Video decoder on Mac?

[j.e.f.f]

I'm using Attract Mode on MacOS High Sierra -- repurposed an old iMac as a dedicated retro gaming console.

I'm having some sporadic video playback problems.  Sometimes snaps play back fine, other times they don't play or they play really choppy.  When screensaver mode is enabled, video performance is especially poor.

I've noticed there is a configuration for video decoder, but I don't have any options.  How do I add additional encoders?  How do I ensure hardware acceleration is being used?  Admittedly the mac is 10 years old, but it was specced to the gills when I first bought it, and it should be more than beefy enough to playback 640x480 video without issue.

[zpaolo11x]

I have a late 2013 macbook pro 13" retina, and I don't have options besides software decoding, so the age of your system is not the issue. Attract Mode struggles on my machine when videos are playing: fans get spinning fast and other software crawls, I think this is due to the lack of hardware decoder, but there's nothing we can do at the moment.

[j.e.f.f]

Do you know if it struggles with any video or are some codecs better than others?  If I were to transcode everything to quicktime, for example can I expect better performance?

[keilmillerjr]

I have a 27” mid-2011 imac 2.7ghz i5 hd 6750m 512mb with 12gb ram. Runs videos fine. However, i am currently building a linux pc. Apple unnecessarily dropped support (glsl), attract has issues with mac, apple firmware is locked or something because I cant get a boot loader. Tired of apple and Ive been a user since os 8.6. Rant over.

[zpaolo11x]

I have a 27” mid-2011 imac 2.7ghz i5 hd 6750m 512mb with 12gb ram. Runs videos fine.

You don't have 100% cpu usage when playing videos in Attract Mode? My Macbook pro plays videos fine too, but the CPU is on its knees...

However, i am currently building a linux pc. Apple unnecessarily dropped support (glsl), attract has issues with mac, apple firmware is locked or something because I cant get a boot loader. Tired of apple and Ive been a user since os 8.6. Rant over.

I'm sticking to Mohave to avoid the issues with Catalina as much as I can, not just because of dropped support for GLSL (not a real issue since it will still keep working) or dropped support for 32 bit applications (although I will miss Picasa when I switch) but mostly because (in a very stupid move) Apple decided that with Catalina you can't sync ToDo lists with iPhones older than iOS 13 and I have a still perfectly working iPhone5s stuck at iOS12. So until I have some money to splash on a new iPhone no Catalina for me

That said, it's not so bad using Attract Mode on a Mac, sure some issues with OpenGL are there (due to support for OpenGL2.1 only AFAIK), and some things that work on the Mac have issues with Windows and vice-versa, but I overall enjoy being able to develop my layouts on my Mac and share the layouts with Windows users

I'm pretty scared by the news that Apple plans to switch to ARM...

[keilmillerjr]

No idea about cpu usage.

Apple dropped support for glsl is a problem. Mac now requires apple metal. Many computers obsolete and many developers leaving the platform.

I have issues such as game navigation not being fluid. Submenu module not working. Weird things. I run virtual installs of other operating systems and attract works fine.

Its all good. I’m done with apple. Havent been this upset since they switched away from ppc.

[j.e.f.f]

I think I've got the video problem licked! I noticed most of the videos were 60fps which is totally unnecessary for what we need, and more difficult for the computer to render in software. I transcoded all of my videos using handbrake to constant 30fps and I'm no longer having any video issues.  CPU usage hovers around 13-15%, sometimes spikes to 20.  Screensaver looks great too. Side by side, I can't tell the difference between the original and the transcoded version. It looks just as good!

If anyone is interested, I can share the settings I used in Handbrake

[zpaolo11x]

Its all good. I’m done with apple. Havent been this upset since they switched away from ppc.

I thought it was almost time to change my MBP 2013 because at last they got rid of that awful new keyboards, but now they are talking about dropping x86, and Catalina is such a limiting mess... Too bad.

[RetroMacGamer]

For old Mac's, 1080p System and Game snaps will struggle, 720p max resolution, find 720p snaps or recode your current snaps with handbrake.

[zpaolo11x]

If you can find native resolution snaps and videos it’s even better, no need to have 720p for games that had mostly 244 horizontal lines