one of the earlier (slower?) ones that came with the G4 533.
<strong>It also might be the fact that I am runing both displays at 1600 x 1200.</strong><hr></blockquote>That too doesn't matter because iTunes switches to 640x480 when it goes full-screen.
Anyway, the whole point is moot for me because I never actually use the visualizer. I'm either listening to music in the background as I work or not listening at all. I only really use the visualizer as a "wow" feature if I'm showing off the Mac to someone else.
Adios -- my work here is done.
Full Screen and Fastest: 21
Those are peaks on a...
Pismo 400Mhz
192MB RAM
8MB VRAM
w/ Eudora 5.1, Palm Desktop, IE 5.0, and Stickies also open.
Powerbook G4 550 w/ IE, Mail, Fire, Screen Dump, and Swap Top running. oh and streaming Music to an iMac over airport to play on the house sterio.
<a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~salmonstk" target="_blank">http://home.earthlink.net/~salmonstk</a>