kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Oct 10, 2014, at 12:07 PM, Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Oct 9, 2014, at 12:03 PM, Ian Woloschin <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> Easiest way to tell is using gfxCardStatus, https://gfx.io/, which will tell you what's running.  You can also, sort of, lock it to integrated or discrete.  I did a quick test and KiCad ran fine when locked to the integrated card, so I think this should work, which will be very nice if you're running on batteries.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to get an Info.plist that works, so I don't have it working by default.  I tried modifying the Info.plist that's in the kicad.app bundle, but that did not seem to work.  Realistically, this is a *very* minor issue, but if we're polishing the OS X builds this is probably something that should at least be on a list of things to have working for a true "stable" release.
> 
> OK, I installed gfxCardStatus on my 17" Late 2011 MBP (like I said, the last of the line ...). It tells me that I'm using the Intel integrated graphics. 
> 
> Then I added the NSSupportsAutomaticGraphicsSwitching=YES line to pcbnew's Info.plist file (in /Applications/kicad/pcbnew/Contents/Info.plist) and started up Kicad. I opened a design in pcbnew, and with the default canvas gfxCardStatus still tells me that I'm using the integrated graphics.
> 
> Switch to the OpenGL canvas, and bang! We're now using the AMD Radeon graphics controller. Seems like redraws and such are VERY fast. I grabbed an IC and started to move it and it redraw FAST.
> 
> I switched back to the default canvas, and the graphics controller did NOT switch back to the integrated. However, that grab-and-move-an-IC test is back to be much slower than the accelerated version.
> 
> So, yeah, modify the plist file and take advantage of the Radeon graphics! I have no idea how the plist file gets generated as part of the build/packaging process but I will look into it.
> 
> I suppose that on a machine where this sort of graphics switching doesn't exist the entry in the plist will be ignored.

One more thing: exiting Kicad causes the graphics to switch back to the integrated controller.

-a