Slow Performance Mac - Logitech C910

[johnny utah]

Hi,

I have the latest version of iCamSource for Mac OSX Snow Leopard, and I'm using it with the new Logitech C910, but the lag is very slow, even when turning off motion detection and changing the setting "best frame rate" instead of quality.

This camera can do 720p chat and 1080p video recording, but there's no resolution setting in iCamSource, so maybe it's trying to stream at highest quality???

The camera works fine when I use iCamSource on Windows 7, but the Mac version is not working well with this camera, it's way too laggy to be functional.

Any suggestions how to improve this?  Or when the next Mac version of the software will be out that may address the problem?

[Stefan]

Is the video laggy in the iCamSource Preferences preview video, or just when you connect via iCam?

[johnny utah]

Hi Stefan,

Thanks for your reply.

The video is laggy in both...the preferences window and also when I connect via icam.

[Stefan]

Is the camera video also laggy in the Photo Booth application?

[johnny utah]

Hi,

I just checked....it's normal on photo booth.  No lag.

Same with the logitech app from the software it comes with.  However, I also uninstalled the software completely to see if it made any difference, but it didn't.

The windows version of icam source is smooth with the same camera, so not sure what about the Mac version is causing this problem.   

[Stefan]

What is the % CPU of the iCamSource application in the Activity Monitor when it is running and jerky?

We actually did have one other user recently report the same kind of lag in the iCamSource with the same camera (Logitech C910), but it was only occurring on the user's Mac mini, whereas the same camera worked fine on the user's Mac Pro.

The solution that the user came up with to get things working was somewhat unusual:

Well, I sort of found the problem, though it makes no sense at all. I remember when I first set up the iCam system on the Mac Pro, it was jerky. Then at some point the next day or during the night, the speed changed, and has been smooth ever since. And when I recently set up the identical system on the Mac Mini it was also also slow. But I let it run of a couple days, doing absolutely nothing to that computer except turning off the monitor, and when I got this message from you I turned back on the monitor and the speed was fine. It is like the same thing happened to both computer systems.

So I guess one thing you can try is to leave the iCamSource running for a day with the camera streaming and see if the frame rate changes.

If it doesn't, please let me know.

[johnny utah]

Hi Stefan,

I'm also running it on a Mac Mini.

Thanks for the info...I may try that...although seems like a strange solution unless your app somehow starts caching memory for use with the camera.

The same camera runs smooth, on the same mac mini in Windows 7 (dualboot) as well as the icam source app.

Is there any way to tell icam source what resolution to use from the camera?  Perhaps it's trying to pull a 1080p image which could be to much for the Mini.

In Windows 7 I can run it with the "best quality" setting all the way up...so it seems the hardware can handle it....at least on Windows.

Is there any Mac software that may be conflicting with icam source?

[Stefan]

The iCamSource asks the system to get a 640x480 image from the camera so I am guessing that is what the camera is sending, although I would assume that there would be a high CPU or memory usage increase if the mini was having problem processing the image in the iCamSource. Do you see any other processes (when viewing All Processes in the Activity Monitor) that have high (near or over 100%) CPU usage when the iCamSource is started? Perhaps the VDCAssistant process, which I believe is used by the system to access USB webcams?

If the "letting it run" system gets things working I would have to guess that it is something in the system, but I don't know what it might be. 

[johnny utah]

Hi,

I tried the "letting it run" approach for a couple of hours...but nothing changed.

icamsource and VDCassistant are the 2 processes using the most memory & cpu while running, so nothing else is taking away memory.

I also tried setting it to "no audio"....no change.  It's not even usable unfortunately, it changes the image about once every 3 seconds or longer.

Any major differences between the mac and windows versions of the software??  I don't understand why in Windows it runs fine, but in the latest version of Snow Leopard (with all updates) it's not working.

Any other suggestions?

[Stefan]

The only thing I can think of is the way that the camera interacts with the two operating systems, Mac and Windows. The iCamSources essentially tell the system to update it when there are new video frames available from the camera, so if the system isn't acquiring frames as quickly on the Mac then what you are experiencing is unfortunately the result.

It is odd that other users have a similar issue with this camera, and that is has been known to suddenly "go away" ... Does the frame rate look good on any other webcam applications you have available other than Photo Booth, such as Skype, iChat or Face Time?

The other user seemed to leave it running for more than a day, so perhaps letting it run for a couple of hours isn't sufficient for some reason.