G-Force VBar high CPU load

philtheman · Post by **philtheman** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:49 pm

Hi there!

since a few months now I use the V-Bar as background for my ObjectDock. It appears that the V-Bar is almost hogging one CPU, since its load is almost always around 45...48% (Dual-Core).

Now I placed a Standalone Window there with about the same size, and its CPU load is negligible, somewhere around 0%. Both use a sound generator as input (don't ask me which one, although it is the same for each).

Is this just a problem with my system or does this have to do with the V-Bar? I habe Server 2k8 on a C2D E6750. I'd prefer the V-Bar to Standalone though, because of the Standalone window and general trouble with spacing etc.

juxtiphi · Post by **juxtiphi** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:10 pm

I'm not exactly sure but since the v-bar is capable of showing more than one vis per tile I would think that it would also use more cpu to do it but ICBW

try switching the tiles to show only one vis and see if that helps

philtheman · Post by **philtheman** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:36 pm

I only used it with "one tile" all this time so that is probably not it.

I did crank the framerate setting down all the way, that did set it at "0%". But at a reasonable framerate, same thing.

When I start the V-Bar (after closing it, for instance), CPU Load is about 6%. Then every few seconds, it goes up to 25%...45% and slowly recedes to 6...9%. My guess is that this would be calculations from the Flowfield changes. So I pulled the flowfield change rate down to the minimum, and Alas! my CPU Usage Diagram looks no longer like a square AC source, now the regular peaks have disappeared. But setting the Flowfield changes back up does not bring the peaks back as they were before! Now I am confused.

Opening the Resource Manager, I see that the V-Bar has an average CPU use of 8%, which is not a lot (so the V-Bar is not the CPU hogger I thought it to be) - which, however, is a lot, considering that G-Force Standalone, running at roughly the same resolution and Flowfield change frequency side by side with the V-Bar, has an average CPU consumption of about .9%!

I would still be curious though as to why the V-Bar has such a higher load, and if there are any other ways of decreasing especially those peaks (which reappeared once I restarted the V-Bar), as these peaks are some PITA, especially when I'm raytracing...

juxtiphi · Post by **juxtiphi** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:47 pm

glad you figured it out

philtheman · Post by **philtheman** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:34 pm

Well, not quite. I did discover that the main CPU drain was Opera (avg. 38%, Firefox 0.1%). But the V-Bar still uses quite a lot of CPU-Time, and I like the V-Bar! I'd need the beauty of the V-Bar, with the consumption of Standalone.