Thread: Differing performance between exec in terminal and terminal in KATE

Hi. I wrote a version of Reynolds' flocking boids as a first foray into openGL. I'm happy with the algorithm and it looks as one would visually expect, but I am wondering about one thing:

When I compile and run the program from the terminal built into KATE (a text editor), the code and graphics perform very quickly, at a highly interactive rate.

However, when I run the same program from a the very same source files in a normal Scientific Linux terminal, there is visually slower performance (a clear lag between frames). Any ideas what could be causing this?

Ocifer

Different hardware?


Quzah.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that this was all on the same machine, using the same operating system (Scientific Linux 6).

KATE provides a terminal within the program itself and I'm finding that when I execute the program in the terminal within KATE, the program runs noticeably faster than when I use the normal Linux terminal. It doesn't seem to matter where/how I compile it, only where I'm executing seems to make a difference.

Are you by any chance using GLUT?

Yes, I am using some glut functions to set up the display window.

I had a similar issue a long time ago, never figured out the underlying cause. SDL is about as easy to setup as GLUT and solved the problem for me at the time.

Thanks, I'll look into SDL, I was going to take a look anyway.

Good call, MWAAAHAAA, upon delegating the windowing to SDL functions, the performance is quick in all terminals. I like SDL, it's not too difficult to learn. Now I have to look up some optimization for the spatial sorting of the Boids, I want to do huge swarms. It's currently doing n^2 comparisons each frame around, so as n goes above 100 you really start to notice it in the framerate on my laptop.