kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/07/2013 01:59 PM, Tomasz Wlostowski wrote:
> 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).


You might.  That expenditure would be, again:

   man-hours x cost per man-hour.

Grabbing some number out of the air:
	
80 x 70 = $5600  cost to the employer.

This same money buys approximately 160 graphics cards.

The second path has the KiCad user more happy because performance is better, and the
investment is a sure thing.

Please tell us where to send addresses, for the free graphics cards.