Seven maintenance tips to optimize Mac performance

Mac systems are pretty trouble free, and OS X is a pretty solid system. However, as with all things, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, and there are some things that you can do with OS X to keep it running in tip-top shape.

#1 Back it up

The first and most crucial  thing to do is to keep a backup of your important files, or even the entire system. To clone the entire system (great for backups and quick restoration in the case of hardware failure), an external hard drive and SuperDuper! are the best solution as far as I am concerned. SuperDuper! makes a bootable clone of your hard drive; a great thing to do before performing large system updates, or something to schedule routinely. Other options include buying an Apple Time Machine and scheduling backups that way.

 

#2 Keep software up to date

Keeping software current is another important thing. Software updates not only provide new functionality and correct bugs, they often correct security flaws as well. Keeping your system up to date via the OS X Software Update is important, but so is keeping the third-party applications installed current. Many applications “phone home” to check for updates and will alert you if updates are available. Otherwise, you can point your RSS feed reader to MacUpdate’s web site to keep you alert of new software releases. You can also elect to pay MacUpdate’s yearly subscription fee and be alerted via email or use their desktop application (which is quite useful as well, as it will inform you of what installed applications are out of date).

 

#3 Perform a Permissions Repair

This can be done by launching Disk Utility, selecting the boot drive, and clicking Repair Disk Permissions. It is a good habit to repair permissions before and after large system upgrades (i.e., when upgrading from OS X 10.6.3 to 10.6.4). As well, in Disk Utility you can use the “Verify Disk” button to scan the integrity of the filesystem on the hard drive. If it identifies problems, you will need to boot from the install disc or a cloned drive (another reason SuperDuper! is useful) and use Disk Utility to repair them.

 

#4 Get the right tools

Tools exist to keep an eye on your system, and free ones are even better. To be informed of the impending decline of hard drives, use the free SMARTReporter menu bar tool. This tool checks the S.M.A.R.T. output of your hard drive(s) and reports if there are any failures or inconsistencies; however, keep in mind that this only works with internal SATA/eSATA/IDE drives, and not external drives.
Another great monitoring tool is iStat Menus. This is another menu bar app that displays useful information such as a CPU usage meter, memory usage, disk usage, disk activity, temperature sensors, and more. If it feels like the system is slowing down, clicking on the menu bar icons will show you what applications are taking the most CPU or consuming the most memory.

 

#5 Beware of memory leaks

With the stability of OS X, some people may leave their systems running constantly, or put them to sleep without restarting the system. If any running software has memory leaks, even small ones, leaving them open constantly will start to consume more and more system memory. Some applications that use a lot of memory, such as Safari and other browsers, may not fully release that used memory when tabs are closed, and it isn’t uncommon to see Safari using far more memory than a browser warrants.
I’ve seen Safari consume over 1GB of memory all on its own. Quitting and restarting these memory hogs will reduce memory consumption, at least for a time. Restarting the entire computer will reset OS X’s virtual memory system and clean things up; after restarting, the system should typically feel snappier.

 

#6 Watch your hard drive

Another common sense tips include keeping an eye on hard drive space. Generally speaking, you should always ensure you have about 10% of your drive available as free space; if you find yourself filling the drive quickly or often, consider replacing it with a larger drive, delete some unused applications or files, off-loading some archive data to an external drive, or simply emptying the trash every once in a while will help.

 

#7 Check Login Items

Finally, a lot of programs like to run little helpers in the background, or think that if you run them once, you want to run them all the time. Firing up System Preferences and looking in the Accounts pane, then selecting the Login Items tab for your account can be a real eye opener. These programs start when you log in, so if there are applications here that you do not want running, here is where you can remove them. Simply highlight the application you no longer want starting at login and click the “-” button to remove it.
These are all fairly straightforward tips, but continuing to keep them in mind will keep your system running at an optimal level of performance.

Starcraft 2 Mac Problems, Crashes, and Fixes

Starcraft 2 has been out for about a week now and since launch date my life has basically revolved around the game (I’m a nerd, I know). The game is an absolute blast and you should buy it if you like real time strategy games. Now all that said, it’s not without problems. Despite a lengthy beta testing period, there are still some pretty annoying bugs and crashes in SC2, particularly for Mac users who have NVidia hardware.

Here is the known problem list for the Starcraft 2 Mac client, and more importantly some potential fixes for the problems:

* No user interface or menus – if you are missing user interface elements, try quitting and restarting the game, or do a full system restart

* Random crashes with Mac OS X 10.6.4 and NVidia graphics hardware – no current workarounds, Blizzard is aware of the problem and working on it

* NVidia hardware dramatically underperforms in Mac OS X – potential driver issue, reduce graphics settings to lower settings until a fix is released

* Mac OS X underperforms compared to Windows on the same hardware – similar to the above problem, there is speculation this is a Mac OS X video driver problem. The extent of the performance hit varies from system to system, further suggesting it’s related to video drivers. Lower graphics settings for the time being, or run the game in bootcamp.

* MacBook Pro overheats and game stutters in gameplay and cutscenes – possibly related to above graphics driver problems, some users report adding the following two lines to their variable file helpful (variables is located at ~/Documents/Blizzard/Starcraft II/variables.txt):

frameratecap=40
frameratecapGlue=30

This forces your frame rates to cap at a consistent level, some hardware is overworking when it doesn’t need to be thus sending your MacBook Pro into a ridiculously hot CPU eating festival with itself and crash city. This actually works on other hardware too if it’s overheating during cutscenes and videos.

* Black screen on startup but sound plays anyway – switch from fullscreen to windowed mode (Command+M), or do a system reboot

* Huge performance hit when using USB Headset with some NVidia hardware (GeForce 9400M in particular) – unplug the USB headset for now, Blizzard is working on a fix

* Mouse gets stuck off screen in dual monitor setups – if this happens, switch to windowed mode (Command+M) and back into full screen mode, usually your mouse will be released.

This is part of the official known Mac problem list from Blizzard, hopefully we’ll get an update soon to patch up the serious bugs and performance issues.

You can test your own game performance by showing frames per second within Starcraft 2, just hit Option+Control+F while anywhere in the game and a framerate counter will appear in the upper left corner.
Even though the Mac system requirements for Starcraft 2 are relatively low, they should not be counted on at this point due to the above problems. Even some of the best hardware is underperforming in Mac OS X. If you want the game to perform it’s absolute best, carefully watch the frame rate in response to graphics changes, and have things like “Shaders”, “Shadows”, and “Lighting” set to Low and “Reflections” set to Off, although you can generally have the resolution native and game textures medium to high and still retain decent performance.

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