[Bug-XBoard] [bug #34202] xboard has a 20-second startup delay running with Ubuntu 11.04

[Richard Kircher]

Follow-up Comment #3, bug #34202 (project xboard):

Thank-you.  Following your advice (your last paragraph), I now have the least
startup delay ever achieved from other changes suggested by h.g. muller, and
Arun Persaud.  With NLS disabled, I now get a 1.8-second delay with the medium
xboard size, 16-bit color depth, Ubuntu 11.04, and both Thunderbird and
Firefox running in separate virtual desktops.  The delay is 1.0-seconds
without Thunderbird and Firefox running in the background to add loading to
the xorg graphics system.

As you may know, color depth is the largest factor effecting the startup delay
caused by xorg.  The attached data (RTF) files shows the effects of color
depth and various board sizes.  You will notice that for xboard-4.4.4, the
best result is 4-seconds with the smallest board size (Medium) and 16-bit
color depth that I am practically able to tolerate.  The 2 + 2 = 4 represents
the first and second delays (render the chessboard graphic + complete text in
the xboard window and be ready to run). 

After the attached data was measured, an improved total delay of 2.7-seconds
was achieved using xboard-4.5.3a with a patch to xboard.c as suggested by h.g.
muller:
if(gameInfo.variant != VariantNormal) gameInfo.boardWidth = 0;
(replaces code "gameInfo.boardWidth = 0;"  line 2628 in xboard.c for 4.5.3a)

Although the latest/newest version suggested
(ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/xboard/xboard-4.6.0.20111203.tar.gz) with the
"./configure --disable-nls" change applied does produce the least delay
(1.8/1.0) on my computer, I found that the pleasing woodgrain texture of the
4.5.3a version chessboard is lost with the 4.6.0.20111203 version that has
plain green/yellow colors for the chessboard.  I therefore tried the
disable-nls configure change on version 4.5.3a and then added the
"if(gameInfo.variant != VariantNormal) gameInfo.boardWidth = 0;" patch to
xboard.c.  To my surprise, it has the same 1.8/1.0-second delay and just looks
better, so that's what I'm using now.  Any explanation of what I might be
doing wrong to lose the woodgrain chessboard in the latest 4.6 version would
be appreciated since I do like the idea of keeping up with the latest
version.

Again, thanks from a happy camper with the 1.0 to 1.8-sec delay that is much
improved over the original 40-second delay with only a slight reduction in
graphic quality and board size.  I'm going back to mostly playing chess, but
would be happy to test any future improvements in xboard since I have a system
that is sensitive to xboard start-up start-up delays that I know does not
effect all other computers for some reason. 

PS- will also try to post this message to:
<http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?34202>

--Dick

(file #24654)
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Additional Item Attachment:

File name: xboard-delay-vs-boardsize.rtf  Size:8 KB


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