Re: Scrolling performance

[Roo <oscosc gmail com>]

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:21:56 -0500, Michael Ekstrand wrote:

> Part of the problem/reason: for some reason, it seems to work (or at
> least give acceptable results) for many of us.

No doubt, when you throw enough hardware at problems it does tend to hide
them.

> So basically: there are more variables than just GTK.

Ok, so presumably there's a way to take gtk2-2.8.19-2.src.rpm (the
currently installed GTK2 on my FC5 system) and recompile it (or is there
an env var?) telling it not to use Cairo so I can see if there's a
difference and hence narrow things down. I could also use a recommendation
for a benchmark app to generate some hard numbers under the different
setups.

I'm seeing these issues, and I'm fed up of them not being fixed. I'd like
to know what tools the GTK developers use for measuring performance
changes, and how I can cut out Cairo in order to get a grip on exactly
what is going on.

> Further, GTK seems to value correctness and straightforwardness over
> speed.  Not necessarily bad - computer time is cheaper than programmer
> time.  And it's had some great results.  GTK widgets are highly capable.
> But I can see it getting slow.

I know you are trying to cover the bases here, but that just doesn't cut
it as an excuse. GTK2 has been slow from the beginning, and it's getting
slower. Other toolkits, like Qt (which I don't like I must stress), manage
to be correct and avoid the major performance problems that have plagued
GTK for years now.

>OK, so this has turned into a bit of a stream-of-conciousness message.
>But I hope it helps some...  and it most definitely is not intended as a
>flame, so please don't take it as one.

I didn't take it as one... but I'd like some advice from anyone on
narrowing down the problem so it can be fixed rather than just ignored
again.