Problems with Video Display on a new Aluminum iMac

[drh64]

I have had this happen on two different IMacs and only when we run AC 11.

It seems to be triggered by Itunes running at the same time.

Has anyone else witnessed this before? Any suggestions?


http://www.connect-arch.com/graphics-problem/scatter.mov

[Ralph Wessel]

Karl wrote:
...and also three (so far) articles here:
http://www.macfixit.com/
which report enough problems with this 10.5.7 update to convince me to put off downloading it for at least a few more days...

No problems here - although I wasn't having any before the update either, so (seemingly) nothing has changed.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Well, I just found a problem related to 'Spaces'.

After sleeping the Mac Pro and waking it the next day all my programs stopped showing their windows. Work around was to use spotlight to launch one of the pref panes, type 'appea' so that System Preference shows and then select 'Spaces' and uncheck and recheck the use Spaces checkbox. This should make all the programs behave correctly again.

Let's see if the problem happens again, so far it has happened once.

[Thomas Holm]

I found this on www.xlr8yourmac.com
Seems to confirm ATI has done something to their earlier cards too. Hopefully, also the X1600 in the iMacs and 2007 MBPs. I haven't updated myself yet, waiting for the smoke to clear out. If someone has, and can confirm that the dazzling display issue is gone, or not, please post.
And the warning for those using VMWare Fusion should be taken seriously.

OS X 10.5.7 ATI driver update changes/fixes
"I figured it would be useful to list the main changes in the ATI 3D drivers between 10.5.6 and 10.5.7 for the Radeon HD 2600 and later hardware:
support for GL_EXT_gpu_shader4
support for GL_EXT_texture_integer
support for GL_EXT_bindable_uniform
support for GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB
support for texture fetch in vertex shaders
lots of minor performance improvements (5-10%)
fixes for many bugs (comment revised by request)
Cheers, chrisb"

And as mentioned yesterday, the "shadow quality bug" (ref: Blizzard WoW post) has been fixed.

FYI to VM Fusion users: - VMware has a Blog post/warning to ATI gpu users on 10.5.7 (posted May 13th) that says 10.5.7 ATI drivers break 3D acceleration. They warn ATI GPU users that rely on Fusion to not upgrade to 10.5.7 until an update to address this is released.

[Eduardo Bell]

I've been working with my new 24" aluminum iMac for 2-weeks and have had no problems with it (knock on wood).
The only issue to report has been an occasional loss of connection to the wireless keyboard & mouse. A swift light press on the shut off button gets it going again in no time.
I did install the firmware update for the HD 4850.
Love it so far. Peace.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I went for it and haven't had any problems.

Karl

[Greg Kmethy]

We don't have a clear answer from Apple, but our own tests show that the problem is either gone, or is very infrequent now. At least we could not trigger the error with 10.5.7 yet.

Greg

[Thomas Holm]

Nice!

we'll see.

[Anonymous]

I used to have this problem with AC and Artlantis open together with large models and just with AC 3D window.
Now with 10.5.7 I'm not seeing such colorful problem.

[Andy Thomson]

I thought this issue had been resolved, but our office just bought a brand new 27" iMac, top of the line with ATI Radeon HD5750 Graphics, and we are getting jagged, messed up, multiple window overlay and freezing in the 3D window again, with AC13. Anyone else experiencing this?

[Anonymous]

The problem is not the MAC but the ATI Card. The ATI cards don't work well on a Windows either. The problem is the card can not be changed in the iMac. Therefore the iMAC is not good for ArchiCAD.

My solution is to do all the heavy lifting on my custom Windows 7, and the presentations on the iToy, if I need a good looking screen.

I do not have any ATI cards in any of my systems now, except of course, the MAC which can not be upgraded.

Good luck. Apple had me upgrade, for $350, to another iTOY, and the fracturing went away totally! ArchiCAD just stopped running, disappeared, and didn't even create an error report.