What Amount of Slowness is Acceptable?

[sbfreddie]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

Mac users....

OK, I'll admit that I am Mac stupid. Maybe I just don't get it.

But....

I loaded 10.7 Lion on my mac Mini 2 GB, 2 GHz Core 2 Duo. My mac Mini will not run 10.8 ML.

I downloaded the current 3.2.2 DMG from opencpn.org, and installed it.
I connected a network (UDP) live GPS data stream, including live AIS.
I loaded cm93 and NOAA RNCs.
I loaded a fairly large (100KB) navobj set.
And I find:

Substantially the same performance as my youtube video...

I never see spinning wheel. I rarely see little watch cursor.
Idle CPU load of OpenCPN is 2-4%.

So, I ask:
What should I do to reproduce the reports of poor performance on a Mac?
Do I need 10.7.5 to make OpenCPN go slower?
Do I need to download and install the special Prolific USB-Serial driver to make it slow down?
Should I squirt some 5200 into the disc slot?

If the performance bottle-neck as reported relates to attached GPS and large navobj set, which is the more significant factor?

How about chart types? Is cm93 or S57ENC slower than RNC, as compared to, say, Windows performance? Does it slow down only when the ownship icon is on-screen? Does it speed up if route/tracks/marks are made invisible?

How about the various PlugIns? Is there one or more that break the camel's back?

Will someone check these factors, and report, please?

Or, maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. Maybe Mac users find the performance of OpenCPN as indicated on the youtube video to be very slow compared to other Mac applications, and actually too slow to be usable...Is that the problem?

I'd like to make progress on this issue, but frankly, I'm stumped just now.

Thanks
Dave

Dave:
I seem to remember a while back using 10.7 their was no problem for me either. However you will need to install all the updates to bring up to date (which is 10.7.5). I seem to remember the problem started to show up around 10.7.3 I think (but I am getting kinda old so don't trust my memory).
I sure hope that it is not related to the individual machine as I am on a Mac Pro. I still have a 3 Mac Mini's: 2006 core-solo, 2007 core-2-duo, and a 2010 core-2-duo which is running 10.8 and it does the same thing as my Mac Pro running 10.7.5.

Thanks for all you do,
Freddie

[bdbcat]

Freddie & CarCode....

OK, lets talk about this some more...

I upgraded my Mac Mini to 10.7.5. And....

No difference. 32 bit OCPN runs just as well on 10.7.5 as it does on 10.6 SL. IMHO, fast enough to be used at sea.

So, what in the heck is going on?
Could there be a processor dependency? Hard to imagine that.
Any other ideas?

I'd sure like to see a short video clip of OCPN running slowly on Lion or Mountain Lion.....Can anyone capture and post a short to youtube?

Still head scratching...

Dave

[dzhiurgis]

Sorry for delaying this post.
Here's the

video

of 3 VMs running XP, 7 and Ubuntu (I think latest LTS). I tried to record the screen, but take a look at a top right window and what overhead does 2560x1440 screen resolution recording creates (pink is a system process responsible for the recording). As you can see this wasn't really possible.
Therefore I made

another

two

videos

.
I think it's obvious that frame rate on Mac is visibly lower than Windows. My first impression was same with Ubuntu, but after more testing it seem to be same as in Windows.
I apologise if for some it might not be something that matches definition of slow, but for me it is quite noticeable.
Without GPS, on OS X OpenCPN idles at 1%, however, panning and zooming causes approx. 70% CPU load (along 4/8 threads).
All application versions, charts and settings were the same. Each VM had 2 cores and 2Gb of memory assigned. OS X at moment of testing had approx. 1.6GB of memory free (unused). You may notice some routes on OS X, during the test. I removed them later and performance haven't changed.
Having played more with mouse on my work machine, I must say OpenCPN seems to be optimised for mouse users. I am not really sure mouse is a device used often at sea.
Cheers,
~dzh

[bdbcat]

dzh...

Thanks for the videos. Most informative.
I agree that in direct comparison, OCPN on OSX is slower than 7, XP, and linux.

Questions:
1. Did OSX in video have OpenGL enabled? Any appreciable difference, on or off?

2. Credible reports come in that ML shows lots of spinning pinwheels on zoom and pan operations. "So slow it is nearly unusable." I did not see any in the video. Do you see these in normal, full screen operation of O on Mountain Lion?

There are obvious general performance issues with 32 bit OCPN on OSX. Opportunities for improvement abound.

However, I'm still trying to isolate the performance differences on ML vs SL, as reported. I cannot duplicate any meaningful differences in my testing.

Can anyone make a video on Lion or Mountain Lion with pinwheels?

Or, I ask again, is the performance of OCPN on Mac as shown by my video, (and yours) "too slow to be usable"?

Don't worry about hurting my feelings. I have none, since this is all just ones and zeros anyway....

Thanks
Dave

[dacust]

Originally Posted by bdbcat

... this is all just ones and zeros anyway....

Thanks
Dave

Yeah, so what's the deal? You lazy? Just try all the combinations of ones and zeros and with perseverance you'll find the right one.

That's the technique behind the latest utility I am writing: doitanyway
If something errors out, just use this command and it will go ahead and run it.

As you think about the design considerations, you will agree with me that the only programming language that is suitable for this task is, of course, INTERCAL.

-dan

[bdbcat]

Carcode/sbFreddie...

I built a 64bit version of OpenCPN on Lion/Cocoa. I used wxWidgets 2.9.5, which theoretically has improved wxRegion support. There were only a few benign tweaks to the current github code base necessary to get a clean build.

However,...
Performance is still very poor on quilted cm93. Profiler indicates that there is still a serious problem with wxRegion calculations, even though the new region code is active.

It is not usable in quilting mode.

Do you have acceptable performance with quilting on any 64 bit 2.9.x builds ? Any tips or recent progress in this area?

Thanks
Dave