Re: Re: how to write snappy benchmark?

On Sun, Jul 06, 2003 at 08:21:11PM -0700, David Jeske wrote:
> Doing backing store to fix the event latency problem generates a
> system which feels just like OS X. It's "solid and correct" but it's
> piggish. Users don't want piggish, we want rippin fast like
> Windows. Users just put up with piggish when they have to.

There are thousands of variables, you can't just say "backing store is
handled differently and that explains all the speed difference."
You need hard profiling data or at least a truly detailed comparison
of the full codepaths for specific interactions.

There are many quite easy-to-think-of possible explanations other than
window system architecture:

 - the actual graphics drawn are quite different in complexity 
   for Windows and OS X
 - OS X tends to have smooth animations to keep users from 
   getting confused, where Windows has XOR wireframes
 - the kernels are very different
 - the way threads work and the threading model of the GUI toolkits 
   might be different (certainly is for Windows vs. Qt/GTK)
 - the "escape hatches" like shared images might be different
   or used in different cases
 - bugs in software or hardware that haven't been tracked down 
   because they are complicated interaction cases

Anyhow, Longhorn remains to be seen. Windows doesn't do the alpha
channel yet. When they add it, I assume they are going to have to keep
around the contents of all the windows. (Or at least keep a kind of
cache of said contents.)

Havoc