Slow startup on Macbook pro on discrete graphics card

I am working with JOGL (latest stable version) on a 15" Macbook Pro running 10.6.8. My problem is that when I start any of my applications that make use of JOGL, it takes nearly 20 seconds for the application to start. For a good portion of that my display is completely frozen -- the cursor moves, but nothing else does. I initially wrote this off as some quirk of JOGL... until I watched someone run the same code on a 13" Macbook Pro and it started instantly.

After digging into this a little more I realized that the big difference between the two machines (other than the screen size and resolution) was that the 15" has two graphics options, integrated and discrete, while the 13" just has the integrated graphics option. When I force my machine to use the integrated card, apps start instantly. If I force it in the other direction to use discrete, I get the long startup times again. Not only is it strange that there is a difference, it is really bizarre that it works in the opposite direction than I would have expected.

Has anyone seen this before or know a fix (other than forcing the use of the integrated graphics option)? Should I file this as a bug?

Hi

There is sometimes the same kind of problem under Windows on laptops. The only "fix" consists in forcing the use of a particular chip. Anyway, if you don't do that, a change of chip at runtime might cause some big problems, especially if the fallback has a poor support of OpenGL which is often the case with Intel graphics chips.

On 03/16/2012 07:55 PM, DrBlack [via jogamp] wrote:
>
>
> I am working with JOGL (latest stable version) on a 15" Macbook Pro running
> 10.6.8. My problem is that when I start any of my applications that make use
> of JOGL, it takes nearly 20 seconds for the application to start. For a good
> portion of that my display is completely frozen -- the cursor moves, but
> nothing else does. I initially wrote this off as some quirk of JOGL... until
> I watched someone run the same code on a 13" Macbook Pro and it started
> instantly.

This sounds like a bug we should have fixed:
  <https://jogamp.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=548>
  <http://jogamp.org/git/?p=jogl.git;a=commit;h=835b36d626f75f9e96001a41c2a6fe9f90466ae1>

This version should have the fix included:
  <http://jogamp.org/deployment/jogamp-test/>

But since you use the latest greatest, looks like you found another possible
cause for this 'freeze', your dual GPU setup.

>
> After digging into this a little more I realized that the big difference
> between the two machines (other than the screen size and resolution) was
> that the 15" has two graphics options, integrated and discrete, while the
> 13" just has the integrated graphics option. When I force my machine to use
> the integrated card, apps start instantly. If I force it in the other
> direction to use discrete, I get the long startup times again. Not only is
> it strange that there is a difference, it is really bizarre that it works in
> the opposite direction than I would have expected.

Not really, switching to the discrete is some extra work driver and OS
has to perform ..

>
> Has anyone seen this before or know a fix (other than forcing the use of the
> integrated graphics option)? Should I file this as a bug?

Pls create a new bug, maybe mention/link to bug 548.

I cannot test it here, since I have no dual GPU setup.

I also don't know how to select one of the 2 GPUs you have available,
ie. are they available to a list of Display's via the OSX API .. or .. ?

The same is actually true on other OS .. no experience w/ such a setup yet.

How do other applications behave ?
Maybe check with some other native 'open source' demo and validate.

Have you also installed Windows - and if so, how does it behave on that machine ?

Guess we would need to help of a developer with such a machine available,
maybe you can help ?

~Sven