20051104: IDV 1.3a3 available for download

>From: Christopher Knox <address@hidden>
>Organization: UC Irvine
>Keywords: 200511041904.jA4J4i7s025507 IDV Mac

Hi Christopher-

>IDV-1.3a3 has extremely serious problems on Apple's OS X and hardware  
>I would strongly recommend that no one else tries it.

We've had others use it on Mac OS-X without these problems.  I'll
get details of the version and graphics card.

>I started it up and the background of the IDV window flashed on and  
>off very quickly. When I shut it down the flashing remained on the OS  
>X desktop only in the place where IDV had been running - it is very  
>distracting to look at.
>
>I restarted the machine and it was still there, so I shut the machine  
>down and unplugged it from the power - the flashing remained. I ran  
>another problem of mine that flushes the VRAM pretty thoroughly and  
>that lessened the extent of the flashing but it remained. I then shut  
>the machine down, disconnected the monitor from the power and the  
>graphics card and then waited 5 minutes - when I started the machine  
>back up the flashing remained.
>
>I can hide the flashing under a window - it is on the desktop - but  
>when I move the window it is still there. It does appear to be  
>getting less with time.
>
>I am running a Dual G5 PowerMac, with an Nvidia 6800 and OS 10.4.3 -  
>this was only released a couple of days ago and included some massive  
>upgrades to the OpenGL drivers so it is quite possible that their is  
>an incompatibility between Java3D and the new drivers - I do not  
>programme in Java3D so I don't have anything else I can test it with.

Wow, that sounds like a weird OpenGL driver problem.  We've changed nothing
in the code that should make something like this happen if it didn't
happen before.  Is there a way to check the OpenGL settings of
the card?

>Anyway I thought you should know quickly so these problems become too  
>widespread. If I am feeling reckless I will test the new IDV-1.3a3 on  
>a 10.4.2 machine and IDV 1.3a2 on a 10.4.3 machine and let you know  
>the result.

If you do feel reckless, it would be good to know if this is
a problem with 10.4.3 or your graphics driver.

>The flashing is definitely decreasing over time so hopefully after  
>lunch it will be gone - but it is very strange...

I would think turning off the machine and unplugging everything and
shutting off the monitor should flush everything out.

Don
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