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Bug 557252 - Bad performance with magnification
Bad performance with magnification
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: orca
Classification: Applications
Component: magnification
2.24.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Orca Maintainers
Orca Maintainers
Depends on: 522967
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2008-10-21 14:03 UTC by chris
Modified: 2011-10-14 14:52 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 2.23/2.24



Description chris 2008-10-21 14:03:59 UTC
Hello,

Orca is a Realy good program. I need the Zoom because i´m visually handicapped.
But the Mag is verry slow on all my pc´s. I have Activated compiz and installd the proprietary drivers from NVIDIA. On Both of my PC´s running an NVIDIA (GForce2 and Gforce6600) with an Dualcore CPU and 2 GB of RAM.
But the Mag is verry slow and laks realy :(. So i can not realy work because the bucking makes me scared. At the moment I use Ubuntu 8.10 but the problem under 8.04 and Debian is the same one. 
The Settings are zoom in Fullscreen with Zoomrate 2. 
My Systemcursor is not visible. An the Focus Tracks everything (mouse, Textcursor, and menues).

For Now i use the compiz eZoom plugin. But its not the realy sover because the focus follow only the mouse (and working is verry easyer if the fokus tracks the textcursor and menues). 

But thanks for this nice peace of code :). Good work!

Greetings from Germany
   Chris
Comment 1 Willie Walker 2008-10-27 22:30:08 UTC
Thanks Chris!  Can you tell us more about the performance issues?  How slow is it and do you see similar slowness if you run "magnifier -f -m"?
Comment 2 chris 2008-11-02 22:06:18 UTC
Hi Willie,
Thanks for open ears :). 
Yes, If I run 
magnifier -f -m
or 
magnifier -f -m --zoom-factor=2

>xxxxx@xxxxx-desktop:~$ magnifier -f -m --zoom-factor=2
>
>(magnifier:10633): Bonobo-WARNING **: Assigning a default value to a non >readable >property 'source-display-screen'
>
>(magnifier:10633): Bonobo-WARNING **: Assigning a default value to a non readable >property 'target-display-screen'
>** Message: added event source to xfixes cursor-notify connection
>** Message: added event source to composite connection
>** Message: set source bounds to 0,0; 1024,768
>initial viewport 1024 768
>** Message: set source bounds to 0,0; 1024,768
>^C

The Peformance is realy better. 
Hmm more about the Peformance issue. So if i turn the mouse arround, the reaction time is delayed. And the focus tracking paused often. 

If i can help more, tell me how :).
Comment 3 Willie Walker 2008-11-02 23:43:52 UTC
Hi Chris:

Thanks for the info.  :-)

(In reply to comment #2)
> Hi Willie,
> Thanks for open ears :). 
> Yes, If I run 
> magnifier -f -m
> or 
> magnifier -f -m --zoom-factor=2
...
> The Peformance is realy better. 
> Hmm more about the Peformance issue. So if i turn the mouse arround, the
> reaction time is delayed. And the focus tracking paused often. 

I'm not sure what you mean by "turn the mouse around".  In addition, are you doing this while you're running "magnifier -f -m" or when you're running Orca?
Comment 4 chris 2008-11-03 09:00:09 UTC
Hi Willie,
Sorry for my bad english :(."turn the mouse around"-> I move the Mousecursor over the desktop :). When i move the cursor with zoom (2x) in orca the mag lacks and paused. If i move the cursor while "magnifier -f -m" is running, I can work normaly with no slow down.

I hope its a little clearer :),

Greetings Chris
Comment 5 Willie Walker 2008-11-03 12:21:45 UTC
Hi Chris:

(In reply to comment #4)
> Hi Willie,
> Sorry for my bad english :(."turn the mouse around"-> I move the Mousecursor
> over the desktop :). When i move the cursor with zoom (2x) in orca the mag
> lacks and paused. If i move the cursor while "magnifier -f -m" is running, I
> can work normaly with no slow down.
> 
> I hope its a little clearer :),

This is much clearer.  Thanks!  I wonder if this might be related to bug #496355 or bug #522967?  In particular, I think the fact that Orca needs to listen for mouse events only to have to turn around and issue region-of-interest events for the magnifier might be a source of the problem.  If you're a coder, the gnome-mag project could use some love.
Comment 6 chris 2008-11-03 14:06:30 UTC
Hi Willie,

Yes i would to help :). In this case i have tested orca. Many of my frinds need such Software (include me). I can code, but i have no knowhow about the used technics and development flow. If you can supply and lead me a little, i could try to "give the gnome-mag love ^^". Is it possible?

Greetings Chris
Comment 7 Willie Walker 2008-11-05 14:17:27 UTC
Hi Chris:

I know very little about the gnome-mag internals.  What we would need would be a person who can dive in to the code, figure it out, and then propose some changes.  In addition, since there's also some related work going on to create a D-Bus API for magnification (see http://www.gnome.org/projects/outreach/a11y/tasks/magnification/), the work on gnome-mag might be work that is obsoleted sometime in the next year or so.

Will
Comment 8 chris 2008-11-13 01:31:49 UTC
Ok, i ll try check out how this wonderfull peace of code works. 
I would help to this project, because many of my frinds need it. In an first look its a littl complicated for me. Is there any documentation about this project?

Chris
Comment 9 Willie Walker 2008-11-13 01:52:44 UTC
(In reply to comment #8)
> Ok, i ll try check out how this wonderfull peace of code works. 
> I would help to this project, because many of my frinds need it. In an first
> look its a littl complicated for me. Is there any documentation about this
> project?

The gnome-mag module is what you need to take a look at.  I've never fully wrapped my mind around it.  You can get the code via the following command:

svn co svn+ssh://svn.gnome.org/svn/gnome-mag/trunk gnome-mag/trunk

Then, you kind of need to poke around it and try to make heads and tails of it.  I wish I could better help.  :-(
Comment 10 chris 2008-11-13 03:45:11 UTC
No problem. Do you know an other person who can answer some (i tink) bascly questions?
with getting the source if have some problems :(. do you know wat is the matter?

xxxx@xxxx-desktop:~$svn co svn+ssh://svn.gnome.org/svn/gnome-mag/trunk gnome-mag/trunk

The authenticity of host 'svn.gnome.org (xx.xx.xx.x)' can't be established.

RSA key fingerprint is xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.

Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes

Warning: Permanently added 'svn.gnome.org,xx.xx.xx.xx' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

Permission denied (publickey).

svn: Netzwerkverbindung wurde unerwartet geschlossen #connection unexpectedly closed :)


Comment 11 Joanmarie Diggs (IRC: joanie) 2008-11-13 06:02:42 UTC
Hi Chris. Thanks so much for being willing to dive into gnome-mag!

> Permission denied (publickey).

If you just want to checkout gnome-mag from svn and have no intentions (and/or permissions) to check a modified version of it back in, you could instead do:

    svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/gnome-mag/trunk gnome-mag/trunk

Hope this helps. Thanks again!
Comment 12 Willie Walker 2009-01-21 15:33:50 UTC
Blocking this on bug #522967, which is believe is the source of the problem.  Once that is resolved in gnome-mag, we can look to using it in Orca.
Comment 13 Joanmarie Diggs (IRC: joanie) 2011-10-14 14:52:41 UTC
Because 

1. gnome-mag was deprecated and has since been replaced by gnome-shell's built in magnifier (and Compiz eZoom for those in non-GNOME 3 environments)

2. Orca is moving away from controlling any magnifier and moving towards co-existing properly and playing nicely with all magnifiers

I am closing this as obsolete.