Templot Club Archive 2007-2020                             

topic: 3207Templot performance
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posted: 6 Feb 2018 01:20

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Last month we had emergency system updates to fix or work around the flaws discovered in Intel processors:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability)

At the time we were told that these fixes would cause all computers to run more slowly, although this has been disputed for general use.

Whatever the truth in that, my feeling is that Templot now runs more slowly than it did before, at least on my system. I may be imagining it of course, but I felt that it was quite noticeable when looking at the Evercreech Jct file which John Palmer posted recently:

 topic 3205

which contains 117 templates, some of them quite long.

So I have been looking at some of the original code for the screen drawing, which has been unchanged for many years. I have made some changes to speed up screen re-draws when zooming and panning, with much better results than I expected for large track plans.

This change will be in the next program update 218d shortly now available. It will be interesting to have some feedback on this for different systems, processors and screen sizes. :)

Separately from that, I have added yet another menu option, to improve the response when working on large track plans. Often in such cases all the current design work is taking place in a small area, despite the plan being much larger overall. I thought it would be helpful to be able to tell Templot to ignore temporarily all background templates outside a specified rectangle. This doesn't make any difference when working zoomed in to that rectangle of course, but if you happen accidentally to zoom out too far on a large plan, it can take a while for Templot to catch up with the Windows message queue and let you zoom back in. If it's not having to draw all the templates, that is possible much sooner.

We already have a mechanism to draw such a rectangle on the trackpad, and adjust it by mouse actions. It's the output boundary rectangle for file exports and the sketchboard content. It didn't until now play any part in trackpad operations -- but it does now. :)

I have added an option to use that rectangle to control which background templates get drawn on the trackpad. Any template of which any part is within the rectangle is drawn (in full), otherwise it is ignored:

2_051958_200000000.png2_051958_200000000.png

I even managed to find a spare keyboard shortcut for it -- SHIFT+END, so it's easy to toggle on and off. When active the top row of the toolbar buttons gains a green background as a reminder.

All the above applies to background templates only, and on the trackpad screen only. There is no effect on the control template, or the background shapes, or file exports, or printing.

If you haven't made any use of the boundary rectangle until now, the tool-button for it is here (it turns orange when clicked), and you can then click-drag the rectangle:

2_051958_360000000.png2_051958_360000000.png

To change the rectangle you can either draw a new one, or use the mouse actions to move its sides. It's not new, it has been there for years.

To remove an unwanted rectangle, click on the trackpad without dragging a rectangle.

Note that drawing and removing the rectangle is a separate function from toggling the restricted template area. The rectangle is also used to control the export area for image files, and transfers to the sketchboard.

In update 218d shortly.  Now available.

You all knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from programming for long. :)  

regards,

Martin.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 03:32

from:

DerekStuart
 
United Kingdom

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Morning Martin

I haven't personally noticed Templot getting any slower. Even with a large London terminus on the trackpad it still performs well. The same applies to a number of specialist pieces of software that I use for work (control of other equipment etc).

What I have noticed, if it's of any interest, is that it's the office and accounting programmes that are becoming slower. It seems to me that operations where lots of data is shunted to/from the HDD (virtual memory?) has become much slower since the patch.

Well done on yet another good idea- it will come in useful for those of us who seem to try and recreate the whole of the British Rail network on one screen.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 10:27

from:

John Palmer
 
 

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DerekStuart wrote:
Well done on yet another good idea- it will come in useful for those of us who seem to try and recreate the whole of the British Rail network on one screen.
Hey!  I resemble that remark! :D

I too haven't noticed any slowdown on my machine, but that's because I have yet to install any of the January patches issued by Microsoft. I restrained myself on the advice of Woody Leonhard, whom I regard as something of a luminary on such matters, and who alerted his readership to the chaotic response of Microsoft and the like to knowledge of Meltdown and Spectre coming into the public domain.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3253293/microsoft-windows/hold-your-breath-avoid-the-snake-oil-and-get-windows-updated.html indicates that the time is now ripe for me to get my system updated (seems it would be prudent to image it before doing so - that's going to be a PITA), but until further notice I shall continue to give offers of updates to my firmware a wide berth.

Whether I suffer any performance hit after the January patches are applied remains to be seen, but well done Martin for anticipating and mitigating the consequences of any such degradation.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 11:42

from:

Nigel Brown
 
 

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Microsoft installed some patches on my system during January. No problems, and haven't noticed any slowdown. Windows 10 Home, Intel Core i5-2500.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 12:28

from:

d827kelly
 
Coventry - United Kingdom

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I've not noticed any slow down with Windows 10 so far. But it is an i7-6700k so modern and powerful. Not tried it on the laptop however (much slower it!) Due to a HDD failure.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 13:19

from:

Tony W
 
North Notts. - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin.
The rectangle zoom button is one of the most used by me for zooming into a particular area of the screen. It can even be used as a spot zoom by selecting and placing the cursor where wanted and left clicking twice. A property originally discovered by accident.
Not sure how the hardware bug affects Linux machines although they use the same hardware.
Regards
Tony.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 13:22

from:

richard_t
 
Nr. Spalding, South Holland - United Kingdom

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To counter the above, my main templot design, with 203 templates isn't that fast when zooming in and out with the mouse wheel, and doesn't keep up with even moderate scrolling (with the mouse wheel). Panning around, with middle mouse button down is a bit slow as well.

Windows 10 Fall Creators update - "Windows Update" is up-to-gate. 32Gb Ram, SSD, Intel Core i7-5930K 3.5Ghz (although I think it goes up on demand)

posted: 6 Feb 2018 13:42

from:

d827kelly
 
Coventry - United Kingdom

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Tony W wrote:
Hi Martin.
The rectangle zoom button is one of the most used by me for zooming into a particular area of the screen. It can even be used as a spot zoom by selecting and placing the cursor where wanted and left clicking twice. A property originally discovered by accident.
Not sure how the hardware bug affects Linux machines although they use the same hardware.
Regards
Tony.
There should have been a new kernel patch for most distributions of Linux not long after the bug was discovered.

Linux will be affected in a similar way, though the patches might well be a bit better than the one Microsoft hurriedly sent out. So far not really noticed any problems on either platforms since the bug announcement or patched kernels/rebooted.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 14:43

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Tony W wrote:
The rectangle zoom button is one of the most used by me for zooming into a particular area of the screen. It can even be used as a spot zoom by selecting and placing the cursor where wanted and left clicking twice. A property originally discovered by accident.
Hi Tony,

You need click only once. And you are not meant to discover it by accident. :)

See:

 http://templot.com/companion/gs_pad_notes.php

from which:

" ... Or if you simply click the pad without dragging a rectangle, the pad will zoom in to the maximum extent centred on the clicked position."

But that page is painfully out of date -- written even before Templot supported the mouse wheel (for Windows95). :(

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 14:53

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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richard_t wrote:
To counter the above, my main templot design, with 203 templates isn't that fast when zooming in and out with the mouse wheel, and doesn't keep up with even moderate scrolling (with the mouse wheel). Panning around, with middle mouse button down is a bit slow as well.
Hi Richard,

I think you will find an improvement in the next update 218d.

I made a small change which I expected to have only minimal effect, but which turned out to make a significant difference (on my system at least) for large track plans.

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 21:16

from:

Rob Manchester
 
Manchester - United Kingdom

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Hello Martin,

I downloaded John's S&D mega plan yesterday and I thought it was slow to zoom etc but it is a complex layout. I think everything else I have access to in Templot runs fine, speed wise. I can let you know if I see a difference after 218d is made available.

I did notice that when group selecting all of John's templates and shifting them by mouse you get something I haven't seen before. Press the left button and move it across the screen to shift the templates and the group all move slightly in the intended direction and then pause before jumping the rest of the way as intended. Do you see that ? Guess it is just down to the number of templates being shifted.

Rob



posted: 6 Feb 2018 21:28

from:

Rob Manchester
 
Manchester - United Kingdom

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Hello Martin,

Doing a group convert on my system from P4 to Scale7 takes between 6 and 7 seconds for John's 200+ Templates. I have an i5 desktop with 32GB RAM. Looking at the performance of the system whilst doing this shows CPU1 at 100% and the other 3 CPUs at 5-10%.

Rob


posted: 6 Feb 2018 22:16

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Rob Manchester wrote:
I did notice that when group selecting all of John's templates and shifting them by mouse you get something I haven't seen before. Press the left button and move it across the screen to shift the templates and the group all move slightly in the intended direction and then pause before jumping the rest of the way as intended. Do you see that ? Guess it is just down to the number of templates being shifted.
Hi Rob,

That simply means you are moving the mouse faster than Templot can keep up. When it has finished drawing the templates in one position, it looks to see where the mouse has got to, and draws them there next time. If you want to see 200 templates move smoothly across the trackpad, you must move the mouse very slowly.

You can do that on the keyboard number pad*. 5 key makes a mouse click to start a mouse action, the other 8 keys around it move the mouse 1 screen dot at a time. Hold them down to see the mouse move very slowly at the keyboard repetition rate. 5 key again to finish. It's sometimes handy when making very precise adjustments.

*if NumLock is on - indicator LED showing

regards,

Martin.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 22:19

from:

Tony W
 
North Notts. - United Kingdom

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Hi Rob. You need specially written software to take advantage of multi processors. As far I am aware Templot doesn't.
Regards
Tony.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 22:23

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Rob Manchester wrote:
Doing a group convert on my system from P4 to Scale7 takes between 6 and 7 seconds for John's 200+ Templates.
Thanks Rob. I just tried that here, taking 9 seconds.

I haven't made any changes in 218d to affect that -- it's not something you would do more than once. The changes are related only to zooming and panning.

If someone has not yet done the Windows system updates, they might like to time that conversion before and after doing them to see if there is any difference.

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 22:30

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Tony W wrote:
Hi Rob. You need specially written software to take advantage of multi processors. As far I am aware Templot doesn't.
Hi Tony,

The sketchboard engine uses multi-threading. Otherwise not.

regards,

Martin.

posted: 6 Feb 2018 22:52

from:

Rob Manchester
 
Manchester - United Kingdom

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Tony W wrote:
Hi Rob. You need specially written software to take advantage of multi processors. As far I am aware Templot doesn't.
Regards
Tony.
Tony,

Yes, just reading up about that now. Martin must be slipping :D

Rob


posted: 7 Feb 2018 10:03

from:

Godfrey Earnshaw
 
Crawley - United Kingdom

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Martin Wynne wrote:
Rob Manchester wrote:
Doing a group convert on my system from P4 to Scale7 takes between 6 and 7 seconds for John's 200+ Templates.
Thanks Rob. I just tried that here, taking 9 seconds.

I haven't made any changes in 218d to affect that -- it's not something you would do more than once. The changes are related only to zooming and panning.

If someone has not yet done the Windows system updates, they might like to time that conversion before and after doing them to see if there is any difference.

cheers,

Martin.
I concur, Win 10, i5, 8 GB - 9secs. 

I thought that was pretty quick don't have a problem with that sort of speed at all.

Cheers
Godders

posted: 7 Feb 2018 23:28

from:

Rob Manchester
 
Manchester - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin,

Thanks for the explanation re the mouse guided template movement. I tried it and yes it does give very slow movements.

Rob

Last edited on 7 Feb 2018 23:35 by Rob Manchester
posted: 8 Feb 2018 21:30

from:

madscientist
 
 

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good news re perform,once tuning

My Test track box file . which is not complex but large , i.e. 40 feet long . zooms quite slowly and the zoom lag means I over and under zoom. Being able to turn off unwanted areas to speed zoom will be very handy

dave

posted: 9 Feb 2018 19:56

from:

Rob Manchester
 
Manchester - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin,

2.18d install and zoom/pan speeds seem about the same to me.

Rob


posted: 9 Feb 2018 20:09

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Rob Manchester wrote:
2.18d install and zoom/pan speeds seem about the same to me.
Hi Rob,

Thanks.

For how many templates in the storage box?

You will see a difference only if more than a few dozen, and only while zoomed in to the area of immediate work.

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 9 Feb 2018 20:13

from:

Rob Manchester
 
Manchester - United Kingdom

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Sorry Martin,

Should have stated what it was I was using for testing. I used the Evercreech master plan............ The speed is fine though as not many of us will be using track plans that size and if we are it will be a one off because building it will be a lifetimes work :D


Rob


posted: 9 Feb 2018 20:28

from:

shawg
 
Stockton On Tees - United Kingdom

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madscientist wrote:
good news re perform,once tuning

My Test track box file . which is not complex but large , i.e. 40 feet long . zooms quite slowly and the zoom lag means I over and under zoom. Being able to turn off unwanted areas to speed zoom will be very handy

dave
hi

new update 2.18d seems to reduce amount of over zoom at least on my system windows 10

geoff

posted: 9 Feb 2018 20:34

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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shawg wrote:
new update 2.18d seems to reduce amount of over zoom at least on my system windows 10
Thanks Geoff.

How many background templates in the storage box?

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 9 Feb 2018 21:27

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Just a reminder that if you are having problems with a slow screen response, there is the option of setting generator > use skeleton settings. Followed by generator > rebuild all background.

The skeleton settings are fine for general track planning. Not so useful for detailed timber shoving or similar of course. :)

Bear in mind that these are generator settings, so you need to change them back and rebuild again before printing templates or exporting files.

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 10 Feb 2018 12:05

from:

shawg
 
Stockton On Tees - United Kingdom

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hi

sorry for  delay I have 70 background templates and 1750 shapes

 cheers

posted: 10 Feb 2018 18:53

from:

Rob Manchester
 
Manchester - United Kingdom

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Hi Geoff,

1750 shapes ! Wow that must be a detailed ( or very large ) plan ?

Rob


posted: 10 Feb 2018 19:26

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Rob Manchester wrote:
1750 shapes ! Wow that must be a detailed ( or very large ) plan ?
Hi Rob,

I'm guessing a DXF import into the background shapes. Geoff?

regards,

Martin.

posted: 10 Feb 2018 21:18

from:

shawg
 
Stockton On Tees - United Kingdom

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Yeah dxf import arcs take up a lot of shapes



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