Syphon performance issues on recent rMBP / OSX Maverics

[deepRED.tv]

Hi,
I had a programmer code an application for me which playback video driven by Ableton. In short bmp is linked to fps and volume is mapped to transparency.

The idea is to use this app in my show setup and send the sync video stream through syphon to my mediaserver / video playback system. This enable me to let the musician at the stage trigger sync videos and combine these with my live improvisations visuals.

Ive just started to work on my first project in which I want to apply these techniques and have come across some problems.
The problem is the following;
When i try to send video from the sync video player to the my media server: ArKaos MediaMaster 3.2.1 the playback stutters.

I am a little disappointed in this as i thought sending one video stream of 720 at 30 fps should be something a recent computer should be able to do?

My laptop is the latest rMPB, 16 gb ram, gt750m gpu.

Ive checked the same stuf on a similar machine running OSX lion and got the same results. I thought that maybe the problem was Mavericks as Apple worked a lot on the multiscreen functionality of OSX in Mavericks but I was wrong. I got the same behaviour in OSX Lion.

Ive noticed the following:

Placing the sync video player (syphon source) on my external screen makes the stuttering much better.

Applying screen mirroring practically eliminates the stuttering completely.

Ive noticed that when I send video with the simple server placed om my laptop screen to the simple client placed on my external screen to fps is 30. When I place the simple server on the external screen also the fps jumps to 60.

My questions:
Is there a way to maximise the performance of syphon?

What can i do to get the most out of my setup?

Really hope you can help.

Thanks,
Manuel

• This topic was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by deepRED.tv.

[bangnoise]

This is rather hard to diagnose without knowing anything of your custom app. How is rendering driven – a CVDisplayLink, some sort of timer, by the delivery of new frames…?

Are you drawing the frame on screen in the custom app, and is that required for your setup? Avoiding drawing on screens you aren’t using for output sounds like a likely and simple solution.

[vade]

Also, you want to ensure you have some specific pixel format flags enabled if I recall, specifically ‘Allow offline renderers’ in you OpenGL pixel format.

[Author]

Posts