Using new technology

[Xhris]

With Xara being re-written, are there any plans for Xara (or competitors' software) to make use of modern hardware such as multicore CPUs and GPUs instead of just the single core CPU? Rendering performance of 3D apps (games), or 2D windows effects such as nVidia's desktop manager transparency for dialogues, with the latest hardware is unbelievably fast. It seems that there is a huge bank of processing power waiting to be tapped into, but is it easy to do so?

[abligh]

With Xara being re-written, are there any plans for Xara (or competitors' software) to make use of modern hardware such as multicore CPUs and GPUs instead of just the single core CPU? Rendering performance of 3D apps (games), or 2D windows effects such as nVidia's desktop manager transparency for dialogues, with the latest hardware is unbelievably fast. It seems that there is a huge bank of processing power waiting to be tapped into, but is it easy to do so?

It already uses multiple CPUs on Linux, in as much as the X11/Xorg process runs on one CPU and spends time talking to the hardware, whereas the LX process can run on another.

We don't have immediate plans to multithread LX (though we have thought about it). Faster graphics cards currently just speed up blits (we don't currently have plans to use them to do the rendering themselves).

Alex

[Charles Moir]

Well there are plans for multi-threaded support for multiple processors, but won't happen in the near future. We know how we can do this relatively easily though.

The problem with GPUs, apart from the fact that they are rather limited from a programming point of view, is that they render in the graphics card memory and not main memory. And unless the entire rendering process is made work on the GPU, and that includes the advanced features such as feathering, transparency compositing modes, shadows, bevels and even Photoshop plug-in effects, then it would involve rendering what we can on the graphics card (fast), sucking back into main memory (very slow), processing the old fashioned way (slowish), and transferring back to the graphics card (fast). And that whole process will be slow, particularly reading from graphics card memory to main memory. And that defeats the point.

And then, having said that, we'd need to retain main memory rendering for printing, for backwards compatibility, for older machines. So all in all it's going to be some time before GPU rendering of vector graphics takes off in my opinion.

If you keep things simple (very few fill types, none of the advanced features we can do) then it's much more practical to do things on the GPU.

(Apple OS X Quartz did at one time have vector rendering on the GPU, but it just wasn't reliable enough or compatible enough with the normal Quartz main memory rendering, so they switched it off. I expect them to try again in their Panther release next year)

[Xhris]

...And that whole process will be slow, particularly reading from graphics card memory to main memory...

Why is it slow to read from graphics memory to main memory out of interest? Is this so for all technology out at the moment?

[Charles Moir]

As I understand it, graphics cards are simply optimized for going from main memory to graphics memory, not the other way around. i.e you need to get stuff on screen fast and that's far more important than reading stuff back from the screen or video memory.

[Xhris]

As I understand it, graphics cards are simply optimized for going from main memory to graphics memory, not the other way around. i.e you need to get stuff on screen fast and that's far more important than reading stuff back from the screen or video memory.

Could the graphics cards be used to do the anti-aliasing? Mine for example can perform high level supersampling. I know people have discussed in the other forums the issues with standard multisampling techniques used currently, e.g. cloning objects on top of each other produces unwanted visual effects.

[Robbie Tighe]

i found that by doing a few simple things i speeded up the whole process of working in xara and have no processing problems or "lags"

in hardware profiles, choose "optimise for performance"

if your pc allows you to.

in the bios set up choose your processer to "Hyperthread"

Upgrade your ram if possible (running on 4 gig here)

only use the fonts that you're going to use. don't put them all on!)

work in low resoultion plugins and increase it when finished

install a decent graphics card (Preferably with a fan built in)

i did this to a basic dell dimension 5000 model and now Xara will handle anything i need it to do.

( i realise im probably telling everyone what they already know but this has just been what i found in my experience.)

Regards.

Robbie

[Soquili]

Hi Robbie,

In Linux the graphical interface isn't integrated into the kernal of the OS the way it is in Windows. Many Linux users experience some lag between the time something is selected and when the cursor changes or some other change occurs to notify the user the desired action has taken place.

Over the years there has been improvement and on a new system with lots of ram and a very fast processor I'm sure it would be even better. Most of the Linux users I know have it as a secondary or even a hobby system so they usually use older hardware.

With my job requiring Windows, my main system and money will have to be Microsoft related
If I win the lottery someday, maybe I'll have a high tech computer with Linux installed