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Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? [message #77522 is a reply to message #77521]

Fri, 09 September 2011 06:46

David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001

Senior Member

M. Katz writes:

>
> print, !version
> { x86_64 darwin unix Mac OS X 8.1 Mar 9 2011 64 64}
> This is a late 2010 MacBookPro w/ 8GB RAM running Axl's code.
>
> **IDL Command line speeds
> DG elaps: 1.0532050
> NG elaps: 10.646090 (worked fine)
>
> **IDL Workbench speeds
> DG elaps: 0.29327607 (WOW!)
> NG elaps: bought the farm. (Ugh!)
> (Note on NG case: IDL not responding. CPU usage 0.1%, Program is
> easily quit from Activity Monitor without interrupting other processes
> on the machine).
>
> I guess that's why I'm still a xterm command-line / BBEdit guy.

OK, let's think about this for a minute. What did we
learn yesterday?

First, a LOT of people find IDL 8.1 either crashing itself
or crashing their machines. In my case, we found that this
is because a graphics driver was out of date. IDL's function
graphics depends on hardware acceleration for its speed.
(I know, but let's just assume this is true.) The question
I am asking myself this morning is how many of these crashes
can be explained by out-of-date or inadequate (because not
everyone can or will pay big money for these) graphics cards?

I don't know the answer to that, but for sake of argument, let's
say the number is 50%. Wouldn't it make more sense, then, for
IDL to make *software* rendering the default mode and to let
people know that if they wanted to make graphics *faster* they
would have to turn hardware acceleration on. This way, when
things go south, you know EXACTLY who to blame: the NVIDIA
engineers!

I realize this can potentially make function graphics SLOWER
than it is now (who would have thunk it!), but I think most
of the slowness is due to iTool overhead and not graphics
rendering. This is especially true for most 2D plots, which I
imagine are the bulk of things people do.

The upside of doing this, is that your graphics system actually
works for people and you don't get an undeserved reputation for
producing shoddy products.

Anyway, just thinking out loud. :-)

Cheers,

David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

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[Message index]

		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Fri, 09 September 2011 07:21
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Fri, 09 September 2011 06:46
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: M. Katz on Thu, 08 September 2011 23:07
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Thu, 08 September 2011 20:18
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: Paul[3] on Thu, 08 September 2011 19:40
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Thu, 08 September 2011 10:07
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Thu, 08 September 2011 09:33
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: lecacheux.alain on Thu, 08 September 2011 09:22
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Thu, 08 September 2011 08:41
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Thu, 08 September 2011 08:32
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Thu, 08 September 2011 08:09
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Thu, 08 September 2011 06:46
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: David Fanning on Thu, 08 September 2011 06:23
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: greg.addr on Thu, 08 September 2011 03:53
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: lecacheux.alain on Thu, 08 September 2011 01:59
		Re: Is IDL 8.1 Useable!? By: Craig Markwardt on Sun, 11 September 2011 12:52

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