hi,
I'm confused (normal for me though), and this should be simple to do. I want to do as Brynn has suggested in several threads and update my # of cores for Inkscape to better handle files, I can't even use the 'Live' preview on most of Inkscapes filters and extensions.
So, I have a dual core processor - thought that meant 2 cores, but then in searching all sorts of threads on the RAM/memory issue, I saw this from Brynn:

"I'm a little bit fuzzy about 32-bit and 64-bit. When I first bought this computer, it was explained to me that 32-bit meant there was one core, the 64-bit meant there were 2 cores. And that any 32-bit program could be installed and used, whenever 64-bit wasn't available, but that it would only be able to use one of the 2 cores. But later, I discovered that I actually have 8 cores. So I don't know if 32-bit relates to 4 of my cores and 64-bit relates to the 8....or exactly how that works."

@Brynn, how did you figure out you had 8 cores?
I did go into Inkscape Preferences, then filters and change it to 2 just now, but doubt that's correct. (and BTW, when it says 'restart required', does that mean to shutdown Inkscape and re-open it, or does that mean a pc re-boot)?

ok, so if I have a dual core processor (pc using Win 7, 64 bit, 3 GB) - how do I figure out the # of cores to tell Inkscape? (and where and how do I tell Inkscape, assume it's under Inkscape defaults)?

Note for newbies/non-techies - to figure out what your computer has, (pc users), you can right click on the My Computer icon (or get into it your way), then click on Properties and your pc info will pop up.
thanks
dee

Sorry for sounding dumb but what's a core and how does it relate to using inkscape?

Minky - I wish I knew, lol. All I can vaguely say is that it has to do with how your pc handles the running of software programs, including Inkscape.
If you've read any of the threads about Inkscape crashing, esp. with large files, then at some point you'll want to make your pc fully optimized to handle files so it doesn't crash and you don't lose your files. For me, I can't even do the 'Live' previews of paths, extension uses, etc.
I know this hasn't helped you very much, but it's the best I can do! lol. Please don't EVER worry about sounding dumb to me (and your question isn't dumb, if I knew the answers I'd probably know how to set the pc already) - you wouldn't believe the crazy sounding stuff I ask on here. Thank goodness for the kind people who have 'dumbed' it down for me to 'get' it. (I keep telling people I'm more artsy with Inkscape than techie).
dee

Hi
minky;

Sorry for sounding dumb but what's a core and how does it relate to using inkscape?

A multi-core processor is a single computing component (Processor or CPU) with two or more independent actual central processing units (called "cores"),
which are the units that read and execute program instructions.

It relates to Inkscape in how much processing power is allocated to the 'rendering" process which is the process of making a screen image from the vector data in the SVG file.

The more processing power the faster the screen update speed.

To set the number of cores allocated to the rendering process;
On 0.48.4, Win7, 64-bit, Inkscape Preferences > Filters > Number of Threads.
On development versions ; Rendering - Number of threads.

According to earlier threads - increasing the number of threads will only improve performance if filters are used.

flamingolady;
The easiest way to figure the number of cores available is to give your PC the "three-finger-salute"
- CTRL + ALT + DEL to start the task manager
- then select the "Performance" tab
- count the small squares with CPU usage history
- this will be equal to the numbers of threads available;

From my system;

( Click Image for larger version )
The number of threads are here eight -
number of cores in the processor are four - the processor can handle eight threads as each core
got what's called hyperthreading where it can switch rapidly between two tasks.

The 64bit vs 32bit has really nothing to do with number of cores.
Simply put a 64bit operating system can handle more memory - the memory a 32bit operating system can handle is limited to; 2^32 = two to the power of 32 = 4096 MB or 4 GB of RAM.
( The actual is even less as hardware devices like video cards etc shares the same memory addressing space as the RAM - ( even if the video card got it's own memory on the card. )

Do a google search for "cores vs threads" and "32 vs 64 bit os"

To figure what your machine is using
- right click on "My Computer" on the desktop and select "properties" or start a "DOS-Window" - Click start - type "CMD" in the "Search Programs and Files"
in the resulting window type "Winver"

Good Luck.
RGDS
Ragnar

ah, thx Ragnar! I counted 8 boxes on yours, so I was expecting you to say 8, oh well.
Minky - now you see why I didn't attempt to answer you in full, lol.
I have 2 big boxes, so does that mean I have 2 cores? will assume yes unless I see or hear otherwise.

Hi

I have 2 big boxes, so does that mean I have 2 cores? will assume yes unless I see or hear otherwise.

Reckon you got a single core with hyperthreading.

ah, thx Ragnar! I counted 8 boxes on yours, so I was expecting you to say 8, oh well.

I have updated the post - please re-read. Will go through a few more "read / correct" cycles.
RGDS
Ragnar

flamingolady wrote:...I can't even use the 'Live' preview on most of Inkscapes filters and extensions. ...

I feel your pain, Dee.

This is how I made Inkscape easier to live with: In Inkscape 0.48.4 from the menu bar: File > Inkscape Preferences... > Filters. Under "Gaussian blur quality" and "Filter effects quality", I selected "(•) Lower quality (faster)" for both, and chose 2 for the number of threads, since I have a Pentium 4 CPU that displays 2 cores in the Task Manager.

There's a trade-off. What is displayed on screen and what the PNG version look like are different. The blur on screen is less dramatic. However, more than once I've accidentally zoomed in "a bit too close" only to watch Inkscape consume my system's resources to the point of a crawl for quite some time before I could tame it into behaving again.

Last point: If I must see a more exact effect, I'll save my document, go back into Inkscape's settings and bump both qualities up to "(•) Better quality (slower)" and just exercise patience.

flamingolady wrote:(and BTW, when it says 'restart required', does that mean to shutdown Inkscape and re-open it, or does that mean a pc re-boot)?

Any time you make a change under Filters, restart Inkscape. Leave Windows/Linux/MacOS running. No system restart required.

aha, I've learned quite a few things. thanks Bob and Ragnar, both of you are such knowledgeable resources.
Well, I put my # of thread in Inkscape to 2, but it's actually slower, now crashed in trying to open up a couple of files, so think I was better off at 1 thread. Had never heard of hyerthreading either.
Bob - good idea about changing the quality for viewing, and happy to know that a cold re-boot isn't required.
thanks all.
dee

flamingolady wrote:Well, I put my # of thread in Inkscape to 2, but it's actually slower, now crashed in trying to open up a couple of files, so think I was better off at 1 thread.

Gosh, Dee. Glad you mentioned that. The thought was nagging at me as I wrote my answer. Here's the point...

If we set Inkscape to use BOTH (i.e., all current) processors, then we've handed over the entire system's resources. That leaves nothing to spare should Inkscape decide to push both processors up to 100% use. I agree with reducing the number to 1.

I wonder about one thing: Inkscape asks how many processors (CPUs) I have, but it doesn't seem to take advantage of my GPU that has 1 Gb RAM (nVidia GeForce GT430). I kinda wish Inkscape would take advantage of that instead of my processors.

Hi.
BobSongs;

I kinda wish Inkscape would take advantage of that instead of my processors.

From the wiki;
This is listed on the roadmap AFTER 0.49.
On the inkscape.org site roadmap GPU is not mentioned at all.
BobSongs;

If we set Inkscape to use BOTH (i.e., all current) processors, then we've handed over the entire system's resources.
That leaves nothing to spare should Inkscape decide to push both processors up to 100% use.I agree with reducing the number to 1.

Hmm.. Enabling all cores on my system and zooming in on a heavily filtered image (Visage_Realiste.SVG) the max CPU utilization never exceeds 80% - Enough left for me to "Multitask" while Inkscape renders the image.
Zooming in from 113% to 160% takes 30 seconds on a 2560x1440 pixel display with all cores enabled and 100 seconds with only one core enabled.

RGDS
Ragnar

It appears that Ragnar's 8 initial threads better handle processing than my dual core processors. Bob - good point, think you hit the nail on the head, (re: turning everything over to Inkscape files). Ragnar - curious, did your computer come that way, with the 8 threads or did you re-partition it that way somehow?
I notice that even with using 1 thread that my CPU usage goes way up, Inkscape seems to crash when it gets over 60%, not quite sure why it can't go up to 100% before crashing, but it's been that way on all the pc's I've used it on.

It would be great if the aging renderer could use all the CUDAs in my nVidia GPU. The current renderer is pretty solid on all sorts of CPUs and operating systems but, it's very slow.

Regarding number of bits questions. The 64 bit or 32 bit is the number of bits that make up the fixed width of data units the CPU handles, a byte. In the olden days it was 8 bit and 16 bit. Naturally, this number relates to how large a memory address (number) you can make, as the CPU works with data in memory addresses. This is an oversimplification for brevity, as the addressing scheme has a lot of history/baggage from earlier CPU versions and there are addressing schemes to get around some of the limitations. As each instruction being executed in the CPU work with data in either 32 bit or 64 bit byte, the 64 bit unsurprisingly can double the amount of work (on data) in the same time as a 32 bit CPU.

Often car analogies are used to explain the workings of a computer... but I've found it's often a lot more understandable with a cookery analogy. So...

Processor core = Oven.
Cache memory = Work surface.
RAM = Cupboards/fridge in the kitchen.
Hard Drive = Larder, fridge, freezer or cupboard in the utility room.


A processor with more cores is like having multiple ovens - you can cook more things at once, but you're still limited by the shared workspace, cupboards and larder. Hyperthreading is like putting a shelf in the oven, so you can cook two things in a single oven but not quite as efficiently as cooking two things in two separate ovens. So if you have two cores, both with hyperthreading, you can cook four things at once.

Moving things between the work surface and the oven is pretty fast, but you've only got a limited amount of work surface available, so if you want to prepare a banquet you may need to swap things back and forth between the work surface and the cupboards or fridge. Bigger work surfaces means less of that back-and-forth, and similarly a processor with a bigger cache can work on more data before it needs to access the RAM.

If you run out of cupboard space in the kitchen you might need to swap things back and forth to the utility room. That's really slow, as you've got to go through doors, avoid the dog, wander down a corridor, pause at the window to wonder why the neighbour's roses look so much better than yours, and eventually get to the utility room and back. Similarly if you run out of RAM the operating system will try to swap some of its content to the hard drive, but that's really slow in comparison to using data from RAM, which in turn is very slow compared with using it from the cache.

Bringing it all back to Inkscape, this means that big or complex files can be very slow to work with, especially if your machine has insufficient RAM and has to keep swapping to hard drive. Multiple cores, or hyperthreading, can speed things up - but with the 0.48 code it will only speed up rendering of Gaussian Blur filters, I believe. If you're lacking RAM and are swapping to the hard drive, speeding up your blurs will not really have much of an effect; the bottleneck of swapping to disk will be many times higher than the gains from rendering on multiple cores.


Now we'll add one more device to the kitchen: a microwave oven. This is like the processor on a modern graphics card - sometimes referred to as the GPU. There are some things that you can't practically cook in a microwave, but for those things that can it's a lot faster than a conventional oven. Generally you need both a conventional oven, for general purpose cooking, and a microwave for faster but more specialised use. In the same way you have a CPU for general computing, and a GPU for specialised tasks. Graphics cards can also have multiple cores, which is like having multiple microwaves - each one can cook things a lot faster, and you can cook more things in parallel.

This is why there's interest in using the GPU to render things in Inkscape. It will mean much faster processing of filters, and it's a lot easier to upgrade your graphics card than it is to replace your processor (much like it's usually easier to replace the microwave than the oven).


32-bit vs 64-bit is kind of like two different sizes of oven. 64-bit just means you can cook bigger dishes, using more ingredients from the cupboard at a time, and letting you benefit from having larger cupboards (more RAM).



I hope that helps someone out there, but if I've just confused you even more, and you're now wondering where the toaster and waffle iron fit into your computer, feel free to promptly forget all of the above.

Hi Ragnar and Xav, are you just running the regular Inkscape installer or is there a 64 bit version being compiled for windows? Is there some option to choose 32 or 64bitthat I have missed? And is anyone compiling 64bit development builds? Is there anyway to tell after an application is installed if it is taking advantage of 64 bit processing?

For instance I can get a 64 bit Blender and Gimp, but not a 64 bit Inkscape? Is this correct?

Hi druban.
You are correct, you can get 64 bit Blender and GIMP, but not (yet) 64bit Inkscape (on Windows - Linux might have a 64bit Inkscape).

When installing Inkscape I used the "inkscape-0.48.4-1-win32.exe" installer,
as the file name indicates this is compiled as a 32 bit program.
(To "install" dev-builds I just copy the unzipped Inkscape directory to my C:\Graphics\ folder and allow overwriting everything.)

Yoy can tell after installation if a program is 32 bit or 64 bit by using the gnu program "file"
Running this on my Inkscape as follows; C:\Graphics\Inkscape>file inkscape.exe gives this result;
inkscape.exe; PE32 executable for MS Windows (GUI) Intel 80386 32-bit

The "file" program can be found here; http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/file.htm

Running "file" on GIMP; C:\Program Files\GIMP 2.7\bin>file gimp-2.7.exe
gimp-2.7.exe; PE32+ executable for MS Windows (GUI) Mono/.Net assembly

The PE32+ here indicates that this is a 64 bit application.

RGDS
Ragnar

XAV - Your explanation is the best that I've ever seen, kudos! Please consider copying it and placing amongst the resource info so everyone else can see it too. thanks much!

druban wrote:Hi Ragnar and Xav, are you just running the regular Inkscape installer or is there a 64 bit version being compiled for windows?

I'm using Inkscape on Linux (Ubuntu and Linux Mint), so I'm just using whatever's in the package manager for my particular installation, and haven't really given any thought as to whether it's 32- or 64-bit (the machine I'm on right now will definitely be 32-bit as it's due to celebrate its 10th birthday this year, and was only a cheap desktop back when it was bought!).

flamingolady wrote:XAV - Your explanation is the best that I've ever seen, kudos! Please consider copying it and placing amongst the resource info so everyone else can see it too. thanks much!

I've put it "Inkscape Resources" (I'm sure a mod will move it if that's not the best place for it), and expanded on it a little: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14060

thx XAV! I saw it there!

one more question for Ragnar and Xav - and anyone who knows... since Inkscape is still a 32-bit application at this time, and as I understand it 32-bit addressing can only make use of 3 -3.6 GB of memory, when people complain of slowness and are told to add more RAM to their system does it really make any difference after that 32-bit threshold? What I mean is that if a person has 4gb and their file is so large that Inkscape struggles with it, it seems that upgrading their system to have 8 - or 16 - GB available will make no difference at all. Have I missed some nuance of the issue here?

Hi flamingolady.

I am impressed - you must have had your "thinking hat" on. ref;Gyro Gearloose and Gyro's helper?

You are absolutely right - a 32 bit application can normally not address more than 4Gb of memory.

Info from the net;
In the normal, default 32 bit Windows OS configuration, 2 GB of the virtual address space are allocated to the process’ private use and the other 2 GB are allocated to shared and operating system use. Therefore only 2 GB can be used by a process in reality.
This means even if your is 4Gb Inkscape will only be able to use half that.

Info from the net;
Unfortunately, access to RAM beyond 4GB is limited to servers. A desktop may be using PAE (Physical Address Extension) but will ignore any RAM beyond 4GB. There are a number of technical and marketing reasons for this.

RGDS
Ragnar

druban wrote:one more question for Ragnar and Xav - and anyone who knows... since Inkscape is still a 32-bit application at this time, and as I understand it 32-bit addressing can only make use of 3 -3.6 GB of memory, when people complain of slowness and are told to add more RAM to their system does it really make any difference after that 32-bit threshold? What I mean is that if a person has 4gb and their file is so large that Inkscape struggles with it, it seems that upgrading their system to have 8 - or 16 - GB available will make no difference at all. Have I missed some nuance of the issue here?

Usually "add more RAM to the system" as a means of speeding things up only works if the system as a whole is low on memory and so is swapping data out to the hard drive. In my analogy this is like running out of cupboard space, so having to take some things out of the cupboard, walk them to the utility room, swap them with other things and then walk the new things back to the cupboard. If you then need one of the things that you've swapped, you need to repeat the process in the opposite direction.

By swapping chunks of memory to the hard drive like this, an operating system can keep multiple applications running on a machine that theoretically doesn't have enough memory for them all. But swapping to a hard drive is very slow, so increasing the memory can speed up the machine simply by reducing the need to swap. You can typically see when this is the likely cause of a slowdown because the hard drive is almost constantly thrashing, even when no files are explicitly being opened or saved.

If Inkscape is struggling with a large file, and the hard drive is not thrashing, then it's unlikely that RAM is the limitation.


To more specifically answer your question though: yes, as a 32-bit application Inkscape can only access 2GB of address space on Windows, or 3GB on Linux. But Inkscape won't be the only thing running on the machine, so you could still run out of RAM on a 4GB machine simply because various other applications are also eating into the pool. When running on a standard 32-bit operating system it's not possible for the OS to access any memory above 4GB, so upgrading the RAM won't help, as the shared pool will still be 4GB maximum.

Notice that I said "standard" 32-bit OS. There are "server" versions of operating systems that provide access to 36-bits of address space using a thing called PAE (Physical Address Extension). For Windows this option was available with 2003 Server and 2005 Server versions, not with normal desktop versions. For Linux a suitable kernel is available for most mainstream distributions, even desktop systems. When using one of these systems each application is still limited to a 32-bit address space, but they are no longer all confined to the same 4GB pool if there's more memory available. In other words, the system can use up to 64GB, but each individual application can still only use 2GB (Windows) or 4GB (Linux)*


The summary of all this is:

1) If your system is slow and your hard drive is thrashing, a RAM upgrade might help.
2) Even with plenty of RAM, Inkscape is likely to be slow long before it uses up all its available memory space. Adding more memory in that case won't help.
3) If you're running a 32-bit Windows system, upgrading beyond 4GB of RAM is a waste of money.
4) If you're running a 32-bit Linux system you can upgrade beyond 4GB of RAM, but will need to change to a different kernel to use it.
5) A 64-bit OS allows access to much more memory, but your 32-bit applications will still be limited to 2GB or 4GB of addressable memory.


* 4GB because with PAE enabled each application can potentially use 4GB rather than the 3GB on a standard 32-bit kernel.

Xav, thanks for the confirmation! I thought that I should not expect any great improvement in Inkscape's performance when moving to a 64bit machine with a GPU and unfortunately this has been borne out! Although I am starting to think that you might be saying, "Swap out one of your HDDs for a speedy SSD for faster swapping!" Oh no! That is what you are saying, isn't it?

druban wrote:Xav, thanks for the confirmation! I thought that I should not expect any great improvement in Inkscape's performance when moving to a 64bit machine with a GPU and unfortunately this has been borne out! Although I am starting to think that you might be saying, "Swap out one of your HDDs for a speedy SSD for faster swapping!" Oh no! That is what you are saying, isn't it?

Replacing a spinning disk with a solid state drive will result in faster swapping, but you would get a much better result from increasing the RAM so that the system doesn't have to swap at all.

SSDs are best used to house your operating system and frequently used applications, as they've got particularly good read speeds, which is what's needed most when booting the machine or starting a program. For example I recently put an SSD in my 3 year old Linux box, and it now boots to the login screen in about 7 seconds (down from about 20-30 before).

Where lots of storage space is required, and a second extra on the access time won't make any difference (such as directories full of movies or mp3s) then a normal hard drive will probably give you the best value for money. I still have one in my machine in addition to the SSD for that reason.

So my usual advice would be to increase the RAM first to reduce the swapping, and only then consider an SSD to speed up booting and application launching in addition to your existing HDD for general storage.


And before any of that, make sure you've got a decent backup regime. Too many people focus on speeding their machine up to save a few seconds here and there, while many years of photos and data are just a power surge away from oblivion!

So I think I didn't understand you the first time, when I thought I did, but I think I understand you now. If I have 8G RAM and since Inkscape is a 32 bit app it won't use the swap file at all, since the swap file addressing is included in the 2-3 G limit? (Assuming that no other app is using the RAM and Windows is only sucking up its usual 1 Gig or so)

Swapping is just a mechanism for the operating system to pretend that it's got more memory than it really has. Suppose you have 10 programs, each wanting to use 512MB of RAM. Ignoring the OS, that would mean that you would need at least 5GB of RAM to run them all. If your machine has only 4GB then the OS will try to keep the most recently used 8 programs and their data in memory, and swap out the other two to the hard drive. If you then try to access one of those two, it will be put into memory and the least recently used of the other 8 will be saved to the hard drive in its place.

In practice it's not whole applications that are swapped, but "pages" of memory which are typically smaller units, but the basic principle is the same.

Whether Inkscape is 32-bit or not is irrelevant. Yes, that means it can "only" access 2GB of memory space, but if there are already a load of other applications that are using up the available memory then the system could still end up swapping. Conversely if you're just running Inkscape and Windows on an 8GB system then it's unlikely that there will be much swapping at all happening, if any.

Occasional swapping is fine. It's the difference between your OS managing to handle an out of memory situation, versus it just crashing the whole system. It's when the system is almost constantly swapping that you've got a problem, which I've seen on more than one XP box with 256MB or 512MB of RAM once too much starts to happen*. So generally don't worry about it, unless your machine goes very slowly and your hard drive is thrashing hard, for more than a few seconds at a time when you're not specifically launching an application or loading/saving a file.



* I've commonly seen it on boxes where the user has installed half a dozen "trial" versions of anti-virus software, plus a few applications from different printer and scanner vendors, a copy of iTunes, a third party firewall, and so on.... All these things tend to run in the background, so it's easy to end up with a load of programs running even though you don't realise it. Combine that with limited memory and it's a classic recipe for swapping.