Scrolling text unsmooth - help!

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 19th, 2005, 10:01 am

Hi!

Using lcd smartie with palm orb on a Palm IIIc with serial connection.
With standard settings for scroll speed it looks ok but I want the text to
scroll faster. No matter what settings I try for update interval and scroll interval it just looks choppy and ugly. The text doesn't scroll smooth, it comes in chunks so to speak - what can I do?

regards,
Kristian

Post by **limbo** » July 19th, 2005, 7:08 pm

Are you using any plugin in this screen or not?

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 20th, 2005, 8:33 am

Yes I am but the same thing occures when I just type a long line in plain text, it get's choppy!

Post by **limbo** » July 20th, 2005, 2:11 pm

did you noticed any speed change when you triggering the scroll intervall?

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 20th, 2005, 8:36 pm

Yes the speed is faster but it's even more choppy and not pleasent to look at, scrolls faster, but choppier that is

Post by **limbo** » July 21st, 2005, 1:26 pm

Since I don't experience amy problem with the parallael connection (I think there is a suspicion in the serial connected lcd), I suspect that is something with the baud rate...

Can you try to trigger this setting?

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 21st, 2005, 3:57 pm

I've tried fiddling around with that but it doesn't seem to do much really! No matter what setting I try I only get a soso scroll smoothness, it's alright but not great, chops up at times and doesn't feel smooth enough, perhaps I'm just demanding? Try 75 ms update interval and 100ms scroll interval, is your display REALLY smooth?

regards Kristian

Post by **limbo** » July 22nd, 2005, 4:38 pm

I 'm using a Matrix Orbital with serial connection and a parallel HD44780 LCD's. There is a little intangible stop every 7 or 10 characters on scrolling only in the serial LCD.

But far away from a choppy moving!.

Try to use a new configuration file (make a backup copy of yours first).
and set only the parameters needed to drive your Palm OS, with only one screen enabled.

Hit me back with your results

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 26th, 2005, 9:15 pm

Sorry for the delay.

Tried this and it won't do much.
My machine it's running on is a hmm what is it... 300mhz 333mhz even I think, is this too little, should be strange if it couldn't run a friggin serial device

I get the same old, with 75/200 setting I get a relatively smooth display, it's not great but it's ok, when I go to 75/100 which is somewhere around my desired setup it's getting quite choppy. I get a chop in the flow every like 4th character or something, it's not a HUGE chop but it's unpleasent to read, that's for sure.

does anyone have any idea about this?

tried to increase the baudrate to 115kbps no luyck, I'musing a palm iiic, is it too old and slow? sounds strange if that darn thing can't scroll a friggin text

regards,
Kristian

Post by **limbo** » July 26th, 2005, 10:00 pm

For sure something is happening with the hardware...

does the LCD smartie raises the CPU usage?
which OS are you running?

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 27th, 2005, 7:50 am

Os is win98 on that computer, second edition!
cpu use of lcd smartie is like 2-2,5% when showing a scrolling text.

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 27th, 2005, 9:16 am

Addition information:

I've now tried to lower the update interval to as low as 5 or 10, no difference even there, still choppy and unpelasent to read.

Now I got irritated so I wrote a quick and dirty delphi program scrolling a text on the display in a simple loop - and you know what? It scrolls as smooth as smooth can be - same computer - same setup - works brilliantly there, what the heck is the problem here?!

ps: don't tell me to write my own lcd program

I don't have time for that crap

regards,
Kristian

Post by **limbo** » July 27th, 2005, 9:35 am

any time to check the smartie source code and debug it?

I mean that the LCD Smartie is Open Source...
Instead to build your own lcd application that seems to be huge work for you, can you check out the code for any bug related to this strange behavior?

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 27th, 2005, 9:37 am

oh no, is it delphi?

darn it! I usually get by with that I don't code c++

well erhh... maybe! depends on how much work it seems to be

I was just making a simple loop with no timers and other "serious crap", I might have a look at it, if you don't have any other ideas

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 27th, 2005, 9:39 am

where can I find the sourcecode for the latest beta? actually I am running the beta instead of the final, might there be any new code inside that which is causing this problem?

Post by **limbo** » July 27th, 2005, 9:53 am

Guess what!
We have discovered a new developer here

I'm afraid that I will dissapoint you about the latest beta source code
the only source code is available is for the 5.3 final...
get it here: Source code

I 'll try to bug Clansley about the latest version.

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 27th, 2005, 9:55 am

try that, we'll see what I find, might eat more time than it's worth though so I don't promise anything else than I will look

saw there was lotsa stuff to go through!

cheers!

Post by **limbo** » July 28th, 2005, 8:51 am

Clansey replied about the source files of latest beta release:

It's all available from cvs - all they need to do is download a cvs client and download the lot. See sourceforge docs for details.

Check links below
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_d ... group_id=1
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_d ... group_id=1

pluto2 · Post by **pluto2** » July 28th, 2005, 9:08 am

geez, I don't have CVS stuff laying around here, never gotten into it, we'll see what comes out of this, perhaps I'll just look at the stable source, see if I can find the error and then contact one of the developers with the corrected code and have them include it, we'll see!