Grahics refresh question?

[oxf]

Hi,

When I'm viewing photographs in F Spot I notice each time it goes the next photo theres a slight time lag before the best definition is achieved. Like as soon I go the the next one its just sightly (not real bad though) blurred and then over about one second it sharpens up. In fact I can see the sharper definition moving down from top to bottom of the screen. Then its perfect.

Is this a graphics driver issue? and is there anything I can do to improve it? I booted into Win XP and did a comparison and this doesnt happen there, it instantaneous.

This is on my Compaq Presario M2000 laptop with Jaunty. The graphics card is the
ATI Radeon Express 200M

Thanks
Mike

[donaldfarkas]

yea it sounds like a graphic drive issue

# lspci | grep VGA
and post what you get

also post your xorg file

[D-cat]

No, there is no issue, this is normal.

What's happening when you view an image that's being resized on the fly, it does it in two stages. The first one is a nearest-neighbor resize, which just copies or subtracts pixels in proportion to meet the desired size based on evenly spaced neighbor pixels. This is very fast but low quality (tends to be uneven an blocky). It does this just to get the image up so you have something to look at.

The second stage is based on one of various available algorithms which resample the original picture to give a smooth and clear image in the new resolution. These methods vary in speed vs. quality, but they are slower than the first and tend to show up at a later time determined by the image size and processor speed, usually within a couple seconds.

This is also not a Linux thing. Various image viewers on all graphical platforms that I know about work the same way, though the two stage resample may not be a default option for some. For example: IrfanView in Windows.

I don't know F-Spot (I use Gwenview for the most part), but check the options, you might find you can choose a faster resample method and still get good quality.

[oxf]

No, there is no issue, this is normal.

What's happening when you view an image that's being resized on the fly, it does it in two stages. The first one is a nearest-neighbor resize, which just copies or subtracts pixels in proportion to meet the desired size based on evenly spaced neighbor pixels. This is very fast but low quality (tends to be uneven an blocky). It does this just to get the image up so you have something to look at.

The second stage is based on one of various available algorithms which resample the original picture to give a smooth and clear image in the new resolution. These methods vary in speed vs. quality, but they are slower than the first and tend to show up at a later time determined by the image size and processor speed, usually within a couple seconds.

This is also not a Linux thing. Various image viewers on all graphical platforms that I know about work the same way, though the two stage resample may not be a default option for some. For example: IrfanView in Windows.

I don't know F-Spot (I use Gwenview for the most part), but check the options, you might find you can choose a faster resample method and still get good quality.

OK thanks for that explanation. While I guess I'd hope the answer would be along the lines of "install this.." ..etc, it's good to know it's not a deficiency in my system. To be honest I'm not wildly impressed with F-Spot although in fairness I haven't really taken the time to learn it yet. That was to be my next task to investigate other options (sugestions welcome)

My Photo Manager of choice is so far the one which came with my Cannon camera "Zoom Browser" Unfortunately there's no Linux version available. It refreshes instantly from shot to shot in Win XP which was I wondered about the graphics drivers in Linux. I've never tried Wine or any implications for running this app using it.

Mike

[D-cat]

Many Windows apps do run okay in Wine, but it is a compatibility layer which adds extra steps to the process, so programs run under Wine will run slower than under Windows. This can be especially noticable on graphic intensive operations, so you're probably better off using a Linux native viewer.

I can't really make a proper suggestion; there are many, each with a varied approach to image management. Like I said, I like Gwenview, which is a Qt program which has a thumbnail browser similar to many Windows products and can view images in a ZIP file, which is good for comics readers like myself. It's definitely not the fastest viewer available, but it is well featured and stable, which are my primary requirements. YMMV.