Lists in software remote - Winx86 vs. ARM

kbosscawen · Post by **kbosscawen** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 9:31 am

I have a theme that runs a script that builds a list when a button is pushed on the swremote (the What's On Now list from http://www.housebot.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=110) . When the theme is run with the Winx86 swremote, it's VERY quick, but when the theme is run from the ARM swremote, after the list is populated there's about a 10 second pause, the list is displayed briefly on the Axim that I'm using, then another 8 second pause, then the list is there.

Both my laptop and Axim are using 802.11b wireless. I know there are significant differences in processing power between my laptop and my Axim, but I'm surprised that alone would cause such a significant difference between the theme on Winx86 and ARM.

Can you shed some light on this? Is there anything I can do to improve the performance of the theme on the Axim, or to optimize the list to display quicker?

BTW, I would like to submit what I'm working on (my wife loves it, which is the acid test!), but I'm not sure exactly what you would need me to send you to look at it/post it. The solution contains themes, VB scripts, tasks, devices (one of which is a generic serial device I customized for my JDS IR Xpander). If you can give me an idea of what you would need, I'll do some clean-up/documenting and send it to you.

Post by **ScottBot** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 2:45 pm

I've experienced the same thing with my PPC. I spent some time a while back trying to reduce the flicker and redrawing. Although I was able to improve the display a lot, it is still left with some undesirable effects.

I plan on adding support for user-definable bitmaps for list scrollbars at some point. Maybe I'll re-address the issue when I dig into that.

I'd love it if you submit your work. I'll post/host it as a Configuration Sample on the Download page. To do this, select "File/Export Configuration..." from the main HouseBot menu. There's some info on it in the online help. Mainly, you will need to select everything used in configuration.

Scott

Post by **ScottBot** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 1:14 pm

kbosscawen,

What version of the Software Remote are you running?

Scott

Post by **ScottBot** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 5:56 pm

Nevermind. I've just made some significant performance improvements in the list and directory controls. Their PPC performance is now acceptable.

The changes will be in the next update.

Scott

Post by **ScottBot** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 10:29 am

I've just put version 1.62 on the web site. Make sure you update the SoftwareRemote applications. The performance for the list and directory controls should be better. It may not be perfect yet, but hopefully it will be a lot closer.

Let me know how it goes.

Scott

kbosscawen · Post by **kbosscawen** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 8:32 pm

I'm having a problem after installing 1.62 - When I click on the theme that I'm working on from the HB server, HB goes into never-never land. The Property window pops up and is empty, but then the hourglass comes on and stays on. I've let it run for about 20 minutes thinking that maybe it had to update the theme, but it didn't come back to me. The HBServer process is also monopolizing the processor (2.6GHz P4) at 95-100%.

Did I miss a step? I've exported and emailed my configuration if you want to look at it to see if it's specific to my set up.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Post by **ScottBot** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 9:29 am

There was a problem with 1.62 for lists that don't use images for their appearance.

I've updated the site with version 1.62.1 that should fix this for you.

Scott

kbosscawen · Post by **kbosscawen** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 7:59 pm

1.62.1 fixed that problem - Thanks for the quick turn around. However, I don't see much if any improvement in the list showing up on my PPC, but don't know if it's how I'm creating the list or not (I don't think so, because the list populates lickety-split using an x86 machine). The list I'm having trouble with is the Channels list object on the Cable panel of Remote-2. If you have a free second, I'd love your feedback on what I can do to speed it up.

btw, 1.62 fixed the dynamic image problem I had on my PPC, too! Thanks for great support.

Post by **ScottBot** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 8:27 pm

I guess that I though the list performance problem you were seeing was with lists that use images, not the basic windows style lists. Lists using images (for background and selection) were veeeeeeeery slow and repainted several times. It was especially noticeable on the slower PPC devices. So that's what was fixed.

I'll look into the standard list performance, but I don't recall that being a problem (for me at least). Could the difference in performance between the two systems be related to the network?

Also, just out of curiosity, could you try to see if there is any difference in performance if you use images in the list for background and selection?

And yes, I forgot to list it, but I fixed the dynamic image update problem too.

Scott

kbosscawen · Post by **kbosscawen** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 11:46 pm

The network used between all of my devices (the HB server, the Winx86 machine, and the PPC) is all 802.11b 11mbps with good signals between all.

I did some testing, between System constructed and Image constructed lists, and didn't see any difference. The initial load took about 15 seconds (give or take) with 3 redraws; when the list was changed it took about 10 seconds with 2 redraws to display the new list. Again, with the Winx86 client, all of the redraws are pretty much instantaneous.

In your experience would you expect that large of a difference between Winx86 and PPC?

Post by **ScottBot** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 9:10 am

I wouldn't expect that large of a difference between the two platforms. I've never timed it myself, but I don't think I see that big of a difference.

I'm going to look into this further to see if I can continue to optimize the list code. For my testing, how large of a list are you using? Is it using multiple columns? Is the "TVListings.WhatsOnNow" Property in the sample you send me where you are seeing the delays?

Scott

kbosscawen · Post by **kbosscawen** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 12:32 pm

You're correct - It is the TVListings.WhatsOnNow list from the sample I sent. The list itself falls between 4-5K, normally has about 250-300 items, and is multi-column.

Post by **ScottBot** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 1:39 pm

I copied your panel with the list to its own Theme and created a script to populate the list. I was able to get 500 lines (long lines) of 2 column data in about 3 seconds with no updates.

For comparison, my PPC is running a SA1110 CPU. I think it's a 200Mhz.

What speed is your PPC CPU?
If you have a network card with an activity LED, how long is it between the time the data arrives (LED stops blinking rapidly) and the list is populated?
How much memory/storage do you have free?

Scott

kbosscawen · Post by **kbosscawen** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 9:02 pm

My PPC is an Intel XScale processor at 400MHz - I'm using your ARM swremote because it is the only one that will actually run on it. I've got 64MB of RAM in it, 22.36 of which is free for Storage and 22.42 of which is free for Programs.

I did a packet capture using Ethereal of the list going to Winx86 vs. to the PPC, and it took .358xxx seconds to get all of the data from the HB server to the swremote independent of the swremote platform. Given this, it seems to be a PPC issue, but whether it's my Axim or the software is still a quesiton.

Do you know anything about that compatibility between the XScale and ARM processors? Could that be the issue?

Post by **ScottBot** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 9:35 pm

Very strange. I don't really know anything about the XScale processor, but if it is running the ARM code, then that is most likely the correct one. I did a quick search to see if there are any XScale PPC issues for development, and nothing came up.

Is the whole UI a bit slow, or is it just the lists?

If you want to work with me on this, I could create a version of the SWRemote that has more detailed tracing information that might give me a clue where it is getting hung up.

Scott