GLTools Spline Composition

cwright's picture

yanomano was kind enough to provide me with this sample composition which uses GL Tools' GL Spline patch to generate some impressive designs.

Spiral demo Bigger Spiral demo

PreviewAttachmentSize
ReplicateSpline.qtz28.06 KB

franz's picture
huge

huge comp !

I'm just curious: how well does it run on a MacBook ? (here on a MBP core duo 2ghz / X1600 256, it runs at 7fps)

cwright's picture
7 fps ?!

I get at least 20, and my machine doesn't even have a real video card.. that's weird (maybe ATI's line drawing is not as fast as Intel's??)

franz's picture
wot ????!!

hey, there's something strange.... Do other users with a MBP Ati have the same problem ? Yanomano, how fast does it go on your machine... ?

amos's picture
runs fine for me

On my MBP (2.16 GHz, X1600 128MB) it runs around 60 fps.

cwright's picture
Software Rendering?

Maybe you've got software rendering enabled? With amos's input, it looks like something is strangely configured on your laptop.

franz's picture
was checkin' / renamed to : Plz Help !!!

i was checking, so i re-installed the latest GLtools, disable: Spotlight + Dashboard + osx Shadows + Wifi + Bluetooth latest os update and quit finder .....

still 7fps.

How do i check if software renderer is enabled ? How can i be shure to use exclusively the GPU ?

cwright's picture
software Render in QC

Hold down 'Option' and click "Quartz Composer" -> "Preferences...", you'll get 3 new tabs: (System), (Editor), and (QuickTime Component).

Under (Editor), There's a setting called 'softwareOpenGL' that controls whether you're using software or hardware rendering. Changing that (or most of the other options there) only take effect after restarting QC. (disableVBLSyncing is handy for very high framerates and profiling stuff)

If it's not checked (I doubt it is), you might want to fire up "Quartz Debug" or "OpenGL Profiler" to see if they report anything interesting...

[EDIT: You can also try creating a OpenGL Info patch and check its output, and maybe a GL Context Info patch to get a bit more info]

franz's picture
Medal of Honor

Thanks Chris ! I just forgot the option-Pref trick, and after a quick check, it turned out that i previously enabled MultithreadedOGL. Disabling this boosts the composition up to 60fps.

Thank you everyone and sorry for the trouble ;)

cwright's picture
multithreaded....

Hmm.. I guess that option doesn't MultiThread GL stuff (which is deadly), but instead enables locking and stuff so that you could. Locking typically hurts performance a bit, but that (60fps -> 7fps) looks horrible! :)

Good to note :) Thanks for explaining what happened.

franz's picture
sidenote /edited

As a sidenote, it also solved the RenderInImage performance issue i had with another plugin patch that you are developping (remember ?)

EDITED: do these options (when set in QC app) affect the way a composition is rendered in a custom app via QCview ?

cwright's picture
Nice!

Yes, I remember. I'm glad that's resolved (That was driving me crazy, I couldn't figure out why it was happening to you, I couldn't duplicate it :)

These options don't appear to work outside of QC: I tried the Attenuating Dots composition in software mode in QC (which works in software mode for me, but not hardware mode), and tried the "Test in Runtime" option. The output was unattenuated, which makes me believe the runtime app (QCPlayer I think) is still using hardware mode, despite QC's setting to use software.