OK, I think your rant against Windows is just a little over the top and adds nothing constructive to the conversation. Some people don't have the choice to run whatever they want and that must be recognized. KiCAD supports Windows and if there is a major performance issue, it should be looked into since the level of graphics processing is pretty minimal for KiCAD compared to real-time games, etc.
Having said that, I run KiCad on a machine (quad core, 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM) that dual-boots Windows XP Pro and Ubuntu 9.10. I see no discernable difference in performance between the two, so it's highly unlikely that Windows vs Ubuntu can account for the performance issues the user is reporting. I also run KiCad on a 3-year old laptop (dual-core, 32 bit @ 1.7 GHz with 2.5 GB RAM) and have performance complaints there either. You didn't mention what hardware you are running this on, so it's hard to tell whether you are just simply underpowered for Windows 7. Does your system run other applications well? Have you checked the Task Manager and/or Performance Monitor to try to determine what resource is causing the bottleneck (CPU, Memory, Disk, Interrupts, etc)? I would suggest you check the following: 1. Check to make sure all of the third-party libraries are up to date and are compiled with the optimizing/release settings. 2. Make sure you have plenty of RAM (at LEAST 2 GB or more). 3. Make sure you have the latest optimized drivers for your video card. 4. If you have BOINC running, make sure none of your projects are using the CUDA to push processing onto your graphics card. If you do have this, make sure at lease you have it set to only use the GCU whenever it is not busy or your graphics willl be horribly slow on everything. Check to see if you have any viruses or anything else running in the background soaking up CPU/GPU cycles. Greg ________________________________ From: DanielW <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 1:53:09 PM Subject: [kicad-users] Re: pcbnew is amazing slow under windows 7 There's another solution you're missing: use a CAD package that's designed to work well under Windows, unlike KiCad. Someone who's willing to shell out hard-earned cash for Windows 7 should be happy to also buy a nice commercial CAD package, such as Orcad. Trying to run Free software on Windows is just silly. If you're going to buy into the whole commercial software thing, then don't do it halfway. Use paid, commercial software for everything you do in Windows, as the whole environment is one where Microsoft and its ISV partners work together to bring you the software experience they think you should have, for a fee, and if you're bought Windows, then that proves that you also buy into Microsoft's vision. Microsoft's vision does NOT include any Free software; they've stated this publicly over and over. Personally, I'm perfectly happy with KiCad running on Kubuntu. Dan --- In [email protected], "dickelbeck" <d...@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "o00batman00o" <anthony.siegrist@> wrote: > > > > Hello > > > > Since I upgraded to windows 7, I can't use pcbnew beacause the screen > > refresh is amazing slow. I can see dot grid showing up from left to right. > > I notice the same behavior on all PC running Windows Vista or 7. > > > > My temporary solution is to run Kicad under Ubuntu via VirtualBox. By this > > way refreshing rate is in my opinion 10 times faster. > > > > Does someone noticed the same issue? > > No, but I don't use Windows. > > > Is there a solution ? > > Use Ubuntu? > > How much pain do you need, before you switch? I hit my threshold 6 years > ago. I assume you use Windows for a reason, is that reason so that you can > call Microsoft and get help on issues like this? > ------------------------------------ Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
