Early 2009 iMac Screen Tearing

[dylanbrown]

Hey all,

I purchased my 2.93GHz iMac probably about two weeks ago at the time of writing this post. It's absolutely fantastic, except for some "issues" I'm having with the Graphics.

This iMac is equipped with the GeForce GT120, which I thought would give me some pretty good video performance, but not completely.

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed the following:

- While using such sites like YouTube, when a video is being streamed (Not in full screen) Screen Tearing occurs, and this happens in pretty much all streaming video. When I go full screen though, it seems to be fine.

- Playing the Visualizer in iTunes (The new one in iTunes 8) Screen Tearing occurs when in the Visualizer window and in full screen.

- When selecting a Spaces window (From the main spaces selection bit, where all your spaces are displayed) The transition between the Desktop and the Spaces selection and vice versa are a bit "chunky" (For lack of a better word). It doesn't happen all the time though.

I basically want to know if this is a normal and common thing on the new iMac's. This kind of thing happened in my MacBook with the Intel Integrated Graphics, I didn't expect it to happen with a dedicated Graphics card. I love my new iMac to bits though!

Thanks Again,

Dylan.

 

[Crackman]

- When selecting a Spaces window (From the main spaces selection bit, where all your spaces are displayed) The transition between the Desktop and the Spaces selection and vice versa are a bit "chunky" (For lack of a better word). It doesn't happen all the time though.

Same here, don't experience any tearing though... just the "laggy" performance of desktop effects. It's an nVidia driver issue I think. Hopefully they'll fix it.
I had a macbook with crappy 3100 graphics too, now I have the 2.93 with GT120, and I'm kinda bummed about the not-so-smoothness of the expose/spaces etc.., it's not laggy most of the time though, so the graphics card is definitely capable of performing such tasks (and it SHOULD be, easily).

 

[dylanbrown]

I sure hope this will be sorted with an update!

And I agree, these are things the GT120 SHOULD be able to handle. Not quite yet though.

 

[GamaFu]

First, I have to say I don't own a Mac just yet, currently waiting for my iMac with ATI 4850 to be shipped.

If you search "mac flash tearing," you will see it's a long existing problem. The problem seem to only occur on mac with Nvidia chip when watching streaming videos which coincided with yours. Therefore, the problem seems to narrow down to Adobe Flash or Nvidia graphic card driver. Only thing you can do is to do the software update see if there's any new driver or new version of Flash. If none is available or the problem persists afterward, I would suggest you call Apple support see if they acknowledge this issue, ask if it can be resolved, and more importantly make sure your system hardware is not defect. (which I doubt it is, since someone is still having problem with his/her 4th MBP... ) Overall, it sounds like a driver to me. Don't see many people complain the same issue with ATI chips.

 

[dylanbrown]

As with a new system, I'm sure there will be some updates coming soon for some of the issues, but at the moment, nothing is being updates as far as graphics and Flash go. I might phone up  and see what they say...

 

[adamlbiscuit]

i've noticed a few artefacts popping up on some menus here and there with my GT130. They aren't that bad and don't show up on most menus, just a couple in particular. I don't know if these will be improved with an update.

 

[bumzo1]

these posts are scaring me my new imac is suppose to arrive on thursday hopefully mine doesn't have any of these problems

 

[futurase]

I say this with great fear and trembling, but I bought the new flagship iMac and it is dead on. Perfection. Everything is smooth as silk and flawless. As of this second anyway.


Don't think everyone's is junk.


Norman Ross Jr.

 

[SydneyDev]

i've noticed a few artefacts popping up on some menus here and there with my GT130. They aren't that bad and don't show up on most menus, just a couple in particular. I don't know if these will be improved with an update.

I have noticed this too. If your Safari bookmarks menu is taller than the screen is high, and you use the mouse wheel to scroll through it, sometimes (not always, but not rarely either) there will be graphical corruption.

I think Apple need to get ATI to write their NVidia drivers for them

 

[adamlbiscuit]

I'm starting to get worried here. It seems that a lot of things are 'flickering' alately. Some menus (not all) are flickering when i scroll through them like font menus in photoshop or word, also when running software update the bar that goes across when checking for new software flickers whenever it moves. I don't quite know if this is normal or not but my macbook with the dreaded Intel GMA 950 doesn't have this flickering problem.

Is this something that might be fixed in an update or is the graphics card (GT 130) faulty?