Am I the only one with slow menus & crawling PC here?

[GlynH]

I just need to clarify something if I may please...

When running RB on my XP SP3, Asus Dual 3.2GHz Xeon, 4GB RAM, 2.5TB, NVidia Quadro powered Dual Eizo monitor beast of a PC that normally does not break a sweat even when heavily multi-tasking or editing RAW/video etc. am I the only one that by running ANRB causes my PC to slow to a crawl most of the time?

I mean even simple things like opening Notepad or web browsing is painfully slow unless I close down ANRB...without mentioning hanging menus and stuttering progress when trying to use MyLog etc.

Obviously something going on here which I would dearly like to get to the bottom of...

Some time ago I had a private Beta from Aleksey that seemed to cure these issues for me but somewhere along the way they seem to have crept back in.

I have over 16000 aircraft in MyLog.db3 which is some 120MB in size.

ANRB takes 2 mins 40 secs to load on a machine that can load MS Word in 0.8 secs and Adobe Photoshop CS2 and all of its plug-ins in under 6 secs.

I can't believe I am the only one who experiences a slow-down when using ANRB?

I'm going to use a virgin MyLog.db3 or /NOMYLOG and see if that improves things.

Regards,
-=Glyn=-

[CAM]

Glyn,

I had the issue with the slow menu's on the old version and also tested the beta's from Alexsey.

My PC is quad core and I used to go mad with slow menu's, I dont have any problem with 3.02 and it would appear that it may be an isolated case with your PC setup. Have you another machine you could try it on ?

ANRB has always been slow to load for me on any version, as you say it may well be to do with the size of the database, mine is crica 12500 aircraft.

CAM

[Frank]

Hi Glyn,

I run ANRB on a Dual Core 2.4 2 GB machine. I have had trouble with sluggish menu's etc, but after version 3.0 and testing with Aleksey, problems are (almost) over and acceptable for me. I have over 17000 aircraft in MyLog.db3 and it takes about 4 minutes(!) to get ANRB going.

Frank

[tarbat]

Glyn, can you see what process is using a lot of CPU, using Task Manager?  Sort the list of processes by CPU.


Given that it slows your whole PC to a crawl, there must be some process hogging the CPU.

[GlynH]

That's just it Chris...I see nothing out of the ordinary apart from the latest ANRB peaking @ 38% CPU time which is almost double that of previous versions.

Strange as it even takes Task Manager 5+ seconds to open when RB is running but opens instantaneously without...

I'm about ready to throw in the towel and build another PC but this one does everything else that I throw at it without breaking a sweat...

Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-

[AirNav Support]

GlynH,

How fast is your net speed? We have actually had a customer email us today saying he is using the beta 3.01 and having the same issues as you. He said the only thing weird with his setup is a very slow internet.

[EMA]

Hi Glyn

On my Quad cores the CPU is peaking at 12% just running radarbox, the 38% you quote seems extremely high for your system given the power of the processor.

Like others I had the slow menu problem and that was fixed with beta 3.01 and version 3.02 seems to use less cpu for me.

Kevin

[GlynH]

Thanks for the replies guys,

AirNav: I have an up to 24MB ADSL package but generally see 7-8MB so hardly very slow...although I am currently seeing 6.68MB download at the moment with just under 1MB upload according to speedtest.net

EMA: Glad it has worked for you as believe me I know how frustrating it can be!

I saw this problem before I purchased ANRB, have always had it here to some extent and have seen it on other computers also. A friend of mine also has similar issues but seems to put up with it as following the 2.0 upgrade it did improve things for him a bit.

He did report that after the 2.0 upgrade it was 'perfect' but believe me it is far from perfect...maybe I have a lower tolerance than most? ;^)

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

[EMA]

Glyn

Have you tried running ANRB.EXE on one or two cpu's? That did help for me before the fix.

Also I note you have Nvidia graphics and I use both ATI and Nvidia and the latter always had the worst menu performance prior to the fix so before building a new PC just try another graphics card.

Kevin

[pjm]

That's just it Chris...I see nothing out of the ordinary apart from the latest ANRB peaking @ 38% CPU time which is almost double that of previous versions

I have a P4 3.2ghz with 3gb memory. RB idles along most of the time just under 4% CPU utilisation with peaks every 60 seconds to about 40%. The 60 second peaks coincide with disk writes of about 25mb.

[GlynH]

Thanks for the replies guys...

I have finally sorted the slow menu issue...if I delete MyLog.db3 & NavData.db3 the program loads in under 3 seconds and the menus really fly!

Of course I can see no aircraft because the hardware is not connected (why not?) but it behaves like the rest of the 'proper' programs on my PC and runs like lightning...;^)

I hear what you say about NVidia vs. ATI Kevin but I have always used NVidia on all my machines here - keeps driver updates clean & simple when rolling out upgrades etc.

This particular graphics card is getting long in the tooth now being a PNY Quadro4 980XGL AGP card with 128MB RAM which cost @ $1500 in its day!

The thing is it is rock solid & fast on every other application I have here including video overlay in Premiere CS3 & After Effects CS3, batch processing of RAW inages in DxO, editing RAW images in Photoshop CS3 & Lightroom and 3D rendering etc. and as such I am loathe to change it.

I am not a games player and if it has the horespower to drive the above applications surely it can be used with ANRB?

Last year I did take the Quadro out and put in the fastest AGP graphics card I could find - a Gainward Bliss 7800GS+ 512MB - again another NVidia card but to no avail.

I did install ANRB on my Media Centre PC yesterday which is a moderately powered PC with a Pentium 4 running at 3.0GHz and 4GB RAM and another NVidia card - this time a 7300LE

This PC can transcode video while it records TV and I can still browse the web etc. but still gives me the same ANRB problems with sluggish menus, MyLog etc.

I use Avast! AntiVirus on all of my machines but not only have I set an exception to ignore C:\Program Files\AirNav Systems\AirNav RadarBox 2009 - 3.0 Beta but I have tried disabling it altogether with no joy.

As I said if I want to use my RB I am going to have to build a new PC :-(

I can only hope I don't get the same issues with that one...

Regards,
-=Glyn=-

[EMA]

Perhaps a fresh install to a new directory is the way to go Glyn, I also use Avast on one PC with no problems.

I understand your reasons for staying with Nvidia it should not make any difference we are just clutching at straws in the hope your issue gets resolved.

cheers

Kevin

[GlynH]

Hello again Kevin,

Already tried that...three times on this machine and once on the MediaPC.

Out of desperation I have even installed it on an old TabletPC I have lying around here but that was never the fastest kid on the block when it was new so I am not holding my breath.

As I said during one of the private Betas from Aleksey the issue almost went away but has returned with Beta 3.x

Clutching at straws indeed...:-/

Enjoy your weekend!

Kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

[GlynH]

An update on this (for me) long standing slow menu issue that has plagued me ever since I first purchased my first RadarBox over a year ago.

I have just come back from my mate Terry and I have to say that his PC is worse than mine for slow/hanging menus. difficulty navigating MyLog and generally doing anything within the application...well it should be as it is alower spec machine  running a Pentium D 2.80GHz, 2GB RAM on Vista Home Premium SP2.

ANRB consumes between 20-70% of his CPU and causes everythng else on his PC to slow down much like my own.

Again like me he has well over 10,000 aircraft in his MyLog (where exactly is this kept on Vista?) and again, like mine it would appear that the slowdown *might* be tied into when the database is being written to because if I set the timeout to 5000ms I can get a 5 second window in which everything seems normal but as soon as the database is being written menus hang, MyLog will not scroll and his PC slows down and shows the sleepy pointer.

I have seen this on every PC I have ever seen RB running on including 4 of my own here (1.6GHz TabletPC, 2.2GHz W2K/XP, 3.0GHz MCE and Dual 3.2GHz Xeon XP)

I am guessing this might be a wider problem than anyone dared fear as some people will live with this and not mention anything.

IMHO it might only affect *some* of those who record a large number of aircraft & flights - like me Terry will see up to nearly 3,000 unique Mode-S aircraft a day - God only knows how many flights that equates to. Is there a connection do you think?

There was talk some time ago about it only affecting high-spec PC's but I feel it may probably be more like those who see large numbers of aircraft possibly?

Obviously this will not affect everybody as Frank has over 17,000 aircraft and does not suffer this slow-down apparently.

Thinking about it when Tery upgraded one time he lost his database and so started from scratch and he was amazed at the speed increase which he put down to the newer version.

Having played on his system earlier today though it really is like wading through treacle...

Would it not be possible for Aleksey to author a private Beta that utilises a single core/thread to write to the database leaving everything else free to run the system for me to test the theory or something?

He very nearly cracked it in an earlier Beta but for me anyway I was back to square one when v3.0 Beta came out...

You guys (especially AirNav) must be sick to death of me bleating on about the slowdowns but it makes the program (and the rest of my PC) almost totally unusable...obviously I wouldn't want this to delay releasing 3.02 to the rest of the users but when that is out of the door I would be glad to help in any way I can?

Thanks & regards,
-=Glyn=-

[Allocator]

Glyn,

Have you made any changes to your database using external programmes?

Have you tried backing up your MyLog database (MyLog.db3) then using MyLog to delete all the data and see what that does - MyLog > Tools > Empy MyLog Tables

I've used all the versions of RadarBox on my AMD64 3200+ 2.GHz desktop that must be 3 years old now, my 2 year old Pentium M laptop and even my eeePC Netbook - and I haven't suffered the problems that you are having.

I've got just under 10,000 records in MyLog, but I only run Windows XP - I've never used Vista.