Inkscape runs very slowly

[Cottonshirt]

I am a noob running Inkscape 0.91 on a Windows PC.

I have been using Inkscape for just three days and am very disappointed with how slowly it runs.

for example, I watched a Youtube Video of a guy demonstrating some simple concepts and when he clicked on the eye icon to make different layers visible or invisible the effect could be seen on his screen pretty much instantly. with my first Inkscape project, a map with four layers, when I do this it takes three minutes for the change to take effect.

further example, I was using the paint tool to fill in some areas, and similarly, it took three minutes for the tool to fill in an area and for me to be able to move on to the next area.

I typed some text to label a town on the map, and it took two and a half minutes before I could do something else.

the document takes over two minutes to load when I open it.

these times are not estimates; I timed them with a stopwatch.

I should perhaps mention that most of the time I am working at a zoom level of 600%, I am not using filters. I did however, Import a map to draw over and I notice from a post on a similar topic that "embedded images" affect performance but I'm afraid that I am sufficiently stupid that I don't yet know whether "Import" is the same as "embed."

some system values:
the document is 15,855 KB
Total Physical Memory............ 1,025.00 MB
Total Virtual Memory   .............. 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory....... 1.96 GB
Memory (RAM)....................... 1.00 GB
Disc Capacity......................... 540.14 GB
Page File Space..................... 4.80 GB

are these response times normal in Inkscape and is there anything I can do to improve performance?

many thanks,

[brynn]

Is that 1.0 gb RAM a typo?!  That's the lowest RAM I've ever heard of, since before Windows XP.  If that 1.0 gb is correct, I'm afraid you will have trouble with Inkscape, with even average-size files.  That's because Inkscape uses primarily RAM to display images and do its work.

However, there are a couple of tips I could give you.  If you're using Inkscape version 0.91, you can try disabling the rulers.  On certain systems, this can greatly improve performance.  View menu > Show/Hide  (It's a bug, and I'm not sure if it's going to be fixed in 0.92 or not.  But if so, 0.92 is not so far away.)

If that gives you a big boost, then good!  If it doesn't give you a big boost in performance, then that's not what's causing your problem, and the problem is more likely that small amount of RAM.  (I just bought a new system with 8gb RAM, and you can get as much as 16 gb these days!)

Even if the problem is with the small amount of RAM, there still are some things you can do to help with performance issues.  Here's a tutorial/article I wrote, to help people with that:  http://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=35

While the Inkscape project has never published any kind of "minimum requirements", personally, I would not recommend using Inkscape with less than 2 gb RAM.  Inkscape will run on less RAM than that, but not very well, in even the best of circumstances.

If that's a desktop computer, you might be able to buy some more RAM.  I know I doubled my XP RAM.  It came with 1 GB, but I was able to buy a chip (or is it a "card"??) and install it myself!  And then I had 2 GB.  But I don't think you can add RAM to laptops of that era.  However, I'm pretty sure MS support has ended for XP, so it might be hard to find extra RAM.  I know there are a lot of used computer shops where I live, so if you really searched, you could probably find it.

[Cottonshirt]

thank you for your reply.

turning the rulers off made a slight difference to some aspects of performance; how quickly menus come up, switching between layers and making layers visible and invisible, etc, but all editing of the document itself was not affected.

I'm not sure why that might be the case but the fact that I have two sticks with 500mb RAM each might mean the rulers freed up only one stick of RAM, but that is essentially a complete guess.

my computer guy has ordered me some RAM and it should be here by the end of the week so I'll get back to you and let you know if that fixes the matter, which I am sure it will.

and, incidentally, 1 GB of RAM was not a mistake or a typo, I am not what you might call a "power user" and performance has never previously been an issue for me.

thank you.

[brynn]

Mmm, no the issue that is fixed by the rulers is not related to the RAM issue.  These are 2 separate issues.

Sigh.....I wish I had a computer guy