Erratic frame rates after attaching projector

[Hey!Cliché!]

Hello,
I am considering using Avenue as a replacement for Modul8, and so far I have been quite impressed, EXCEPT when I connect to a projector. After connecting to a projector, or any monitor I find that my frame rates drop from an amazing 50-60 FPS, to a unusably bad 20-30 FPS on average, with a wild amount of "spiking" happening. Spiking meaning my FPS will read 45 FPS then suddenly drop to 20 FPS then up to 20 FPS and then back to 55 FPS, all in the same minute. It happens whether I am applying effects or not, and whether or not I have more than one layer going at once.
Tech Specs are as follows: unibody Macbook Pro (OS 10.6.2, completely updated), 2.8GHZ processor, 4GB of ram, 500 GB 7200rpm internal drive, 10,000 rpm raptor external drive via Firewire 800, 9600M GT video card, connected to a projector via VGA, and all clips are 640x480, and mostly everything is encoded using DXV.

Is this considered normal for Avenue?

[bart]

It's normal that the framerate drops a little after setting it fullscreen to a second display but not by this much and certainly not when using DXV codec. These large fluctuations in framerate could be a sign of Resolume not being able to get the video data in a consistent mater. Could you try and run a few clips from the internal drive instead of the external and see if the problem persists?

How do you like Snow Leopard? For me it's really not an improvement, Finder scrashes more often and feels slower.

[lo-res]

Hi, I too am having the same issue. Solid 50 – 60 fps when not connected to a monitor or projector tehn a drop to around 20 fps when it is connected. This happens whether or not my clips are stored on an external or internal drive.

[Joris]

I find that Avenue is a bit picky when you attach the second output when it's already running. First connecting the monitor, then starting Avenue solves all the issues though. Maybe that will work for you guys as well?

Joris

[lo-res]

I tend to have all monitors/projectors connected before I start my laptop and still get the same problem.

[Hey!Cliché!]

Okay so first off, here is what I have done since I posted this. I partitioned my internal drive (30GB of space) and did a clean install of Snow Leopard, set up a different user and then tested Avenue on both partitions. My results were promising, but I am not sure if it promising enough. If I run 3 layers on my normal partition (1st layer texture loop, 2 sec long, 5MB, DXV codec, 2nd layer animation, 2 sec long, 10MB, animation codec, 3rd layer PNG file a tunnel effect on it in resolume) my frame rates stick around 20-25 FPS, with still plenty of erratic behavior. Now when I switch to my other partition with a clean install of both Avenue and Snow Leopard, and run the same three layers (and others as well) I get no less than 30 FPS and usually closer to 40-45 FPS. This is encouraging, but I was really excited when I thought I was going to have 55-60 FPS as a buffer.

And I am glad I made the switch to Snow Leopard, it is much snappier and lighter than Leopard, and I find that to be pretty nice.

[lo-res]

thanks for the response, I'll try it and post the results.