System Requirements & Performances

[eoriou]

Hi,
I tested GWT designer (GXT add-in in fact) for two weeks and I loved it ! But I meet several performance issues :
1. when I dragged a component from the palette and dropped it into a container (three seconds to see the component in the container since I dropped the component)
2. when I changed a component's property in property inspector, changes on component appear two seconds later in design panel

Perhaps, my computer is not good enough to use GWT Designer comfortably (Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 @ 1,66GHz / 2 Gb RAM /Windows XP SP2) ?
Could you give me the recommended system requirements for the tool ? I don't see them on your site.

Today I think GWT Designer is the best tool to design GWT application but it is a bit slow to build a real application

[Eric Clayberg]

We don't see anything remotely like that. Changing a property or moving a widget is essentially instantaneous on all the machines we have access to.

How much memory do you have assigned to run Eclipse? Slowness may be indicative of swapping.

Are there any exceptions being written to you Eclipse ".log" file? That could slow it down as well.

Finally, are you running any other JavaScript oriented tools/debuggers/monitors that might be interfering with or slowing down JavaScript execution?

[eoriou]

Hi,
I have firstly assigned 512 Mb to run Eclipse and now Eclipse have 1024 Mb to run but operations like "moving a widget" are still slow. There aren't any exception in Eclipse log file. Here is my configuration which is described in this log file :
java.fullversion=J2RE 1.5.0 IBM J9 2.3 Windows XP x86-32 j9vmwi3223ifx-20080811 (JIT enabled)
J9VM - 20080809_21892_lHdSMr
JIT - 20080620_1845_r8
GC - 200806_19
BootLoader constants: OS=win32, ARCH=x86, WS=win32, NL=fr_FR
Framework arguments: -Xms128m -Xmx1024m
Command-line arguments: -os win32 -ws win32 -arch x86 -Xms128m -Xmx1024m

And finally I don't use any other Javascript oriented tools.
I will send you a video to illustrate these performance issues.

[Eric Clayberg]

Cam you also send us a small test project that shows this?

Does this happen in a brand new project with a single class?

What happens if you just use the standard Sun JVM (1.6)? What about a newer J9 version?

[eoriou]

Please find at this url http://oriou.emmanuel.free.fr/public/ differents elements which allow a better analysis of this issue :
1. gwtdesigner.avi : a video which illustrate the issue
2. blank9.ear : a simple project with only one graphical class (J2EE ear format)
3. blank9.part* : the same project (project archive)

I will test the use of one of the latest J9 version this afternoon.

[Eric Clayberg]

I tried your example using Eclipse 3.5 and JDK 1.6 and repeated the actions I saw in your video. Everything updated instantaneously, and there was no delay at all for any change.

Please give this a try using Eclipse 3.5 and JDK 1.6 on your end to see if you get the same results. If so, there is something else going on in your current environment that is causing the slow response (Eclipse version? JVM version?).

[eoriou]

Hi,
Yesterday, I tried to run GWT Designer using Eclipse 3.5 and IBM J9 1.6 SR5. In this configuration, performances are a little bit better but updates on HIM aren't instantaneously. Could you give me the recommended system requirements for GWT Designer ? And could you record a video which illustrate the same scenario with tool like CamStudio (free product) in your environment (it's really easy to do) ? I would like to see how good performances can be on your computer.

[Eric Clayberg]

Yesterday, I tried to run GWT Designer using Eclipse 3.5 and IBM J9 1.6 SR5.

Try it with the real Sun 1.6 JVM.

Does your project show any problems/errors in the Eclipse Problems view? Are there any exceptions in your Eclipse ".log" file? If the system is recording some sort of repeated exception, that could account for the apparent slowness.

Could you give me the recommended system requirements for GWT Designer ?

See the System Requirement docs.

Beyond that, 256-512MB of memory to run Eclipse is sufficient.

I see you have -Xmx1024m set. Try -Xms256, -Xms512 or -Xms1024 to see if it makes any difference.

[eoriou]

Try it with the real Sun 1.6 JVM.

No difference with the previous test.

Does your project show any problems/errors in the Eclipse Problems view? Are there any exceptions in your Eclipse ".log" file? If the system is recording some sort of repeated exception, that could account for the apparent slowness.

No error in Problems view . Just warnings

Classpath entry /blank9Web/gxt.jar will not be exported or published. Runtime ClassNotFoundExceptions may result.
Classpath entry GWT_HOME/gwt-user.jar will not be exported or published. Runtime ClassNotFoundExceptions may result.
Grid is a raw type. References to generic type Grid<M> should be parameterized
Grid is a raw type. References to generic type Grid<M> should be parameterized
ListStore is a raw type. References to generic type ListStore<M> should be parameterized
The import com.extjs.gxt.ui.client.Style is never used ImageViewer.java
The import com.google.gwt.event.dom.client.ClickEvent is never used
The import com.google.gwt.event.dom.client.ClickHandler is never used
The import com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.Button is never used
The import com.google.gwt.user.client.Window is never used
The import java.util.Collections is never used
Type safety: The constructor Grid(ListStore, ColumnModel) belongs to the raw type Grid. References to generic type Grid<M> should be parameterized
No grammar constraints (DTD or XML schema) detected for the document.

No exception in .log file :

!SESSION 2009-11-18 15:13:07.270 -----------------------------------------------
eclipse.buildId=M20090917-0800
java.version=1.6.0_06
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
BootLoader constants: OS=win32, ARCH=x86, WS=win32, NL=fr_FR
Framework arguments: -product org.eclipse.epp.package.jee.product
Command-line arguments: -os win32 -ws win32 -arch x86 -product org.eclipse.epp.package.jee.product

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-11-18 15:14:12.629
!MESSAGE System property http.proxyHost is not set but should be 138.21.89.193.

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-11-18 15:14:12.629
!MESSAGE System property http.proxyPort is not set but should be 3128.

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-11-18 15:14:12.629
!MESSAGE System property https.proxyHost is not set but should be 138.21.89.193.

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-11-18 15:14:12.645
!MESSAGE System property https.proxyPort is not set but should be 3128.

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-11-18 15:14:12.645
!MESSAGE System property https.proxyHost is not set but should be 138.21.89.193.

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-11-18 15:14:12.645
!MESSAGE System property https.proxyPort is not set but should be 3128.

See the System Requirement docs.

This documentation doesn't define the recommended hardware configuration (CPU, RAM, ...). However these informations are important to know when performances issue happens.

Could you please send me a video which shows the good tool's performances in your environment ?

[Eric Clayberg]

This documentation doesn't define the recommended hardware configuration (CPU, RAM, ...).

Those are basically the same as they are for Eclipse itself. If you can run Eclipse and GWT, you can run GWT Designer. Any typical developer-class machine from the last 4-5 years with a typical configuration will be fine. I have run it on very minimal machines (including low-end netbooks) without any problems.

Could you please send me a video which shows the good tool's performances in your environment ?

We already have quite a few web demos up on our site that you can watch. As I said before, I see no delay whatsoever in making any property or layout changes.

[eoriou]

We already have quite a few web demos up on our site that you can watch. As I said before, I see no delay whatsoever in making any property or layout changes.

Yes. I saw them. But there are no gxt component used in your web demos. And I meet performance issues when I use gxt components. Not really with gwt components.

Those are basically the same as they are for Eclipse itself. If you can run Eclipse and GWT, you can run GWT Designer. Any typical developer-class machine from the last 4-5 years with a typical configuration will be fine. I have run it on very minimal machines (including low-end netbooks) without any problems.

Compared to a low-end netbook, my computer (Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 @ 1,66GHz / 2 Gb RAM) is very powerful !!! Unfortunately, I can't use GWT Designer comfortably (GXT part) as you saw in the video. Any Idea ?

Could you tell me if i'm the only one user to meet performance issues ?

[Eric Clayberg]

Using GXT does slow down things slightly (especially during initial opening of the window), but moving widgets around or changing properties should take no more than a second or so. From your video, it looks like it is taking 5-10 seconds per operation. We have now tried it on half a dozen machines here and seen essentially the same results.

Out of curiosity, what is the Windows Experience Index score for your machine (from the Windows "Performance Information and Tools" control panel)?

[eoriou]

Out of curiosity, what is the Windows Experience Index score for your machine (from the Windows "Performance Information and Tools" control panel)?

Sorry, but today Windows XP is still the only OS used by my company. And I think this benchmarking tools exists only on Windows Vista and Windows Seven OS and not on Windows XP.

[Eric Clayberg]

Give the latest build a try. We added some GXT specific optimizations that might help.

[eoriou]

I just tested the latest version and actually, performances are significantly improved. Thank you.