Fast switching - not rotating ?
 

Fast user switching is a great feature - but on my system there is no 3D rotation effect - just a screen change. (it is enabled on the Accounts pref pane)

I am only using a G3 500MHx iMac - perhaps there is an undocumented system requirement for this effect to work, or perhaps it needs to be enabled somewhere.

Any ideas?
Tony L

I believe that you need to have a Quartz Extreme-capable machine in order to see that particular effect.

handle
 

If you drill a hole in your screen and install a handle
(v1.0) you could turn it manualy.
Or even better with addition of electromotor it'll be
faster.

This might not help but could make you laugh.
Laugh is proven to be good stimulans for thinking.

Maybe you have to have just 1 monitor?
 

I've got a dual G4 tower running Panther, and it has 2 monitors attached. When I have both monitors going and I do the fast user switch, it just changes. No fancy 3D rotation. If I disconnect one monitor, I get the fancy 3D rotation on the one screen.

I have a buddy who has a similar system and he has exactly the same experience I do. Hope that helps.

Fast User Switching "cube"
 

Apparantly if the accounts being switched are set up to use different resolutions, colour depth, refresh rate etc, then a fade effect is used instead of the cube. Even on supported graphics cards the effect might not work if the desktop is at a high resolution (see if it works at lower resolutions), I suppose this would include extended desktops over mutliple monitors.

Hope that helps.

Rob.

Hmm. I tried decreasing display resolution for both users. No change - except when they were set on different resolutions, when there was the fade out /fade in effect. On the same resolution, the change is immediate- very impressive, but not the desired effect.

According to the specs, the chip and VRAM in this machine should be adequate for quartz extreme.

Anyone else had this OS experience?

Tony

I have a 12"Powerbook 640/Combo/NON-DVI
and it does the cube effect. However, when I hook up an external monitor to it and switch users, no cube effect at all, just the "standard" switch. It'd be nice if the cube was implemented for dual monitors.....

same here on a G3/350, but actually I don't care. I'm leaning towards the quartz xtreme theory (having 16 MB of VRAM, needing 32 for QE)

I always thought the pre-G4 iMacs had 16 MB of VRAM at most, but I may be wrong.

cheers, pink

I guess that is the correct explanation, although according to Apple only 16 MB is required

cf http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme/

Tony L

I've got a b&w G3/350 with a ATI Radeon 7000 (32MB RAM) installed and can confirm: no rotation animation on quick user switching. But then the card is PCI and not AGP as required.

Works for me and my 16 MB VRAM iBook.

tlembke,

The Quartz Extreme page says that any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU will work, your machine I believe has the ATI Rage 128.

Dave

this also happened on techtv the other night...

They said it was due to the video out.... Are you using a TV or video out in conjuction with the machine ???

Dave,

You're right. From system profiler -

ATY,Rage128Pro2:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Display Type: CRT
VRAM (Total): 16 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Thanks very much,

Tony

I am on 1 128Pro also with 16m of memory, and NO rotating cube. Will this card do it or do I need to go anothe route? (new card or the handle?
thanks
eli

ATI Rage is not ATI Radeon. Radeon required.

PCI slot is not AGP. AGP required.

Hey guys, it is a QE (quartz extreme) issue. If you have and older g4 (with those ati rage cards, like i do) it won't work, also the older g3 (all desktops and most of the ibooks, but the last 2 revs have QE graphics cards, well chips)

Also if your running a pci graphics card and haven't used the hack to enable QE then it won't work.

Im not sure about the different resolution issue. It seems to me that the only way to effectively pull off the switch would be a fade out, change res, fade in as new user.

This is all IIRC and I'm looking for the page i read that stated that the rotation effect only works with QE, if i find it i will edit and link but I'm not feeling too motivated so there isn't much chance of it.

Have a good one

jameso

Cubes
 

I have installed Panther in so many different ways lately trying to work out some bug issues and noticed during one of the "upgrade" installations that it did not cube but on all clean installs it did. So I don't think it is actually a hardware problem.

What was the video card in the machine that received the upgrade install?

if it is quartz extreme enabled you might want to reinstall the OS and see if that fixes it

jameso

I had in issue with some old pref panes and booted into 'safe mode' to troubleshoot. I found it interesting that there was no cube rotation effect when switching users.

I suppose QE is not enabled in safe mode.

(not that it matters or has anything to do with the thread) ;)

I would not know. i've only got a lowly g4 with a rage card. it's nice to dream tho

jameso