drawing text decreases perfomance.

asimancas

22y2.5kGDI+

Hi all. I'm developing a 2D drawing application, where one of the tasks is add text, than can be rotated and fonts selected. The problem is that, when there is a amount of about 50 texts drawn, the application becomes very slow. This happens only with text, because with lines, polygons and circles the perfomance is not significantly modified. Has someone any ideas of this problem´s origin? Is GDI+ so slow with texts and fonts?. Thanks in advance.

10 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Mykonine22y ago
You could try using unmanaged code to do your graphics processing. That should greatly speed up the process.
asimancas22y ago
Yes, nobrainer. I have spent the whole day researching about DirectDraw to finally realize that it´s "deprecated". I´ll rather try to optimize the visualization on my application (keeping GDI+), because seems to me DirectX is too much deep for what i have in mind (2D vector drawing), although it can work with 2D. Nevertheless, i think is unfair that GDI+ be so slow. :-(. Perhaps i´ll have to move towards some space partitioning. Thanks.
bilnaad22y ago
ps. With the Latest DirectX DirectDraw doesn't exist anymore. All functionality of DirectDraw is implemented into Direct3D
bilnaad22y ago
Also the since windows 2000 directX is intergrated into the installation of windows. So it's on the user's machine by default.
robin 022y ago
It depends on what kind of users your programm is oriented... Most of users now has installed DirectX on their comps... but of course, if you'll make your programm fast without it - it'll be better... But I just do not know the way to do it so...
asimancas22y ago
Hey Robin. I was rethinking about DirectDraw: Maybe will be overkilling ask to the potential users to get installed in their PCs DirectX just for running my application. Don´t you think so?. Does someone know what´s de graphics engine of programs like Autocad?. Till i know they don´t use DirectX, may be some APIS?. Thanks again.
asimancas22y ago
Well, i´ll try DirectDraw. I think there is not problem with the application startup (hope so). thanks for your replies. Regards.
robin 022y ago
DirectX is not for 3D mainly. It's a system of direct access to multimedia hardware. So, Direct3D - direct accesss to 3D accelerator card, DirectSound - sound card, DirectDraw - 2D methods of drawing directly in graphical card. In your case, the only thing you need - DirectDraw. And in this case it will increase perfomance of application, but application startup time will increases too.
asimancas22y ago
Thanks for reply. so, what should i do?. Won´t be posibble to build a complete drawing application with GDI+?. It can be don with DirectX?, but i understand that this is for 3D mainly. Thanks again.
Mykonine22y ago
GDI is famously slow. Right now I have a program that generates my desktop background as a schedule and homework assignment manager, and with the fifty or so text entries it usually takes around 3 seconds to create the file, save, and change backgrounds.