Hardware Question

[geodd]

Scenario: using complex blends, bevels, contours or other such things in XaraX I get very slow screen redraws.
Question: which hardware component would most effect a speed up in the screen redraw process. CPU, Graphics Card or Ram?
Thanks for your replies.
graham

[geodd]

Scenario: using complex blends, bevels, contours or other such things in XaraX I get very slow screen redraws.
Question: which hardware component would most effect a speed up in the screen redraw process. CPU, Graphics Card or Ram?
Thanks for your replies.
graham

[James Loudon]

What kit are you using at the moment? And what OS?More RAM helps virtually everything and is dirt cheap right now. All half decent new video cards are more than adequate for 2d work - ideally you should have at least 32 mb on your vid card because depending on what system you have the vid card will be doing most of the work when it comes to screen redraws. Anything from Matrox and newer ATI is good.

[ED]

geodd... unfortunately there is no single item involved in the "speed up in the screen redraw process" I believe you alredy know that but since this question is related to graphic performance in 2D then your best bang for the buck is going to be CPU.

2D graphics are really easy for most any card today to handle and they all do a decent job at provide nice images with lots of colors. 3D performance makes this a totally different question/answer.

The problem really is that the cards are sitting there waiting for the CPU to do the math. The GPU is going to spit out 2D images easily.

More RAM on the motherboard or the graphics card is not going to speed up the math if your CPU is slow delivering the final math results to be process by the graphics hardware.

So my advise (good or bad, like it or not) is to go and get a the fastest CPU you can afford. You'll get much more then speedier graphics to boot and beside, its a great time to buy. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Merry Chritsmas?

The BEST is good enough!

[michaelward]

The problem here seems to be that the processor is working hard to decide what is going to be output, and there is probably no problem once that bit is done - with the render appearing quickly.

Try doing contours, etc. but turn them into independant shapes and I think you'll dind things are quicker - and the reason is that Xara is no longer dynamically making new shapes for the contour.



Michael Ward
http://LeighCenturions.net
http://www.metalandplastics.co.uk