Benchmarking GTK

Gullible Jones · 2011-09-14 03:56:18

Because of my experience with GTK on the Mac G4, I did a very crude benchmark of the Murrine vs. default GTK engines. The computer used is an Asus Eee 1005HAB running Debian Squeeze (with Xfce). I tested all actions, with 500 iterations per action. Here are the results. Note the bold lines...

default engine wrote:

GtkEntry - time: 0.70
GtkComboBox - time: 11.05
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 7.66
GtkSpinButton - time: 1.10
GtkProgressBar - time: 0.62
GtkToggleButton - time: 1.48
GtkCheckButton - time: 1.15
GtkRadioButton - time: 2.03
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 52.35
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 4.35
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time: 15.73
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time: 20.59
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time: 8.94
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time: 1.07
---
Total time: 128.83

Murrine engine wrote:

GtkEntry - time: 0.70
GtkComboBox - time: 15.95
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 8.82
GtkSpinButton - time: 2.04
GtkProgressBar - time: 1.13
GtkToggleButton - time: 2.89
GtkCheckButton - time: 2.15
GtkRadioButton - time: 3.76
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 52.41
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 4.66
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time: 15.67
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time: 20.52
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time: 8.87
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time: 1.06
---
Total time: 140.65

So I learned that there is no functional difference between engine speeds on a fast machine like this EeePC. Big surprise. OTOH, I also learned that GTK takes longer to add text than it takes to do anything else - which probably means that it's slow to render fonts. Perhaps due to Pango? At any rate I wonder if there's a way to optimize the font rendering - because it's clearly a problem, and quite independent of the engine used.

moetunes · 2011-09-14 06:15:57

I wonder if it will make a difference choosing a different font. which one was used for the tests?

kokoko3k · 2011-09-14 06:39:14

Gullible Jones wrote:

So I learned that there is no functional difference between engine speeds on a fast machine like this EeePC.

Nope, you learned that murrine engine is almost fast as the default one.
Try the same with some engine which does gradients

Gullible Jones · 2011-09-14 12:24:46

Moetunes: Hmm good point. I was using Dejavu Sans 8.

kokoko3k: Judging from the appearance of Albatross, the Murrine engine can do gradients.

Gullible Jones · 2011-09-14 15:45:23

Wow. This is not a GTK problem.

GtkEntry - time: 0.66
GtkComboBox - time: 9.83
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 6.03
GtkSpinButton - time: 1.09
GtkProgressBar - time: 0.58
GtkToggleButton - time: 1.44
GtkCheckButton - time: 1.14
GtkRadioButton - time: 2.03
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 17.71
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 4.07
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time: 15.75
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time: 20.45
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time: 8.83
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time: 1.08
---
Total time: 90.72

That's a more than 100% difference in font rendering speed... Just by switching from Dejavu Sans to Liberation Sans. Dejavu Sans is apparently *slow*.

(And it's also the default font for almost every distro. Go figure.)

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2011-09-14 15:45:38)

kokoko3k · 2011-09-14 17:21:58

Gullible Jones wrote:

Moetunes: Hmm good point. I was using Dejavu Sans 8.
kokoko3k: Judging from the appearance of Albatross, the Murrine engine can do gradients.

Murrine can draw gradients, but depending on the style used they may be heavy or not.
I benchmarked qtcurve for qt widgets, and results varies very much when changing settings; same is for gtk.

moetunes · 2011-09-15 00:42:30

Gullible Jones wrote:

Wow. This is not a GTK problem.
That's a more than 100% difference in font rendering speed... Just by switching from Dejavu Sans to Liberation Sans. Dejavu Sans is apparently *slow*.
(And it's also the default font for almost every distro. Go figure.)

It'd be nice to see how different fonts fair in this test. Maybe a half dozen or so of the most popular ones...
Cheers

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-14 03:56:18

Benchmarking GTK

#2 2011-09-14 06:15:57

Re: Benchmarking GTK

#3 2011-09-14 06:39:14

Re: Benchmarking GTK

#4 2011-09-14 12:24:46

Re: Benchmarking GTK

#5 2011-09-14 15:45:23

Re: Benchmarking GTK

#6 2011-09-14 17:21:58

Re: Benchmarking GTK

#7 2011-09-15 00:42:30

Re: Benchmarking GTK

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