Vuo 1.2x background performance issue

Discussions
1

Hello vuo community,

First of all - if this is already posted somewhere else I am sorry. I looked into the other discussions, but i couldn’t found my problem.

I am using Vuo and Vezer for multiple shows. Few months back i was hyped for the new Vuo 1.2. Unfortunately i noticed an undocumented change (atleast i couldn’t fount it anywhere). When a vuo 1.1 composition is running in the background everything works as intended. When i do the same with a vuo 1.2 composition i notice an immense performance drop.

I think this is an undocumented “feature”. I assume the developers thought, when its in the background it isn’t used anyway. But for me this made vuo 1.2 unusable because I have multiple vuo instances open and they are all running at the same time. Or when i have vezer in the foreground (which is almost all the time) or any other software I use (for example reading in camera data or sending data to other programs, hardware, etc.). I thought this issue would come immediately up and I don’t have to care about it because at the time it came out I was to busy. Back then I just switched back to the 1.1.1 version and worked with it since then.

Vuo is eventdriven and me as the programmer should decide when a composition gets updated using events.

To visualize the problem I made a screencast. The compositions are really simple. It just plays back a mov file and sends it via syphon. I display it with the syphon simple client. I do the exact same thing with vuo 1.1.1 and with 1.2.1. I keep the syphon clients in the foreground, therefore the compositions are running in the background. At first both compositions are behaving the same way but after app. 10 seconds the 1.2.1 composition just drops completely (frames). As soon i click the composition in the dock so its in the foreground it behaves normally.

Youtubelink: - YouTube (just one and a half minute long)

I also tested this as an exported app or with other compositions.

I hope I described it clearly. Is really no-one else experiencing this? If anyone has a question feel free to ask me. Instead of a bugfilereport I decided to put it here first. Maybe I completely missed something.

cheers, Scrat

2

@scrat, thanks for the clear description of the problem with screencast.

The difference you’re seeing between Vuo 1.1 and 1.2 involves a Mac OS X feature called App Nap. When the OS decides that an app is just sitting there not doing anything important, it puts the app into an energy-saving mode that reduces its processor usage. In Vuo 1.2, we actually made compositions run more efficiently, but this had the unintended consequence of making compositions eligible for App Nap, which makes them run slower when it takes over.

The problem arises with several nodes, including Fire Periodically, audio playback, Art-Net (bug report), and, as you saw, video playback.

We’re planning to include a fix in an upcoming Vuo 1.2.2 release (free for anyone who’s purchased Vuo 1.2.x).

P.S. — What are you juggling in the video? That’s really cool :)

3

Thanks for the fast response. It is clear to my now and I am looking desperately for the fix. Apple again thinks to be smarter than everyone…
All the best, Scrat

ps: The juggler in the video isn’t me - its a good friend of mine I have filmed. The prop is called diabolo and I also can play it on a high level. But Sebastian Haushofer (the juggler) is world class.

4

It’s another one of those “improvements” made by Apple that sticks yet another stick in the wheel for creative development on the platform. Vuo is unfortunately not alone with this issue, so you’ll have to be careful with other (VJ) apps as well.

5

Very interesting. And could be why i saw framerate drops on my last gig.