Emacs 23, sluggish performance

Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Eric Lilja]

Hello, I'm using a checkout from the trunk built yesterday on my WinXP 
with the new font backend enabled. Emacs feels very sluggish even with 
just my .emacs settings file opened which is not a big file. Scrolling 
in the file is slow, selecting is slow. Maybe not the same response I'm 
used to when typing either. I normally select and scroll with the mouse, 
which I know is probably under-using emacs but it wasn't slow before. 
When I look at the task manager I see emacs is consuming practically no 
cpu time and memory usage is modest (around 25 MB). Also, the binaries 
are built with debugging information.
I'm wondering what I can do to speed things up, maybe rebuild without 
debugging information and not enabling the new font backend but it 
shouldn't be necessary I feel.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

- Eric

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Eric Lilja]

Eric Lilja wrote:
> Hello, I'm using a checkout from the trunk built yesterday on my WinXP 
> with the new font backend enabled. Emacs feels very sluggish even with 
> just my .emacs settings file opened which is not a big file. Scrolling 
> in the file is slow, selecting is slow. Maybe not the same response I'm 
> used to when typing either. I normally select and scroll with the mouse, 
> which I know is probably under-using emacs but it wasn't slow before. 
> When I look at the task manager I see emacs is consuming practically no 
> cpu time and memory usage is modest (around 25 MB). Also, the binaries 
> are built with debugging information.
> I'm wondering what I can do to speed things up, maybe rebuild without 
> debugging information and not enabling the new font backend but it 
> shouldn't be necessary I feel.
> 
> Comments and suggestions welcome.
> 
> - Eric
> 

Hmm, I performed a fresh checkout and started to rebuild without 
debugging information and not with the new font backend enabled but the 
bootstrap gets stuck compiling /net/net-utils.el (consuming 100 % cpu 
time on one core, but never getting past it). This is the same problem I 
reported on the 22-branch some time ago but I never got any response to 
that.

- Eric

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Stefan Monnier]

> Hello, I'm using a checkout from the trunk built yesterday on my WinXP with
> the new font backend enabled. Emacs feels very sluggish even with just my
> .emacs settings file opened which is not a big file. Scrolling in the file
> is slow, selecting is slow. Maybe not the same response I'm used to when
> typing either. I normally select and scroll with the mouse, which I know is
> probably under-using emacs but it wasn't slow before. When I look at the
> task manager I see emacs is consuming practically no cpu time and memory
> usage is modest (around 25 MB). Also, the binaries are built with
> debugging information.
> I'm wondering what I can do to speed things up, maybe rebuild without
> debugging information and not enabling the new font backend but it shouldn't
> be necessary I feel.

Whatever happened to providing information such as Windows/Mac/X11?
My crystal ball tells me you're running under Windows with the new font
backend enabled.

Please keep compiling *with* the new font backend, and if you want the
good old speed just run emacs with --disable-font-backend (yes, it can
be chosen at runtime).


        Stefan

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Eric Lilja]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> Hello, I'm using a checkout from the trunk built yesterday on my WinXP with
>> the new font backend enabled. Emacs feels very sluggish even with just my
>> .emacs settings file opened which is not a big file. Scrolling in the file
>> is slow, selecting is slow. Maybe not the same response I'm used to when
>> typing either. I normally select and scroll with the mouse, which I know is
>> probably under-using emacs but it wasn't slow before. When I look at the
>> task manager I see emacs is consuming practically no cpu time and memory
>> usage is modest (around 25 MB). Also, the binaries are built with
>> debugging information.
>> I'm wondering what I can do to speed things up, maybe rebuild without
>> debugging information and not enabling the new font backend but it shouldn't
>> be necessary I feel.
> 
> Whatever happened to providing information such as Windows/Mac/X11?
> My crystal ball tells me you're running under Windows with the new font
> backend enabled.

I did say it was WinXP, didn't I? I also wrote that the new font backend 
was enabled. You didn't have to use a crystal ball only to read what I 
wrote more carefully. ;) I meant to say "WinXP machine", however. It's 
XP Pro SP2 with all the updates from Windows Update.

> 
> Please keep compiling *with* the new font backend, and if you want the
> good old speed just run emacs with --disable-font-backend (yes, it can
> be chosen at runtime).

OK, I will keep compiling with the font back enabled and will try to see 
how the performance is when it's disabled at runtime. Hopefully, the 
performance of the new font backend (if this is indeed the culprit of 
the lack-luster performance I'm seeing) will increase because it's 
rather painful to work with it now. Thanks for your reply.

> 
> 
>         Stefan
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Johannes Weiner]

Hi Stefan,

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:

>> Hello, I'm using a checkout from the trunk built yesterday on my
>> WinXP with the new font backend enabled.
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Whatever happened to providing information such as Windows/Mac/X11?
> My crystal ball tells me you're running under Windows with the new font
> backend enabled.

Perhaps you should remove the crystal ball between your eyes and your
mailclient while reading mail :-)

	Hannes

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[David Kastrup]

Johannes Weiner <hannes@saeurebad.de> writes:

> Hi Stefan,
>
> Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:
>
>>> Hello, I'm using a checkout from the trunk built yesterday on my
>>> WinXP with the new font backend enabled.
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Whatever happened to providing information such as Windows/Mac/X11?
>> My crystal ball tells me you're running under Windows with the new font
>> backend enabled.
>
> Perhaps you should remove the crystal ball between your eyes and your
> mailclient while reading mail :-)

He might have been crosscompiling for GNU/Linux.  The above just states
the build platform.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
> Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:51:09 +0100
> Cc: Eric Lilja <mindcooler@gmail.com>,
> 	Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> He might have been crosscompiling for GNU/Linux.

Yeah, right...

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> Hello, I'm using a checkout from the trunk built yesterday on my
>>> WinXP with the new font backend enabled.
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Whatever happened to providing information such as Windows/Mac/X11?
>> My crystal ball tells me you're running under Windows with the new font
>> backend enabled.

> Perhaps you should remove the crystal ball between your eyes and your
> mailclient while reading mail :-)

Oh, that's what it was, thanks!


        Stefan

Re: Emacs 23, sluggish performance

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 4:52 PM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

> just run emacs with --disable-font-backend (yes, it can
>  be chosen at runtime).

Not that the output of "emacs --help" mention it...

             Juanma