NetSurf 3.0 puts the user files in a different location to v2.x. I've modified the install script so it copies the hotlist from the old to the new location, if it doesn't already exist. User options still need to be reset manually, as I don't want the old paths hanging about.
direct_render is present for debug purposes only, the only reason it still exists is because every time I remove it I decide that I need it for something shortly afterwards. Please don't use it.
What's wrong with using those settings but direct_render:0 ? Are you on a 32-bit screenmode? There should be no perceivable speed difference between direct and non-direct render.
What's wrong with using those settings but direct_render:0 ?
Nothing wrong in general but with default direct_render to "0" the scroll still always problematic in a way or another, even on simple websites still the "struggles" scroll ..
In order to adjust that i always tried to active the "Fast scrolling" option, however even if a earn more speed i also lost somethings in other area .. --> the scroll become faster but terrible jumpy !
That's why i start other experiments
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Are you on a 32-bit screenmode?
32-bit
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There should be no perceivable speed difference between direct and non-direct render.
I don't know, all i can say is that on my system the difference is noticeable, now the scrolling is more or less 1:1 comparable with Reaction OWB .. fast and without any side effects .. the only problem are all that orrible garbage on screen
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direct_render is present for debug purposes only, the only reason it still exists is because every time I remove it I decide that I need it for something shortly afterwards. Please don't use it.
Mmm .. technical speaking i can't argument, you for sure know the thing better than me ... but can i suggest to invest on it some more time before trashing ?
You're running quite a high resolution in 32-bit, and I believe you have a SAM440EP like me? Here in 1280x1024 in 32-bit I sometimes run out of graphics memory, which causes NetSurf to crawl. Could that be your problem? The only difference between direct and normal rendering is that direct rendering bypasses the custom off-screen bitmap, which is set via the tile size options. You have whatever your screen size is, plus 1680x1050 off-screen bitmap, plus having compositing enabled keeps its own bitmap of the screen. The off-screen bitmap alone is 56MB, and these SAMs only have 64MB on-board. Direct rendering will only be faster because you've stopped the need for the off-screen and screen bitmaps to be continually swapped in and out of graphics mem as it tries to blit between them.
You could try: 1. Run NetSurf on the WB screen (I think you are doing this anyway) 2. Reduce screen resolution and/or depth 3. Disable compositing for NetSurf's screen (screen_compositing:0 for NetSurf's own screen) 4. Run NetSurf in "simple refresh" mode (requires compositing to be disabled) 5. Reduce the tile size (this makes redraws slower but means you don't have a humungous off-screen bitmap)
Scrolling here with fast scrolling enabled is much faster than MUI-OWB. Of course it looks a bit jumpy when scrolling a complicated page, as different elements take different amounts of time to redraw.
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but can i suggest to invest on it some more time before trashing ?
The way redraws work currently isn't really compatible with direct rendering - it is expecting to be able to plot at one point, and then get moved to another. It also expects to be able to modify the layers attached to the bitmap it is plotting to, which is not necessarily a good idea for Intuition window bitmaps. I also had unresolved issues with text background, alpha channels and so on.
You're running quite a high resolution in 32-bit, and I believe you have a SAM440EP like me? Here in 1280x1024 in 32-bit I sometimes run out of graphics memory, which causes NetSurf to crawl. Could that be your problem?
As I have a Sam440 Flex (800 Mhz) with an ATI Radeon with 128 MB video mem i tend to exclude a video memory limitation.
Right now i'm still testing the system having both MUI OWB and NetSurf opened with many tabs, however even if i also have the compositing active i have more than 50 MB of vmem free (atleast according to SysMon)
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1. Run NetSurf on the WB screen (I think you are doing this anyway) 2. Reduce screen resolution and/or depth 3. Disable compositing for NetSurf's screen (screen_compositing:0 for NetSurf's own screen) 4. Run NetSurf in "simple refresh" mode (requires compositing to be disabled) 5. Reduce the tile size (this makes redraws slower but means you don't have a humungous off-screen bitmap)
I changed all points you suggest excluding point 5 because i didn't note real benefits reducing such tile sizes, well surely the page will be "printed" on screen faster once loaded, but the scrolling still more or less the same but with more flicker effects
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Scrolling here with fast scrolling enabled is much faster than MUI-OWB. Of course it looks a bit jumpy when scrolling a complicated page, as different elements take different amounts of time to redraw.
Exactly, with fast scroll enabled NetSurf is surely faster than any OWB out there, but the jumpy effect is so disturbing that i always tend to disable it :-/
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The only difference between direct and normal rendering is that direct rendering bypasses the custom off-screen bitmap, which is set via the tile size options
If the problem is on and you suggest to don't use this option, is there any other method to bypass the off-screen bitmap ?
I just try and retry with any possible configuration, but it seems that the best scrolling can be obtained only with direct_render:1 ..( excluding the garbage on screen of course)
As is the scrolling is always fast and "fluid", very similar to OWB as i said
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The way redraws work currently isn't really compatible with direct rendering - it is expecting to be able to plot at one point, and then get moved to another. It also expects to be able to modify the layers attached to the bitmap it is plotting to, which is not necessarily a good idea for Intuition window bitmaps. I also had unresolved issues with text background, alpha channels and so on.
Yep for sure this need to be discussed with the NetSurf team first .. maybe this "found" can be usefull for them in order to found a compromise on how to best optimize both loading speed and the page scrolling ..
OK, sounds like it isn't VMEM. Can you do a short video? I can see then whether it really is slow/jumpy compared to here, or if it is just your perception.
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Yep for sure this need to be discussed with the NetSurf team first .. maybe this "found" can be usefull for them in order to found a compromise on how to best optimize both loading speed and the page scrolling ..
No, it's nothing to do with them (and there's no relation with page loading). Obviously the redraw is done by the core, but it's the frontend that handles the actual plotting and how that works. My code has never been designed for direct rendering (the RISC OS frontend does do this, however), and it relies on an off-screen bitmap - partly so it can mess around with rastport parameters, layers, etc, and partly so the alpha blending works as it should. A side effect is that the display won't flicker during redraw, and neither will you see the page redraw, which looks more professional.
OK, sounds like it isn't VMEM. Can you do a short video? I can see then whether it really is slow/jumpy compared to here, or if it is just your perception.
Done, however as i don't have any decent recording at home i used SRec (sorry mate!), the downside of it is that the final quality is very bad and slow .. i don't know if you can understand somethings from that :-/
The ideal method at this point is to found another Sam440 user that can be able to do a decent and quality one
Aniway in the short video showed you can see (i hope) MUI OWB and NetSurf opened on the same page (the NetSurf's homepage, so a light one)
MUI OWB always scrolled fast and light dragging the bar up/down or just using the mouse wheel only, while NetSurf is always in trouble .. when you drag the bar till the end of the page NetSurf need atleast 1 second (or more) before reaching the end of the page, instead OWB is quite instantaneous in both directions (to reach initial page or end of the page)
If i apply Fast scroll in NetSurf the result are different, in this case NetSurf is even faster than OWB, expecially if i scroll up/down using the scrollbar .. the problem is the huge flickering .. hope you can see them on the video ..
Scrolling quickly means more of the page redraws which obviously slows it down. You get the blank areas whilst it redraws - before you complain about that again, that's how all web browsers function on touchscreen devices.
This redraw speed can be increased significantly by disabling font anti-aliasing (Fonts tab in prefs). Also I've just realised that you might have "cache native bitmaps" disabled. This makes a big difference when redrawing images. By default they are translated from raw data every time they are displayed, by setting this to "all" (it's on the Rendering tab) redrawing the same image over and over again is much faster (it uses a truck-load of gfx mem though). I switched it off and scrolling was noticeably choppy.
I can't make head nor tail of that video, MPlayer isn't playing it properly and neither was Windows.
Strange it was tested under MPlayer and worked, aniway it was a crap video
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Scrolling quickly means more of the page redraws which obviously slows it down. You get the blank areas whilst it redraws - before you complain about that again, that's how all web browsers function on touchscreen devices.
No complain, in general it's faster and good as speed, we can see that on your video aswell, only i have problems browing the net having all that flickering effects, that's why i disable the fast scrolling .. but without that the scrolling still worse for other aspect, it's not so fluid ..
My difficult still only to found the right compromise between the two .. I was hoping to have found the solution enabling the direct renderer, but it seems not ..
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This redraw speed can be increased significantly by disabling font anti-aliasing (Fonts tab in prefs).
Yes, disabling the option i earn some speed can say, not a huge difference in term of "fluidity" but still better for sure
Thanks for the tips !
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Also I've just realised that you might have "cache native bitmaps" disabled.
Yes i knew that since you suggest me (long ago), maybe this option can be enabled by default ?
Just installed #904 and I can see several errors/bugs. Pressing RA+T makes NetSurf open a new window. Using the "About..." option under "Project" menu opens a requesters and when pressing "OK" a new requester opens with the text "Unknown". The last issue is that while Im typing right now... cant explain it but the cursor are jumping moving... in a weird way. Staying to the left beneath the rest of the text.
hotrod wrote: Just installed #904 and I can see several errors/bugs. Pressing RA+T makes NetSurf open a new window.
Fixed.
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Using the "About..." option under "Project" menu opens a requesters and when pressing "OK" a new requester opens with the text "Unknown".
Er.... no idea on that one! (edit: fixed)
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The last issue is that while Im typing right now... cant explain it but the cursor are jumping moving... in a weird way. Staying to the left beneath the rest of the text.
Not sure on this either. Check you haven't run out of memory - the new textarea is consuming serious amounts of memory (due to this bug/feature), and it causes text input to grind to a halt and update very slowly.
If it isn't that, can you screenshot it or something?
Edited by Chris on 2013/2/18 18:41:22 Edited by Chris on 2013/2/18 19:09:19
The cursour gets stuck to the left below the text and when you hit space the word gets moved to the correct position and then to the left beneath the text. I can sent you an e-mail but I am not sure that you will see what I mean from the picture.
The cursour gets stuck to the left below the text and when you hit space the word gets moved to the correct position and then to the left beneath the text. I can sent you an e-mail but I am not sure that you will see what I mean from the picture.
I don't fully understand, but I have already reported a similar-sounding bug (which hasn't been fixed yet).
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