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Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

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Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#161

Post by userbinator »

overgard wrote: post #68
quinndupont wrote: post #52

In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism and decided (last year) to buy a top-of-the-line Thinkpad. A couple of months later, taking a huge economic hit, I sold the Thinkpad and returned to Apple. I simply could not handle the trackpad (and I gave up on the weird Thinkpad nubbin back in the early 2000s). I quite literally felt like I had a d…

I don't know that apple gets this right either. (I have a macbook). The actual tracking feels fantastic and precise, and it has a nice texture, but I /hate/ how they refuse to put real buttons below it. Things like "right mouse drag" which I use all the time become a nightmare, and the whole "no buttons" thing just seems like it's putting aesthetics over functionality.

I had the same experience with a relatively recent (2013?) Macbook, trying to help someone with one. I agree the tracking is quite nice, but clicking it requires far more force than I'm used to, meaning that trying to hold it down and drag is even worse - the friction is too high. The tactile response when it goes down and back up is also a bit weird; it's too dull and heavy-feeling when it goes down, there's almost no travel, and it comes back up with little sensation. It feels more like a "thud" than a "click", almost like the entire case of the machine is yielding slightly.

After working the trackpad a few more times and my fingers getting rather tired I tried to use keyboard shortcuts instead, but remembered that OS X doesn't have the Alt+ key combinations that Windows has, and tabbing through controls is disabled by default.

(My usual laptop is a Thinkpad X60, where I use the trackpoint and its buttons, and keyboard shortcuts whenever possible. On my desktop, I use a Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical v1.1A, which I think is one of the best mouses ever made.)

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#162

Post by seanmcdirmid »

userbinator wrote: post #161
overgard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that apple gets this right either. (I have a macbook). The actual tracking feels fantastic and precise, and it has a nice texture, but I /hate/ how they refuse to put real buttons below it. Things like "right mouse drag" which I use all the time become a nightmare, and the whole "no buttons" thing just seems like it's putting aesthetics over functionality.

I had the same experience with a relatively recent (2013?) Macbook, trying to help someone with one. I agree the tracking is quite nice, but clicking it requires far more force than I'm used to, meaning that trying to hold it down and drag is even worse - the friction is too high. The tactile response when it goes down and back up is also a bit weird; it's too dull and heavy-feeling when it goes down, there's almost…

You can turn on tap to click, but I find that while it works very well for OS X, I get too many false clicks in Windows while typing so have to disable it there.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#163

Post by randyrand »

quinndupont wrote: post #52

In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism and decided (last year) to buy a top-of-the-line Thinkpad. A couple of months later, taking a huge economic hit, I sold the Thinkpad and returned to Apple. I simply could not handle the trackpad (and I gave up on the weird Thinkpad nubbin back in the early 2000s). I quite literally felt like I had a d…

Two finger scroll on thinkpads has generally sucked. Nowdays it has gotten better, but I still use this much better 3rd party implementation:

https://code.google.com/p/two-finger-scroll/

Solved all my problems.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#164

Post by jmgtan »

I'm using a Thinkpad (T440) at work and whenever I have to undock from my desk I have to bring my mouse because I find myself always clicking the wrong things.

Now I use an rMBP at home, and more often than not I actually play Diablo 3 using just the trackpad, maybe I'm just used to it, but I haven't used a non-Apple laptop that has a usable trackpad.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#165

Post by return0 »

quinndupont wrote: post #52

In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism and decided (last year) to buy a top-of-the-line Thinkpad. A couple of months later, taking a huge economic hit, I sold the Thinkpad and returned to Apple. I simply could not handle the trackpad (and I gave up on the weird Thinkpad nubbin back in the early 2000s). I quite literally felt like I had a d…

> In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC

It should by now be obvious that this is impossible. If you dont want to start a flamewar, never mention the words mac and pc in the same sentence.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#166

Post by w1ntermute »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #154
w1ntermute wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Lenovo just took the original X1 Carbon, swapped in a 1440p screen, added a 16 GB RAM option, swapped in a Broadwell chip, and improved the battery life, it would be fantastic. I have the original X1 Carbon, and it's the perfect laptop.

The trackpad would still be crap, while I have injury issues with the trackpoint. But ya, it would be nice otherwise (I have an X1 Carbon Touch from work, personally use a rMBP).

I don't know anything about the quality of the trackpad, as I've had it disabled since the day I got my X1 Carbon (as I've done with all my ThinkPads), but I've never heard any major complaints about it before this from others.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#167

Post by userbinator »

The problem of smooth scrolling without much-increased CPU usage was solved long ago, in the era of 8-bit systems, by rendering slightly more lines to the framebuffer and simply changing the address in VRAM where the CRT controller started reading the data for a frame. The CPU could then render the additional scrolled-out lines in the background.

But it seems the common way to implement scrolling today is to either have the CPU or GPU actually move the data unnecessarily; there's no easy way to do the equivalent of adjusting the pointer to the window's data in memory so that the windowing system can scroll without having to perform any data movement.

Asus' trackpad driver may be at fault for turning the CPU up to 100%, but to me this is a sign of a deeper problem having to do with how inefficiently applications are doing their scrolling, and the APIs that encourage this inefficient way of doing it.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#168

Post by blkhp19 »

jakobegger wrote: post #121

Having just spent two days optimising the scrolling performance of my Mac app I understand the reasoning behind this. Fluid scrolling is hard. And while scrolling might be handled in part by the GPU, its still the CPU that renders the text that you're scrolling. If you're aiming for 60FPS, you probably have less than 10ms to render a screen when the user is scrolling quickly.

If you don't mind me asking, what optimizations are you making? I'm curious about what it takes to get 60 FPS scrolling in a Mac app.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#169

Post by seanmcdirmid »

w1ntermute wrote: post #166
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trackpad would still be crap, while I have injury issues with the trackpoint. But ya, it would be nice otherwise (I have an X1 Carbon Touch from work, personally use a rMBP).

I don't know anything about the quality of the trackpad, as I've had it disabled since the day I got my X1 Carbon (as I've done with all my ThinkPads), but I've never heard any major complaints about it before this from others.

Almost everyone in our office has X1s (we refreshed at the same time and this was the best available); and it is a universal complaint. The trackpoint really kills the nerves in my thumb tips, so I'd prefer not to use it.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#170

Post by BostonEnginerd »

aftbit wrote: post #67
ceejayoz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea how solid it is, but there's always the truly hilariously named HP Envy 14" if you want something that looks like a Macbook with a Windows button. http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/mdp/Lapt...

What if you explicitly don't want a clone of a Macbook? When my X220 is too old for a laptop, I don't know what I'll do. Modern ThinkPads are pretty unacceptable now, with the new keyboards and the giant clicky touchpad.

This has been driving me up the wall. I just want a modern replacement for my x61s -- higher res screen and longer battery life. I was thinking about trying to find an x220 to keep in the closet for when this laptop breaks.

It's super frustrating.

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