>First of all, ProWesS is depended upon the PE for many things

Only dependent on the Pointer Interface (aka ptr_gen).
This is necessary as PE introduced screen integrity (otherwise jobs could
overwrite other jobs).

However, some small changes could make ProWesS work much better (faster and
less memory intensive).
Specifically, if it would be possible to mark the save area for a program as
the original, so that the drawing could take place in there ans screen
updates could be done on request (copying to the screen only).
This would save memory, reduces the need for iow.xtop and can fix the
problem with background redraw is there is a job sweeping the save areas to
do the updates.

Marcel, would a change like this be possible in SMSQ?

>second it's insanely slow (esp. on regular QL systems)
This is mainly caused by the vector fonts. I still do not believe this is
caused by a c vs asm problem. However, people are invited to replace parts
of ProWesS with better (faster) code, possibly in assembler. I have always
said that I believe the screen drivers are a good place to start (as they do
most of the work, especially when the font is cached).
Anyway, plaese people test this. You can have precalculated fonts. It will
lsow down the ProWesS startup time, but you can request a font to be
precalculated in a certain size. Check your configuration files. This is
normally done "standard" for the screen font at screen size, but will
probably no longer be the case when you change your configuration.
In mine_prowess_cfg lines like
SYSTEM-FONT-CALCULATED size fontname
does the trick. e.g.
SYSTEM-FONT-CALCULATED 10 Courier

Joachim



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