XARA eating CPU

[handrawn]

I've been monitoring the situation all day and now i am looking for it with task manager the issue has cropped up twice - both times when xtreme pro 4966 minimised, once with a just saved file loaded, the other with a file just closed and xtreme unloaded

windows XP home 32bit
intel core 2 duo E4500

[Xhris]

Oh, there's an easy way to reproduce it by the way. I forgot to mention. Just start a new instance of Xara, open the bitmap gallery, and minimise Xara. I've already let Xara know about this a while back.

What bothers me as well is that with the new dual core CPU support, when some other application is consuming some sizable CPU power, Xara becomes very jerky, whereas in the same situation pre-multi-core CPU support, it remained fast and not jerky. There are times when I've got something running, and then leave it running to use Xara, and Xara is very jumpy and reverts to outline mode frequently. Something needs addressing in the multi-core code it seems (Xara are also already aware of this).

[handrawn]

'just opening the bitmap gallery and minimising xara' doesn't do it for me
nor do I get any 'reverting' to outline mode

do get some rendering glitches when mouse wheel zooming which may or may not be related

like as not more than one thing going on here...

regarding xara being aware of this - see charles' post #6 in the link at post #2 above

[Sunjammer]

Oh, there's an easy way to reproduce it by the way. I forgot to mention. Just start a new instance of Xara, open the bitmap gallery, and minimise Xara. I've already let Xara know about this a while back.

What bothers me as well is that with the new dual core CPU support, when some other application is consuming some sizable CPU power, Xara becomes very jerky, whereas in the same situation pre-multi-core CPU support, it remained fast and not jerky. There are times when I've got something running, and then leave it running to use Xara, and Xara is very jumpy and reverts to outline mode frequently. Something needs addressing in the multi-core code it seems (Xara are also already aware of this).

It happens to me when I leave the fonts gallery open. No need to minimize: CPU goes crazy even if I am working in the most simple illustration. I did need a few days, if no weeks, prior to discover which was the problem... Now I try closing the fonts gallery each time I use it, but it is a bit frustrating...

PD: Sorry for my English!

[masque]

I can't replicate any of this CPU related problems with Xara no matter how many or how few galleries I leave open, docked or undocked when minimised or active.
I was interested in this as I've noticed the cpu fans racing when the machine is idle (!?) but this is with everything shut(nothing minimised) and I can't see whats causing it. The only thing thats changed with this machine is a new (old 400 watt) power supply as the original 600watt had become louder than my lawn mower; do I need a better supply can anyone suggest?
Athlon dual core, Win XPproSP2 (not SP3 as yet) 4 gig ram. Single two year old ATI Radeon Graphics card.
Derek

[James Loudon]

I have found that having the font gallery open flatlines two of my cores for a couple of minutes and then it settles down to about 80% of one logical core. Which is still a lot of CPU working on aparrently nothing.
Close the gallery and it drops down to zero.
I have had more problems with this release of Xara than any other. No time to go into it all now sorry.

[Wolfgang]

Oh, there's an easy way to reproduce it by the way. I forgot to mention. Just start a new instance of Xara, open the bitmap gallery, and minimise Xara. I've already let Xara know about this a while back.

I was wondering for some time now, why the - supposedly even faster - XXP4 sometimes "feels" a lot slower or at least a bit jerky.

And that on a relatively new Quadcore with 4GB RAM.

It does not happen all the time, but very often.

All former versions of Xara (and I mean back to Artworks) always ran lightning fast on whichever machine I used.

Unfortunately, I can also totally reproduce what Xhris wrote.
Very strange ... and very annoying !!

Wolfgang

Edit: Opening the Bitmap Gallery and minimizing Xara absolutely maxes out 3 of 4 cores, while the remaining one does more or less nothing ...

[masque]

Having been aware of the problems some people are experiencing I've been looking out for instances of greater cpu strain. I'm finding that when I have the font drop down open choosing a font and seeing it update the type on the page, then the fans go up to lawnmower noise level as the cpu is obviously working considerably harder while the font changes are being displayed. Does anyone else experience this?
XPproSP2, Athlon Dual Core, 4gig ram etc etc all in a nice box.
Derek

[BobInce]

Confirm that the font drop-down maxes out a CPU constantly whilst open for me. It shouldn't be doing anything at this point (I keep my installed fonts down to an absolute minimum and it's not rendering anything).

The other recipes for 100% CPU here don't do anything for me... is anyone who's experiencing this using a single-core box or is it definitely a multi-core-only problem?

[Egg Bramhill]

I can confirm that it's the same for me on my single core set-up Bob. As long as the Font d/d is open, even when not doing anything the CPU runs at 100%