BC 3.1.11 awfully slow

[NeOnD]

Hi,

It is just me or BC 3.1.11 is awfully slow (than its predecessors). Even when I swich to some other program & switch back to it, it takes few seconds to show me the File-Compare screen I got opened. Other than it, loading File-Compare (from Folder-Compare) itself is slower than previous versions.

[Michael Bulgrien]

I haven't noticed a difference... but then, my current laptop is quite robust:

Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit

RAM: 8 GB

Processor: Core 2 Duo P9700

• Speed: 2.8 GHz
• Processing Cores: 2
• Level 1 Cache: 128 KB

write-back data cache: 32 KB per core
Instruction cache: 32 KB per core

• Level 2 Cache: 6 MB
• FSB: 1066 MT/s

[Chris]

Hi NeonD,

We haven't found any speed differences in our own testing and we haven't had any other customers report speed differences.

What hardware and operating system are you using on your computer?

Where are the files located? (directly attached disk, network drive, ftp)

How large are your files?

I've also sent a link to version 3.1.10 to your forum email address so you can verify the speed difference.

[NeOnD]

System details:
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2, 32-bit
CPU: Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4 GHz
RAM: 2 GB

I noticed that it's better after restart. But again I find BC3 slower against BC2. Anything you can suggest to improve it's performance?

[Zoë]

BC3 is slower than BC2, and if I could fix that it would already be done.

The only place where I've seen a noticable degradation is initially opening the file viewer. There are a number of things that are affecting that, but the most significant is the grammars for the file formats. Building the grammar tables takes time, and the actual parsing does a lot more work. Disable all of the file formats in the File Format manager dialog, and the speed should be pretty close to BC2s. If you want BC2's full behavior you'd need to strip out all of the default grammars for the built-in formats and just add definitions for strings and comments.

The character encoding detection can slow things down too; try opening the default text format and switching the "Encoding" option from "Detect" to "ANSI".

The directory compare should about the same already. Rules-based comparisons may be a bit slower, due to the grammar parsing, but turning on the content compare "Skip if quick tests indicate files are the same" option will usually more than make up for that.

Other than that things should be pretty comparable. If you're seeing slowdowns elsewhere I'm definitely interested in hearing it. We are always trying to improve things, but the simple fact is that BC3 is doing more than BC2, so it will be slower as a result.

[NeOnD]

Thanks Craig,

About the concern I raised initially - I find that I still experience it when two BC3 windows are open & I try switch between each-other.
Apart from it ..Is there any way to make BC3 not to use the Cache at all? I mean I want to force it to go to Unix (FTP Server) every time I open the same file/directory again.

[Aaron]

Hello,

In the Folder Compare, we have an option to bypass disk cache during binary comparisons. If a binary compare is run, it will always bypass the disk cache. It is in the Folder Compare Session menu -> Session Settings -> Handling tab. Is this the option you are looking for?

[Zoë]

Are you switching between tabs or top-level windows? Is it the initial redraw that's slow, or some other form of sluggishness? If it's windows are you switching using the taskbar, alt+tab, or something else?

No, there's no way to adjust the file or directory cache right now. The option Aaron mentioned only affects disk-based comparisons.

[NeOnD]

Thanks Craig/Aaron for the reply.

I'm trying to switch between the top-level windows using Alt-Tab. I think it's the Initial redraw which is slow, taking around 5-6 seconds to finish.

About the file/directory cache - I'm more interested in Unix file/directory cache rather than local disk based. Guess I have to wait

[Zoë]

I haven't seen anything close to a 5-6 second redraw when switching between windows. If you open the same files in the hex compare does it have the same lag? Does the directory compare lag that much? Does the text compare take that long if it's empty, or with a pair of small text files? Are the files local, on a network drive, or over FTP?

Neither of these should have that great an effect, but you could try switching to a fixed width font (eg, Courier New), and then in the tweaks dialog (Ctrl+Shift+T), turn off font linking (Text Views->Enable font linking in editors). If you're dealing with extremely long lines you might try decreasing the maximum line length in your file formats too. Does lowering it to something like 80 help?