FM9 running much slooooowwwer than FM7

[garybeckwith]

Hello

I recently "upgraded" from FM7 to FM9.   Certain things are running much slower.    For example, if the cursor is in the middle of a paragraph and I just want to move it through the text by holding down an arrow key, there is a delay between each "nudge" from one character to the next and it basically moves in slow motion compared to what it did in FM7.     Another example is if I'm in a graphic drawing and I want to move an object by holding down the  alt-arrow key.   In FM7 it would zip around in an almost seamless motion.  With FM9 it moves much slower and there is a delay again between each nudge.

Am I the only one experiencing this decrease in performance when I "upgraded?"  Does FM9 have different system requirements than FM7?  I believe I have 3GB of RAM and I'm running XP Pro.

Are there any settings I could adjust to get better performance?

Any advice on this is appreciated

thanks

[Arnis Gubins]

For most of the operations that you mention, I don't see the same level of performance degradation. Graphics objects move just as fast and seamlessly for me using the Alt+arrow keys. Scrolling through a long section of text using the arrow keys seems to be about 10% slower though (just by counting to ten to see how far the cursor is while down the arrow key). No spurts or hesitations though.

You might want to check if there are newer drivers for your graphics card?

One thing that is a real time killer is if you have lots of reference items (markers, variables, graphics, etc.) in your document and your workspace has the pods open for these, then opening a file is excruciatingly slow as FM9 has to populate these pods by reading through the entire first. It helps to have a custom workspace, where these pods are closed for starting up the document.

[Mike Wickham]

This is a known bug in FM9 and the bug team is aware of it, but you ought to

report it again to help get some action. If you collapse or close the

Paragraph Designer and/or Character Designer, the slow cursor movement

disappears. (The degradation is additive, depending on whether one or both

of those panels is open.)

[garybeckwith]

I closed the paragraph, character, and table designers as well as the catalogs.  Still running just as slow.

[Arnis Gubins]

Mike,

I don't see any difference in behaviour with the Designers open or closed either (I've tried numerous cycles and there is no degradation as far as I can see). Do you have a reference as to where this was discussed: here, Framers, elsewhere?

[Mike Wickham]

Oops. I forgot a step: Choose File> Preferences> Interface and uncheck

"Hide panels on Close" (This option kills a panel on close, else a panel

would stay open in the background).

This advice was from Amit Agarwal of the FM development team back when I

reported this bug in the release version of FM9.

[Arnis Gubins]

Mike,

Minor detail...

This is an old issue addressed in the 9.0.1 patch (Item #10) "Hide Panel on Close" should be checked OFF by default. Prior to this, it was set to ON by default. This caused *any* hidden FM panel to be "re-populated" in the background (i.e. FM was always checking the current insertion point and updating the properties of all relevant designers and properties panels), which in turn caused the system to slow down.

If one is patched to the current version (9.0.4), then the problem lies elsewhere.

[Mike Wickham]

I'm patched to 9.0.4 and still have the problem-- at least until I minimize

the Character Designer and Paragraph Designer. Maybe I need to re-report

this bug. Your message makes it appear that Adobe may have fixed the issue

for some and think they fixed it for all. But I have this issue still on

both of my computers.

[Arnis Gubins]

Mike,

Yes, please do report this with as much detail as possible. It's quite likely that it may be a different side effect (aka, "benefit" in marketing speaking) of the OWL interface and your configuration.

[Art_Campbell1]

Aside from the settings already discussed... if I were you, I'd go to the RAM store and get another stick -- if you're running the 32 bit version of windows, that'll give you a little extra horsepower. And if you're running the 64 bit version, pack in as much as you can...

You may also want to set your swap space to a high and static setting; that may wring a little more performance out of the system, assuming you have free disk space.

Art

[garybeckwith]

thanks Art, I will put in for some more memory... but I do find it odd that

FM7 runs just fine but FM9 has this delay problem.

I do not know what "swap space" is or how to change the setting but I would try it.

thanks

[Art_Campbell1]

Swap space (simplified) is a system file on your hard drive that the OS uses to store information when RAM fills up and elements that aren't actively in use in RAM are written to disk.

I believe it's under System Settings / Performance on XP, but I'm on a 7 system and can't confirm that. In general, you get a small performance boost if you set it to a large size (Windows makes recommendations) and disable the Windows management of swap space.

However, if you can get more RAM in, that's first choice.

I think everyone has noticed the delay problem, BTW -- I put it down to a MUCH busier interface that is always updating itself and, I suspect that's aggravated by some memory leaks -- I know that at some point in the day, things run faster after a reboot.

[Arnis Gubins]

With 32-bit XP systems, going above 3Gb RAM puts one in an area of dimishing returns. Depending upon your motherboard and bios, you'll probably only get about 3.2Gb usable memory. The theoretical max for 32-bit is 4Gb anyway, but Windows claims overhead and you'll only have a smalleer amount available.

Also, the more RAM you have, the smaller the paging file should be. You actually want to have more of your OS in RAM, rather than have it swapped out to disk.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

In XP it's in the System settings > Advanced tab > Performance > Advanced tab > Virtual Memory section - it defines how much of your hard drive to use as a temp folder for operations - more space = better performance (sometimes)

[Guest]

Gary, can you identify any specific features of your files or workflow that might be "unusual", e.g.

• does this happen immediately after you've rebooted, with FM the only application running?
• Can you test without having an anti-virus or similar utility already running?
  
• Does it happen in a new blank FM document vs. pre-existing docs?
  
• Are your docs and all content  local files, on your system,  or are any components on a network?
• Do you use any graphics? Any FM plugins? 
• What specific version of FM (from Help > About)?

Sheila

[yves.barbion]

Indeed, Fm9 is A LOT slower and less stable than previous versions.

Like I said in the FrameUsers group, a new UI may be nice, but not if it undermines the stability and slows down Fm, which are, I  think, two of the key features for which (earlier versions of)  FrameMaker has always been renowned.

I think we can only hope that Adobe is listening to our comments and that they come up with a new version soon which is faster and more stable again.

[garybeckwith]

OK, so I unchecked the "hide when closed" in the preferences. Now when I close all three designer panels, things do speed up a bit.

Still I find this troublesome because it would be nice to be able to keep those open and not have to open and close them all the time.

I did not know there were any patches forthe application. I am running 9.0p.  I'll try upgrading and see if that helps too.

Thanks