Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!mcnc!uvaarpa!murdoch!dalton.acc.Virginia.EDU!ds4a
From: ds4a@dalton.acc.Virginia.EDU (Dale Southard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Speed Increase in Background?  How did that happen?
Message-ID: <1991Apr7.223630.13624@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 7 Apr 91 22:36:30 GMT
References: <040791.170833BRBOYER@MTUS5.CTS.MTU.EDU>
Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: University of Virginia
Lines: 25
Ireallyam: ds4a

In article <040791.170833BRBOYER@MTUS5.CTS.MTU.EDU> BRBOYER@MTUS5.CTS.MTU.EDU (Rucell) writes:
>
>   I have a question for all of you Macintosh Guru's.  What on Earth could
>make a program run faster in the background than it does in the fore-ground
>(while Multi-Finder is activated)?  When I first noticed the severe speed
>differences, I almost freaked out.  Could someone explain this to me?  Is
>there a way to get my program to run the same speed (or even faster) while it
>is in the fore-ground?  Thanks in advance...


Well, one common reason has to do with the cpu time it requires for a program
to do window updates.  For instance, many programs will run faster if a 
screen-saver is active (StuffIt for one, I think).  I have noticed a slight
speed increase in some programs when pyro kicks in (sorry, no figures, just
what I precieved).  The same is also true if you shrink the window down to
its minimum size -- the fewer pixels to update/scroll, the less cpu time
required to do so.

Anyone have better fact/figures/reasoning?

Oh, before someone flames GUIs, scrolling a text screen has the same effect on
program speed.


-->  -->  Dale  UVa  (ds4a@virginia.edu)