[Kde-games-devel] Fwd: Re: SVG Rendering speed

[Andreas Pakulat]

On 30.09.07 11:00:15, Ian Wadham wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:39 pm, Andreas Pakulat wrote:
> > On 28.09.07 23:30:56, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > On Friday 28 September 2007, Ian Wadham wrote:
> > > > I do notice a big hole appearing when the initial dialog box closes,
> > > > even though you can grab the dialog box and move it around rapidly
> > > > without any loss of graphics quality.  And it seems to take far too
> > > > long for KGameCanvas/QPainter/QWidget/X (even) to repaint over it, even
> > > > though the whole main window has been loaded, rendered and painted.
> > >
> > > if i understand what you are saying here, this is why we really need
> > > composited window managers. without them, there really is no good
> > > solution to this problem.
> >
> > Which in turn means getting new graphics cards to everybody ;) Which is
> > not a good solution either. I really wonder why KDE4 rendering is so
> > much slower than KDE3 rendering for the same games.
> >
> This thread seems to have been split in two, some with Fwd: in the Subject
> and some not.  Andreas, did you see my post on 26 Sept, at 22:51 UTC?
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-games-devel&m=119084712800081&w=2

I did get it, but there was nothing to add to it from my side.

> The main reason KDE4 Games graphics are slower is because we are
> using SVG, but in return you get a much nicer look.

So _all_ card decks are using SVG even those that are not labelled SVG?
I thought those would use simple graphics (i.e. from png or something)
and thats what I mean, I even have slow resizes with these card decks
that don't seem to use SVG graphics. 

>  The SVG overhead has
> two parts, loading the SVG file and rendering it into QPixmaps.  When you
> start a game, change themes or resize the playing area, those loading and
> rendering overheads cut in.  I wish QSvgRenderer could be faster.  OTOH
> you only pay that overhead a lot if you keep re-sizing and chopping and
> changing themes.  I believe most players will not do that often, once the
> novelty has worn off ...
>
> Personally, I think the overhead is well worth paying, judging by the
> response I received to some "before and after" slides I presented at a
> local Linux users' group early in September.

I completely agree.

> However, there still seem to be some slownesses in the *painting* of
> the QPixmaps, whether you use QGraphicsView, KGameCanvas or
> hand-coded QPainter to compose and update a picture as each game
> progresses in its play ...

Hmm, wasn't QGraphicsView supposed to be really fast even with tons of
items on it :(

> Andreas and Aaron's responses to these problems seem a bit
> Microsoftish, if you do not mind me saying so, i.e. get the next version
> of software, buy more hardware.  I am on my third Linux/KDE box
> and none of them have fully supported the on-board graphics ...

Hehe, my response was meant half-joking :) So to clarify: For me all
games I've tried are playable, with fullscreen and window'ed mode, but
of course its a tad bit annoying to have to wait for 5-10 seconds before
you can start a quick round of ksudoku, kpat or kbattleship. Its not a
release-showstopper and hopefully it'll increase with the next minor
versions of Qt4/KDE4.

> Indeed it appears that acquiring a current-generation laptop that is
> fully supported by Linux is quite a black art ...  Nevertheless, I have
> promised myself a new laptop for Christmas and have located a
> guy in the Silicon Valley area who can help direct the research I
> need to do to avoid getting my fingers burnt a fourth time ...  Maybe
> the solution will be to buy a Dell box with Linux pre-installed, but
> they are not available in Australia yet.

Hmm, last I heard those are not "the best bet" (IIRC I read something on
the planet about that)

Andreas

-- 
Bank error in your favor.  Collect $200.