kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Tomasz Wlostowski <tomasz.wlostowski@xxxxxxx>]

On 11/07/2013 08:30 PM, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> On 11/07/2013 01:03 PM, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
> > On 11/07/2013 07:11 PM, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> > > On 11/07/2013 11:59 AM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
> > > > On 11/7/2013 12:36 PM, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
> > > > > On 11/05/2013 07:40 PM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
> > > > > > On 11/5/2013 4:33 AM, Maciej Sumiński wrote:
> > > > > > > Does anyone have anything against disabling switching (remove its hotkey
> > > > > > > and menu entry) to Cairo backend? I think it may only give a bad
> > > > > > > impression to users, as it is too slow for comfortable work. I am going
> > > > > > > to maintain it in case that there are changes in the GAL, but as it was
> > > > > > > said in the beginning - its main purpose is for PDF generation or
> > > > > > > printing.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > > > Orson
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I'm fine with disabling it.  It's not useful for display rendering even
> > > > > > on my home computer which is very fast.  I can't image how slow it must
> > > > > > be on an older system or laptop.  Is there any other reason to Cairo
> > > > > > rendering around?
> > > > >
> > > > > It could be used as a fallback renderer, but right now it is too slow
> > > > > for that, so - in fact, there is no sensible reason.
> > > > >
> > > > > Regards,
> > > > > Orson
> > > >
> > > > Doesn't it make more sense to fallback to the wxDC rendering?  It's
> > > > known to work well except under certain conditions on OSX.  You cannot
> > > > perform any editing other than using the P&S router so I'm not sure that
> > > > it's very useful as a fallback.
> > > >
> > > > Wayne
> > >
> > > What is a fallback renderer?
> > > i.e. when would it be used?
> >
> > It could be used when OpenGL renderer does not work. I am not really
> > sure if eg. Intel Atom integrated graphics is able to use it. I have
> > seen a glewinfo report that states the GPU is compatible only up to
> > OpenGL 1.4, which is 11 years old. I hope it was only an issue of having
> > not appropriate drivers.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Orson
>
>
> Please think about this:
>
> At what point is is cheaper to buy the KiCad user a new computer, than it is to write
> software for his incompatible computer?
>
> cost of development is = man-hours x cost of a man-hour
Hi,

If we take only the cost into account, the choice of OpenGL as the only 
backend is quite obvious. The cheapest card in my nearby computer store 
(geforce GT-210) is $35, it's more than enough to run Kicad smoothly 
even with quite big projects. This is probably the cost of a single 
small 2-layer prototype board.

IMHO the real reason for keeping the software renderer are the Linux 
users who bought/got hardware that doesn't work reliably under Linux 
(some ATI/S3 cards, people who want only F/OSS drivers). If this is a 
significant group (and even better, if someone from that group would 
participate), we might improve the wx backend or write a scanline 
renderer optimized for PCB geometry (concept similar to Quake 1 engine).

Regards,
Tom