Graphics issues in Yosemite

Support
1

Hi Christoff,

did you figure out by any chance if and what’s wrong with Yosemite?
I am asking because we just purchased several new Mac Minis to run MW, but they all came with Yosemite and there is no way to downgrade to Maverick.
In cc, my developer Walter Vanzella, who will start soon developing plugins for MW (and may have other questions for you in the future).

Thanks
davide

2

Hi Davide,

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any progress on this issue since my initial warning about Yosemite. I believe the problems I’ve seen are due to graphics issues in Yosemite, and my hope is that these issues will be resolved in a future point release (e.g. 10.10.2, 10.10.3).

That said, it’s possible that you’ll be able to run MWorks under the current version of Yosemite (10.10.1) without issue. The specific problem I’ve seen is that, when running in a non-fullscreen window (e.g. mirror window only), the stimulus display can drop a substantial number of frames. The dropped frames are noticeable under visual inspection (e.g. animation is jittery), but they’re completely invisible to MWorks’ display update code, which thinks that everything is running smoothly.

Notably, I have not observed this issue in fullscreen windows, so it probably wouldn’t pose a problem for typical MWorks usage. However, the mere existence of the issue (and the fact that it’s completely undetectable by MWorks itself) makes me worry about the state of Yosemite graphics in general. This is why I cautioned users against upgrading.

In the case of your new Mac mini’s, I’d recommend running some existing MWorks experiments on them and carefully observing their performance. In particular, be on the lookout for jittery animation or other stimulus display problems. If everything seems to run smoothly, then it’s probably safe to start using the new machines in production. (FWIW, I’ve been developing and testing MWorks under Yosemite since its initial release, and, apart from the graphics issue, I haven’t had any problems.)

Regards,
Chris Stawarz

3

Thank you very much Chris,

we will try the Yosemite extensively in the next few weeks and we will update you if any trouble occurs.

Best
davide