Just thought I’d say that the program seems to be working more quickly now. I shut down the laptop and launched the program again and although it’s still a bit clunky, it’s not taking so long to respond to window resizing.
I’ve just purchased RootsMagic9 and I’m having a great time learning about the various Charts, Reports etc.
The program is generally responsive except when I use the window ‘handles’ to increase or decrease the size of the various panels. For example, if I choose to increase or decrease the width of the left hand panel, it can take around 4 seconds for the panel to suddenly jump to the size I choose. It’s not smooth at all. Changing panel sizes on other programs (Adobe Bridge, Photoshop etc.) is smooth and responsive.
Perhaps it’s just my old Win 10 laptop:
Intel(R) Core™ i3-5005U CPU @ 2.00GHz 2.00 GHz
Windows 10 Home 22H2
As I say, all other actions seem to be preformed at the expected speed.
Oh and something else I’ve just noticed. Although the CPU is generally running at very low usage when I’m using RootsMagic, if I open Task Manager, minimise it, then click and drag a RootsMagic handle, then maximise Task Manager immediately I see that the RootsMagic CPU usage jumps to around 25%. After about 10 seconds, CPU drops back to normal (around 2% fluctuating) but when I minimise the Task Manager window, I see that the RootsMagic panel size has not changed size at all. However, It does change if I leave Task Manager minimised and go through the above procedure.
I’ve seen the exact same behavior, starting with the RM8 Community Preview and with every update since. The most egregious behavior for me is if I resize the main menu on the left side of the screen to include or not to include the text to go along with the icons. But it happens for me with any resizing behavior.
Well, I haven’t played with Task Manager while I am resizing RM’s panels. But I see everything else you describe. I’ve just sort of learned not to resize RM’s panels very often.
The 25% CPU utilization you describe probably means that your computer has 4 processor cores and that 1 of the 4 cores is running at 100% during the resizing delay. So the problem is probably some sort of processor bound loop. And I would suspect that the problem is not in RM’s own code but rather is in the tools or software libraries that RM is using.
Thanks guys. Something to get used to I suppose, until I get a better laptop.
I’m not sure if I have a GPU.
Also, a rather odd thing happened after I sent that post. I ran a chart and it produced a very weird result. Instead of the usual boxes containing text, linked by lines, it showed a long thin jumble of things - lots of little bunches of horizontal lines with text intermingled and the odd blue smudge. As if someone had taken the chart and squashed it down into a long thin horizontal mess.
I can’t remember how this came good but it worked OK later and is fine now.
I suppose that’s possibly part of the problem. But in my case, it wouldn’t explain why it’s only RM9 that has the problem. RM7 didn’t have the problem, and none of the other software I run has the problem. For example, the following software doesn’t have the problem on my computer: Google Chrome browser, Firefox browser, Word, Excel, Access, Notepad, Notepad++, Snagit, Paint, Irfanview, XnView, Filezilla, Mozilla Thunderbird email client, Agent Ransack file manager, GedSite, SQLiteSpy, Visual Studio, Metes and Bounds Software, FolderMatch, WinZip, Zoom.
You must have a very old windows pc to have an I3 chip. New windows computers are dirt cheap and even macs have dropped sharply in price since Apple dumped Intel and has a new M series chip each year.
Interesting that rootsmagic 9 at idle uses only 2% CPU. On my 2022 M2 macbook air 24GB ram it sits at 12-15%. My chip is 10-50X an I3 and all my other programs use less than 1% even active.
Why must it be old? The i3 is still in production and you can buy a new machine with an i3 in it. Intel manufactures it in parallel with the i5, i7, and i9. The i3 is what they call their “value” line.
Wow–what an obsolete product line! My last pc 15 years ago was an I7 and nothing to brag about except as a room heater. An I3 must cost $5 at Dollar General.
I tend to dispose of things only when they break and I like fixing things, so they seldom stay broken for long.
My current Toshiba is still going strong, just doing what I need a Laptop to do. I fitted a solid state drive, replaced the internal and external batteries and reinstalled Win 10 a year ago. Good as new.
However the display is playing up (flickers and goes blank as the lid is hinged up and down) and I have a lead that I intend to fit soon.
A cheap fix and it’ll keep it going for another few years.
Don’t be obtuse. Intel updates their processors just like Apple. I believe the latest of the iSeries processors are 14th generation. The i9 may not be that far yet but the i3, i5, and i7 are.
No wonder here. Myself I’m on a 2020 MacMini (M1) and when I gave it a try on the main window, I experienced the same problem: a twice-per-second throttling for horizontal window resize and about 3/s for vertical. As for the window splitters: the one moving horizontally - somewhere between 2 and 3/sec, quite smooth for the one moving vertically.
There’s much more to this UX than just the user’s computer. While it definitely matters, I think the poor performance on a 8 core CPU + 8 core GPU M1 processor shows that there is something beyond the computer that needs to be looked into.
It’s also about how the software is written (its event handlers - resize and scroll being usually the most costly ones) as well the framework and UI components it is using. The more custom graphic elements involved, the more computations needed. Unfortunately this new UI or RM is graphically custom as heck (IMO - for no good reason).
Resizing is not something one does constantly, but it is always annoying (pretty much same as with browser windows). Anyway, @JohnB47, don’t rush to replace your laptop.