Performance

[pronvit]

I know you don't like comparisons with Keyhole.. But it really works much faster. I can zoom to my house almost smoothly (when data is in cache) and I can't do this in WW on the same hardware. Also K uses less memory and CPU and doesn't use CPU at all when idle.
Who knows what technologies K uses?
In any case I propose to port WW to C++/OpenGL. PLEASE no Java! I know it's much easier to develop in Java/C#, but in such apps I think performance is more important.

Of course, WW is great software because it's opensource and free.

[Beansprout]

It's not to do with the language, it's more to do with the fact that it's problems with the code, which the devs have been tweaking a lot recently.

[pronvit]

Originally posted by TheBeansprout@May 16 2005, 02:23 PM
It's not to do with the language, it's more to do with the fact that it's problems with the code, which the devs have been tweaking a lot recently.

Quoted post

You want to say that managed .NET or Java is as fast as plain C++? I don't think so.
In any case C# isn't portable enough (however can try Mono). There are discussions in other threads about porting and technologies to use and I just vote for C++/OpenGL.

[Beansprout]

Originally posted by pronvit@May 16 2005, 10:27 AM
You want to say that managed .NET or Java is as fast as plain C++? I don't think so.
In any case C# isn't portable enough (however can try Mono). There are discussions in other threads about porting and technologies to use and I just vote for C++/OpenGL.

Quoted post

I'm not getting into a language versus language debate - there's no point, the simple fact is that the World Wind coding is so slow at the moment that any language differences wouldn't matter.

For example, World Wind constantly uses high CPU, and for some strange reason it's constantly thrashing the hard disk for no apparent reason.

I believe the devs have fixed both of those issus though, so the next release (1.3.2 / 1.4) should be faster.

Anyhow, I'd like to close this thread, because you can join in the other thread - keep this place tidy

[pronvit]

Originally posted by TheBeansprout+May 16 2005, 02:30 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TheBeansprout @ May 16 2005, 02:30 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>I'm not getting into a language versus language debate - there's no point, the simple fact is that the World Wind coding is so slow at the moment that any language differences wouldn't matter.
[/b]

agree, no debates about this.

Originally posted by TheBeansprout@May 16 2005, 02:30 PM
For example, World Wind constantly uses high CPU, and for some strange reason it's constantly thrashing the hard disk for no apparent reason.

I believe the devs have fixed both of those issus though, so the next release (1.3.2 / 1.4) should be faster.

Maybe disk usage is because of Windows swapping, last time I used WW it ate 300+ megs of memory. Currently I use version from CVS, it works slightly faster, but these two issues still are there . BTW, Celestia is also constantly using CPU.. So maybe there's some secret in Keyhole that we need to think about?

<!--QuoteBegin-TheBeansprout@May 16 2005, 02:30 PM
Anyhow, I'd like to close this thread, because you can join in the other thread - keep this place tidy
[/quote]

[pronvit]

FYI:

I was running profiler over CVS version of WW for some time.

WorldWindow.Render was called 6891 times, ok that's number of frames drawn.
But WindowsControlMenuButton.IsPushed() and WindowsControlMenuButton.Update() were called 57364 and 27564 times! Not so much CPU time but in any case not good.

[TomServo]

Ya know.. this may seem strange. But I am like that. Instead of moaning and groaning here on the forum. Why no log into the IRC channel and talk to the devs, maybe even join up as a dev.

I see it a lot.. "bitch and maon" and "I want a mac version" and "xxx and yyy are not working right." .. yet no one steps up to the plate and offeres to HELP.

I think we have added about .. one new dev in the last few months. Oh sure we have had people spout abaout helping.. but then they never come back.

And by the way.. it wasn't the "C# is easier to develop" reason Chris used it, it was "I am comfortable using C#" reason. Yes, it is causing some problems now on the porting front.. but that goes back to the above, no one has the guts to walk up and START doing something about it.

[pronvit]

Currently I'm trying to make WW better on my local machine. When I'll have some results, of cource I'll talkto developers to share them.

[adamhill]

One place to look is Casey Chestnut's port to the PocketPC. He has done some things like 'render the nearest N tiles' (ugly but fast) and pregenerating the meshes for eache level (which is hard to do for arbitrary level).

If you use Filemon you will see that WW is not actually loading, just checking for existance of the tile. We could use a tile cache and MS has a Caching Application Block that uses MemoryMapped files and would probably be pretty performant.

There is lots of low hanging fruit in the optimization department. Glad you are measuring, hope you find some easy fixes. Just in time for 1.4's new rendering system

[pronvit]

Originally posted by adamhill+May 16 2005, 08:26 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(adamhill @ May 16 2005, 08:26 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'>If you use Filemon you will see that WW is not actually loading, just checking for existance of the tile. We could use a tile cache and MS has a Caching Application Block that uses MemoryMapped files and would probably be pretty performant.
[/b]

I was just going to try Filemon to see what WW is doing. Thanks for info.

<!--QuoteBegin-adamhill@May 16 2005, 08:26 PM
There is lots of low hanging fruit in the optimization department. Glad you are measuring, hope you find some easy fixes. Just in time for 1.4's new rendering system
[/quote]
Is there any branches (other than HEAD) in CVS with new code that I can try?