OSX slow GUI [WAS: Re: [PD] Metro unstable osx]

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Feb 17, 2006, at 11:32 AM, derek holzer wrote:

> Hi HC,
>
> Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>
>>>> the GUI of the installers is incredibly slow compared with older  
>>>> versions.
>> Could you elaborate on this slowness?  This is not something that I  
>> have noticed, but it sounds like a problem.
>
> I've mentioned this before on the list, but whenever I try to run my  
> audio performance patches (built w/ PD Linux 0.39 self-compiled on a  
> G4 Powerbook) on OSX, I get a sluggish or totally non-responsive GUI.  
> I can get them usable if I reduce the complexity, and slowing down the  
> "refresh rate" of things like number boxes and bangs helps. But the  
> bottom line is that the Aqua/TclTk on OSX just doesn't work as well as  
> under Linux on the exact same hardware, and PD suffers from it. It  
> actually can slow down or jam up my entire OSX desktop as well, which  
> is an even bigger bummer. Sometimes this effect lasts even after  
> quitting PD, requiring a restart.
>
> Sara Kolster noticed this as well. She's using a rather old installer  
> (0.37.1) with GEM for video performances which runs pretty smoothly on  
> OSX 10.3. For testing, she installed the latest 0.39 RC-8 and got the  
> same thing... totally unresponsive GUI.
>
> Another less severe irritation is that I sometimes get placement  
> errors, i.e. I draw a box to select some objects and the box appears  
> several cm lower and to the right from where my cursor is. This is a  
> sporadic and infrequent bug, but it does remind me of errors involving  
> number boxes and other GUI elements from earlier installers.
>
> My own comparisons showed James' PD++ installer to be slightly better  
> in terms of GUI response, but still not as usable as under Linux. I  
> also compiled 0.39 myself (outside the build system, which was broken  
> in December when I tried it) with pretty much the same results. I  
> wanted to compile against a newer version of Tcl/Tk but I couldn't  
> convince the compiler to use it. See also:
>
> http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2006-01/034556.html

I was well aware of the slowness of the Pd GUI on Mac OS X, but its  
news to me that its actually slower than older versions.  That would be  
very good to test.  Tigital did a bunch of work streamlining the  
Tk/Aqua stuff to use CoreGraphics, which should speed things up quite a  
bit.  I am wondering what makes things go slower with newer versions.

That placement error is a long standing bug, its definiteyl annoying,  
but no one has spent some quality time trying to track it down.  The  
first step would be just to find a way to consistently reproduce it.   
Any ideas?

One thing that tigital is proposing, which I think would be worth  
trying, is making a Fink/X11 version of Pd.  This should get around the  
slowness of Tk/Aqua, but would mean that you need X11 to use that  
version of Pd.

.hc

>
> best,
> d.
>
> --  
> derek holzer ::: http://www.umatic.nl
> ---Oblique Strategy # 149:
> "Take a break"
>

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