PCBnew efficiency - just curious

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, Krzysztof Wesołowski wrote:

> New question #146548 on KiCad:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/kicad/+question/146548
>
> Hi,
>
> I would like to ask, about efficiency of PCBnew. Actually every scaling or move cause "slow" redrawing of all tracks. On the other hand in 3D view everything is extremely smooth, no matter how fast i move/scale the board. Cannot PCBnew new be implemented same way?

There is work on the way for that. But consider that the 3D viewer in
fact only works fine with some graphics card, so it's not so easy! Look
at all the bug reports for it :( Probably you're using an nvidia GPU...

The reason is that Windows drivers are accelerated only for 3D, while
the normal operations use standard 2D/GDI calls (which are, in fact,
slower with the new cards!). OTOH other cards simply don't have good 3D
acceleration so performance would be actually lower.

There is a Graphics Abstraction Layer fork in development to try to use
the best way to draw to screen, depending on the hardware it's running
on, but I have no idea on its status.

--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
Logos Srl

Hi,

i'm currently using cheap integrated laptop INTEL GMA card, an i'm rather used to it's mediocre performance. Hovewer in KiCAD it works much better than 2D view - and this is why i've asked.

Thanks for answer,
Best regards,
Krzysiek

Just to sum up - April stable release works very well, no more redrawing board while zooming.

Best regards,
Krzysztof Wesołowski