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From: rjc@churchy.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: 1.3/2.0 Question
Message-ID: <1991Feb15.193645.1315@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 15 Feb 91 19:36:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius)
Organization: None
Lines: 27


  I have noticed a very annoying thing about layers/graphics.library
lately. No it's not the slow de-dicing/rearranging that happens when
you have lots of overlapping windows. It's the fact that when layers
library is busy rearranging layers, the system is DEADLOCKED. I mean
the pointer won't budge! This sounds like a bug to me, layers must be
doing a forbid()/disable() for a long period of time. Graphics library
does the same thing. Take the AnimOb example from the RKM's (or RKM
companion disk) and run 1 or 2 of them(or at the same time). 1 of them
slows your pointer(jerky). 3 of them nearly stops your pointer cold.
If the animation routines in GfxLib pull down the system that much they
are not very usuable (except simple-sprites). Banging on the hardware
starts to look real good.
  I don't understand how a routine to move 1 or 2 bobs across the screen
is going to eat up almost 100% of the CPU (7mhz). After all, bobs (blitter)
are rendered in parallel. My best guess is gfxlib is manipulating lots
of structures, and to stop collisions, it is Forbid/Disable()ing around
critical sections. Has anyone tried running the anim/anim_ex examples
from the RKMs under 2.0 to see if this has changed? (use Semaphores?)

  I don't mind cpu hogging, but when it freezes my pointer and brings
the system to a grinding halt, it's scary. I reminds me of Mac, or of
a GURU coming.

  I know 2.0 underwent extensive re-writing, but just how much of 1.3
was rewritten? I was under the impression that only intuition, workbench and
dos.library extensive rewriting.