FW: Faster scrolling

[Robert Stoker]

Natalie,

What operating system are you using?
What version of FrameMaker are you using?
Are you working across a network?
If yes, what flavor of server do you use?

We have a similar issue with the WIndows version of FrameMaker. In the 
past, people have suggested turning off the graphics to speed  
navigation through a document. Others have suggested a fast hard drive, 
a lot of RAM, and a fast network connection (if you are working across 
the network). Turning off the graphics is not always convenient for an 
author, and fast equipment may not help. Below is some information I 
have compiled about scrolling speed, operating systems, and servers.

We did some speed tests to determine the efficiency of various machines 
we have. We tested a MacBook Pro, a G5 Mac, and a HP Pavilion. We have 
a 1 GB network. The test consisted of scrolling through 10 pages of a 
typical document. Each page contains text and three-to-five photos 
(sized at 3.25"X2.0" and 300 dpi tif) with vector callouts placed on 
top of the photos in an outside application. The graphics are saved in 
the outside application as EPS with a low resolution TIF preview. The 
resulting EPS files are about 1 MB each. We import the EPS files into 
FrameMaker by reference. All FrameMaker files and graphics are located 
on a server. We performed the test with files located on a Mac server 
and on a Windows server.

NOTE:  The following discussion is not a Mac vs PC issue. The reality 
is that we need to work with the Windows version of Frame in the 
future, and we need to make it as efficient and cost effective as 
possible.

The results of the speed tests show that the G5 Mac significantly 
outperformed any of the WIndows configurations, independent of the 
server. The MacBook Pro running Parallels, the MacBook Pro operating 
under Boot Camp, and the HP have unacceptable performance with the Mac 
server. The MacBook Pro in both configurations has marginal performance 
with the Windows server. (If the graphics are stored on the local hard 
drive, the performance of the WIndows version of Frame improves but is 
still only marginally acceptable. However, local work is not a 
possibility—we must work across the network.)

We did more research to determine why the Windows version of Frame is 
so much slower. We ran a process-monitoring utility and found the 
following: when FrameMaker for WIndows displays a graphic, Frame 
requests the graphic information 1Kb at a time. The Windows version of 
Frame completely loads the full resolution graphic and then accesses 
the preview facet. We couldn't find a similar process-monitoring 
utility for the Mac, but it seems that the Mac version of Frame must 
display graphics differently than the Windows version. If there is a 
way to change the Windows behavior, we should be able to significantly 
improve the performance of the Windows version of Frame with our Mac 
server. Does anyone know how to change this?

The unfortunate conclusion is that if we can't improve the PC-to-Mac 
server communication, we will eventually need to change to a Windows 
server. This is a significant cost increase—buying a new server machine 
(we have the Win2K server on the HP notebook for development purposes 
only), managing a Windows server, and the decrease in productivity all 
add up.

Here are the actual results of the speed tests:

Server 1: Mac G5
Processor: Dual 2GHz Power PC
RAM: 1.5GB
Operating system: Mac OS 10.4.9 Server
Hard drive speed: 7200 RPM

Server 2: HP Pavilion notebook (development server)
Processor: 1.66 GHz Intel Centrino Duo
RAM: 1.5GB
Operating system: Windows 2000 Server
Hard drive speed : 7200 RPM

Test machine 1: MacBook Pro
Processor: 2GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 2GB
Operating system: Mac OS 10.4.9 running Windows XP Pro through Parallels
FrameMaker version: 7.2
Time to scroll through 10 pages on G5 server: 3 min. 31 sec.
Time to scroll through 10 pages on Win2K server: 36 sec.

Test machine 2: MacBook Pro
Processor: 2GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 2GB
Operating system: Windows XP Pro through Boot Camp
FrameMaker version: 7.2
Time to scroll through 10 pages on G5 server: 2 min. 10 sec.
Time to scroll through 10 pages on Win2K server: 35 sec.

Test machine 3: HP Pavilion
Processor: 1.66 GHz Intel Centrino Duo
RAM: 1.5GB
Operating system: Windows 2000 Server
FrameMaker version: 7.2
Time to scroll through 10 pages on G5 server: 1 min. 43 sec.
Time to scroll through 10 pages on Win2K server: n/a this is the Win2K 
server machine

Test machine 4: Mac G5
Processor: 1.8GHz Dual Power PC
RAM: 1GB
Operating system: Mac OS 10.3.7
FrameMaker version: 7.0
Time to scroll through 10 pages on G5 server: 13 sec.
Time to scroll through 10 pages on Win2K server: 13 sec.

Regards,
Robert Stoker
Seatech Publications, Inc.
Content Development,
FrameMaker Plug-ins, and
Product Information Management Systems
www.seatechpubs.com
Phone: 360-394-1911

-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces+bgagne=husky.ca at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces+bgagne=husky.ca at lists.frameusers.com] On 
Behalf
Of Natalie Bircher
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 4:38 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: FW: Faster scrolling




We have graphic-intensive docs and it takes forever to scroll through
the doc. Is there a way to speed things up?



Natalie Bircher

Technical Writer

BackStreet Media

Phone: 320-843-4337

Fax: 320-842-4236

Email:  <mailto:natalieb at backstreetmedia.com>
natalieb at backstreetmedia.com