Total Commander

petermad wrote:

looks like you have exactly reproduced my findings

Well, it seems that TC is about 8 times faster on my PC compared to yours, whereas Explorer is only 2 times faster on my PC.

Or said in another way: your difference between TC and Explorer is about 6 times, while my difference is only 2 times.

I'm still not sure what to wote, because with more "normal" sized directories TC "feels" faster especially when navigating into the folder tree for the first time in a session - but that might be due TC's use of treeinfo.wc

Do you also use XP SP2?
My test:
TC ~3 s
Explorer ~0.8 sec

Do you also use XP SP2

Yes.

Well, my findings tested with 30000 files.

Changing name sorting etc.:
TC: 2 - 2,5 secs
Explorer: 1 sec

TC has also 2 secs delay on refocus. where Explorer has none. When natural sorting order is off, this process takes just 1 sec. Also TC 6.56 feels a little bit faster than TC 7.

Entering directory:
TC: 2 secs
Explorer: 3,5 secs

The listview control in Explorer is definetely more fluent here than the listbox in TC and even more important than that: It doesn't flicker when scrolling, everything is smooth.

On my machine the flickering of explorer is more annoying then TC.

Tested with:
TC 7RC5 / 6.56
WinXP SP2
NTFS
3,2 GHz p4
1,0 gb ram

Could you create a video of that flickering in Explorer?

@petermad:
Probably the different factor is because the listview control is not that dependant on CPU power as TC's listbox and scales way better. If you raise the number of files, the factor will raise too, the same effect as when you lower the speed of the CPU.

I have uploaded another app for creating a user-defined number of files for testing purposes:
http://icfu.totalcmd.net/Temp/create_X_files.exe

Icfu

silencer wrote:Also TC 6.56 feels a little bit faster than TC 7.

Well, you should probably try it out with TC5 then. It may be even quicker. Since the "thumbnails" implementation, TC seems a bit slower than before.

Update:
Well, I thought that Explorer listview was fast but now I repeated the same test in Altap (Servant) Salamander and Directory Opus on the same old box I used above, PII 333, 30000 files. These are the results:

SpeedCommander: 38 seconds
Total Commander: 25 seconds
Explorer: 4 seconds
Altap Salamander: ~0.4 seconds
Directory Opus: 2 seconds on the first switch, ~0.4 on the second and following.

DO is definetely using some caching mechanism AND because the file panel items are refreshed in real time this seems to be clearly the most powerful implementation regarding switching so far.

But, Altap outperforms all other file managers regarding the scrolling speed. It's incredibly smooth with no flickering.

I am surprised.

Icfu

Hmmm, all these speed measurements are interesting but i'm just curious, how much memory all these programs consume when showing those 30000 files (a "before" and "after" measurement would be more accurate)?

I have tried to keep the preconditions fair:
-both panels show C:\
-same columns
-in TC I have used classic view
-I have separated the Explorer shell process from the file manager processs by registry setting

Here you are: As we can see, RAM usage has nothing to do with speed, as long the file manager isn't called SpeedCommander...

Icfu

I must say, Altap Salamander results are impressive. Best speed and memory usage. I haven't seen it but i assume it's not as feature rich as TC, right?

Glad to see TC's memory benchmarks are good too. Perhaps something could be done about the speed. I still think that "thumbnails" should be blamed for its performance. I don't use this feature anyway so i wasn't happy about the performance degradation that came with it...

Thanks for all the tests icfu.

I haven't seen it but i assume it's not as feature rich as TC, right?

Right, but this fate it shares with all other file managers – besides Directory Opus which has some unique features found nowhere else – but more important with Altap Salamander is, that until now it lacks several features which are standard in ALL the big competitors meanwhile, like config files instead of registry, tabs, extended column support (at least Explorer extensions), etc...

Perhaps something could be done about the speed.

Not only the speed.... No other file manager flickers like a stroboscope when scrolling.

I still think that "thumbnails" should be blamed for its performance.

At least it has no influence of switching speed as this one is 1 second slower in TC 5.51.

Icfu

2icfu

Not only the speed.... No other file manager flickers like a stroboscope when scrolling.

Can you provide a video of that flickering while scrolling please.

icfu wrote:

I still think that "thumbnails" should be blamed for its performance.

At least it has no influence of switching speed as this one is 1 second slower in TC 5.51.

Icfu

I expected the opposite! What do you know...

I hope Christian will eventually manage to improve its speed.

Lefteous wrote:2icfu

Not only the speed.... No other file manager flickers like a stroboscope when scrolling.

Can you provide a video of that flickering while scrolling please.

http://www.ii.uj.edu.pl/~adamczym/TC_flickering.7z
Pentium D @ 2.86, nothing that could slow it down running. XP SP2.

http://icfu.totalcmd.net/TC/Videos/panel_flickering.sqx

Icfu

icfu wrote:http://icfu.totalcmd.net/TC/Videos/panel_flickering.sqx

Icfu

WTF is this? I have never seen anything like that before