[plt-scheme] Slow graphics on NetBSD

Yasir Malik <ymalik at cs.stevens-tech.edu> writes at 14:32 11-Jul-2003 -0400:
> I have a Windows 2000 and a NetBSD partition on my laptop.  Graphics
> program run very fast on Windows, but on NetBSD they run probably at
> 1/1000th of the speed of Windows (and I'm not exaggerating).  The same was
> true on our NetBSD workstations in our CS lab.

You're running NetBSD with XFree86, right?  I've not noticed any
special slowness using Linux and XFree86.

If the graphics program you mention is GL-based, then I would bet your
XFree86 is probably not currently configured to use the hardware
acceleration of your graphics device.

If the graphics program isn't GL-based, then i'm surprised the speed
difference is very noticeable.  Could the program be doing something
incorrect, like *many* unnecessary repaints, which (just speculating)
Windows might quietly drop whereas NetBSD+XFree86 executes them all?  Or
perhaps the program has an animation loop that happens to make system
calls that are very expensive under NetBSD (e.g., poll an input in a
slow way)?

Could you say which graphics program this is, or characterize what it's
doing that seems so resource-intensive?

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                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/