Bad Performance in Mac M3

[ImmersiveTheatres]

I have been asked to open a new issue with this request

I am not a coder. I am an astronomy teacher. I am asking this question (and other questions below) because I don't understand deep coding - and this is a forum to help Stellarium users.

I work with inflatable planetariums, and over the past 10 years I have used Stellarium as my main astronomy application. I use the spherical mirror projection mode, and I think Stellarium is awesome.

I only use MacBook Pros in my planetariums.

Last week I installed Stellarium v23.3 (Stellarium-23.3-qt6-macOS.zip) on a brand new MacBook Pro (Nov 2023) with M3 Pro chip, 18 GB memory, running macOS 14.1.2 (Sonoma).

Previously I was using Stellarium v19.3 on a MacBook Pro (2019) with 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 chip, 16 GB memory, running macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina). The Stellarium motion of the sky (diurnal motion) on this old laptop is perfect, silky-smooth and absolutely beautiful.

Unfortunately, the motion of the sky on my new laptop is currently rough, juddery and sticky.

I am using the same config file settings as on my old laptop - yet changing these settings seems to make no difference to the quality of the motion:

[video] dithering_mode = color888 fullscreen = true maximum_fps = 50000 minimum_fps = 100 screen_h = 768 screen_number = 1 screen_w = 1024 screen_x = 237 screen_y = 85 tm_display_adaptation_luminance = 50 viewport_effect = sphericMirrorDistorter

Here is my log file after I launch Stellarium (without doing anything else). I wonder if anyone can please suggest something I can change, to make the motion of the sky work more smoothly?

I'm also wondering why the following error is so strong ie. is there something I can do about this error, or not? (if possible, an answer in non-technical language would be helpful please).

/Users/aw/stellarium/src/core/StelApp.cpp:915: OpenGL error: 1282 (GL_INVALID_OPERATION)

Here is the full config.ini I am using at the moment.

Thanks very much

Mario

[ImmersiveTheatres]

OK, I've just loaded Stellarium 24.3 onto my new MacBook Pro (M3 Max chip, 14‑core CPU, 30‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine, 96GB memory).

• touchpad seems to be working fine (is there anything specific I need to test?)
• auto-zoom behaviour is working perfectly

Is there anything else you'd like me to check?

I'm next going to load my Christmas Star script (created with v23.3), and hopefully it will work fine(!)

[ImmersiveTheatres]

I have discovered one problem: when zoomed in, the Mars texture is incomplete. I have tried this with the default texture, plus high-res texture - and on a different laptop too.

Should I open a new issue about this?

[gzotti]

That's the simulated seasonal polar cap!

[ImmersiveTheatres]

Blimey! It's way too big and it looks like a monk's tonsure 😄 Is it possible to disable it please?

[10110111]

It's way too big

It isn't, its size depends on season. See e.g. the image from Rosetta below. But then yes, it's quite crude in this simulation, you're welcome to make its appearance more realistic, rather than a simple white fill.

[gzotti]

https://github.com/Stellarium/stellarium/issues/2040

[ImmersiveTheatres]

It's way too big

It isn't, its size depends on season. See e.g. the image from Rosetta below. But then yes, it's quite crude in this simulation, you're welcome to make its appearance more realistic, rather than a simple white fill.

Cool. How do I go about making it look more realistic? I've looked carefully at #2040 and can't see any instructions there(?)

[gzotti]

Go into the source code and just do "something" to make it appear "better". The user guide mentions the papers I used to model this. Find better ones. In the last 30 months nobody complained.

[10110111]

How do I go about making it look more realistic?

You can try making its shape non-circular and dependent on season, e.g. deriving the lines from the animations here. Also, you can try taking some texture and applying it instead of the flat white fill (the texture can also be derived from the animation linked to above).

[ImmersiveTheatres]

OK that's great advice, thank you both. I'd love to try this.

Is there documentation to explain how I can (a) get into the source code; and (b) replace the flat white with a different shade / texture?

[ImmersiveTheatres]

OK, I've just loaded Stellarium 24.3 onto my new MacBook Pro (M3 Max chip, 14‑core CPU, 30‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine, 96GB memory).

• touchpad seems to be working fine (is there anything specific I need to test?)
• auto-zoom behaviour is working perfectly

Is there anything else you'd like me to check?

OK I spoke too soon I'm afraid.

The choppy diurnal motion is as terrible as ever 🙁

I have loaded the following versions on my new very high-spec MacBook Pro, and this is the result:

SMOOTH v1.0 v22.2

CHOPPY v1.1 v1.2 v23.1 v23.2 v23.3 v23.4 v24.1 v24.2 v24.3

[ImmersiveTheatres]

I assume there is nothing I can do to remove the choppiness?

I have tried many different combinations of:

[video] minimum_fps = maximum_fps =

...and it makes no difference whatsoever.

[alex-w]

@ImmersiveTheatres please try disable Satellites plugin and check it again

[ImmersiveTheatres]

@ImmersiveTheatres please try disable Satellites plugin and check it again

The Satellites plugin was not selected.

So I tried de-selecting the following selected plugins one by one:

• Bright Novae
• Exoplanets
• Meteor Showers
• Missing Stars
• Oculars
• Remote Control
• Solar System Editor

Unfortunately it made no difference to the choppy motion.

[alex-w]

Is it possible to view a screencast?

[ImmersiveTheatres]

Is it possible to view a screencast?

For comparison, I've created a screen recording of v19.3 (very smooth diurnal motion) and v24.3 (choppy diurnal motion).

Please note:

• the choppiness may not look too bad on a computer monitor, but on a giant screen (like my 7m dome) it is very noticeable

• I have made the diurnal motion extra fast for the screen recording, to try and demonstrate the choppiness

[ImmersiveTheatres]

I do understand - loud and clear - that Stellarium developers do not work for planetarium operators. So if you think the choppiness I describe is not serious because it's not noticeable on a computer monitor, then please ignore my comments and close this issue #3535.

[10110111]

Well your screencasts seem to look the same to the eye. If you can show how it looks in real life, by taking a video of your dome projection, this may give an idea. But I guess the problem is just that the performance has dropped in the newer versions. You can try --low-graphics or --opengl-compat options and see if they help.

[gzotti]

Nothing to do with monitor, but all with the setting "distort for spherical projection". "Normal screen" people just don't use that... Yes, something apparently "happened" here.