Maximizing Performance

Inzomia Window size

The size of the Inzomia window has a big implication on performance, i.e. how fast/smooth you can pan and zoom. More than one window will result in only one of the objects using hardware acceleration, which has a big impact on performance for the windows not using hardware.

The internal algorithm is constructed to let the first window created get hardware acceleration and all others will get software rendering. The reason not all windows uses hardware acceleration is that some drivers have problems with concurrent use and make the operating system unstable, other graphics cards work real slow if more than one window tries to use them at the same time. The windows without hardware acceleration are still optimised to use specific processor features like MMX instructions etc.

If the windows are small (width and height less than 256 by 256 pixels) they will not use hardware acceleration. For that small window size there isn’t much difference in performance between the hardware and software implementation.

When a window goes to fullscreen it will attempt to use the hardware if it is possible (not already used), no matter if it was hardware accelerated in window mode or not.

Lastly the bit depth of the desktop may make the window run in software. For example many graphic cards do not accelerate pure 24-bit mode but it accelerates 16-bit and 32-bit. If you feel everything runs slow on you computer try to change the bit depth. Unfortunately this is something most end users are not aware of, but it is something that applies for every running application.