File panels flickering when refreshing

[Natsuki]

In 7.50 final noticed something that wasn't in 7.50 public beta 1 (my previous used version) - panels flickering, either on manual refresh or when alt-tabbing to TC, etc

Found this in changelog

26.05.09 Release Total Commander 7.50 Public Beta 4 (pre1)
...
17.05.09 Fixed: Always refresh overlay icons on F2 or Ctrl+R

and found that disabling "Show overlay icons" helps...
So, maybe it's the source of problem.

[ghisler(Author)]

Yes, overlay icons are now always refreshed too, this was requested by many users.

[Natsuki]

It's not just icons, it's the whole text and even cursor. Any possibility of an option to disable it?

[ghisler(Author)]

You can try to reduce the flickering by adding the following line to wincmd.ini under the [Configuration] section:
ClearListBackground=0

[karlchen]

Hello, Natsuki, hello, Christian.

It's not just icons, it's the whole text and even cursor.

ClearListBackground=0

This setting has been set inside my wincmd.ini ever since it has been introduced. IconOverlays=1 has been set as well.

A folder holding 35 link files only has been created. When Ctrl-R is pressed in order to force a refresh, only the tiny overlay icons are redrawn. This can be observed. Yet, the icons themselves, the text strings inside the file panel nor the cursor show any sign of flickering.

So I assume this thread can be moved to the section Fixed Bugs.

Total Commander 7.50a
Windows XP Prof SP2, 32bit
Pentium III, 667MHz, Single Core, 32MB dedicated video RAM, 32bit color depths, 1280x1024 screen resolution

Kind regards,
Karl

[Natsuki]

When Ctrl-R is pressed in order to force a refresh, only the tiny overlay icons are redrawn. This can be observed. Yet, the icons themselves, the text strings inside the file panel nor the cursor show any sign of flickering.

Maybe you don't notice this because your machine is fast enough? Or maybe if you hold ctrl-r you may notice. Anyway, flickering is present. I just temporarily "fixed" it by disabling overlay icons. Also, it doesn't matter what files are in folder (links or whatever).
ClearListBackground=0 doesn't change anything.

[karlchen]

Hello, Natsuki.

I am not quite sure whether today, year 2009, a Pentium III 667MHz having 1 single processor, 256MB of RAM, a video card with 32MB of dedicated video RAM, can be qualified as "fast enough".
On this power machine, the screen resolution has been set to 1280 x 1024 pixels and it displays true color, all settings which will not really decrease the load on the processor and on the video card. Oh yeah, and in order to stress the system a bit more, I use an animated 3D Windows cursor (the dinosaur).

For further tests, I have chosen folders which have got several subfolders and up to 1950 files in them so that refreshing the lists must take more time than in my inital test where the folder only held 35 link files *.lnk.

Nonetheless, the results on this power machine are the same:

• There is no flickering to be noticed inside the file list.
• The names, the filesizes, the timestamps do not flicker when I press Ctrl-R.
• The normal file and folder icons do not flicker when when I press Ctrl-R.
• The only things which get redrawn visibly when I press Ctrl-R are
  • the tiny overlay icons
  • the icon of the file/folder where the T.C. cursor is located

Keeping Ctrl-R pressed thus instructing T.C. to keep on refreshing all the time cannot be used as valid evidence that T.C. causes flickering on refresh.

• (1) What should keeping Ctrl-R pressed for several seconds be good for?
• (2) If you keep on telling T.C. to refresh the current file list, you are trying to provoke a problem which will normally not exist.
• (3) If I keep Ctrl-R pressed for several seconds, flickering inside the file list does not really increase.
  Why? I can only guess:
  T.C. may get the refresh commands faster than it can perform the refresh job. E.g. the overlay icons will not get re-drawn until the Ctrl-R buttons are reeleased.
  Ironically, if I keep Ctrl-R pressed for several seconds the menu bar will be redrawn every second. This does not happen if Ctrl-R is pressed and released normally.

Personal Conclusion:
Using Ctrl-R/F2 normally (press and release once) to refresh a file list does not cause any real flickering (see explanation at the beginning of this post).

To be quite honest:

If on your machine the file panels flicker during a single refresh, you might consider checking whether your graphics card drivers have been configured correctly and/or whether the driver needs an update.

Hm, or maybe you use a content plugin which slows down the file list refresh?

Testing Environment:
same as before

Kind regards,
Karl

[Natsuki]

Strange. I checked it in virtual machine, so it should not be hardware/drivers problem. Also, I noticed that overlay icons are disabled by default. Maybe it's better not to use them at all.

What should keeping Ctrl-R pressed for several seconds be good for?

To force some flickering. But in your case, it really doesn't exist.

[karlchen]

Hello, Natsuki.

I checked it in virtual machine, so it should not be hardware/drivers problem.

The opposite might be true.

Virtual machines run on real hardware. Depending on how many virtual machines you run on a given real machine at the same time and depending on how each virtual machine has been sized the virtual machines are not unlikely to exhaust the resources of their host.

Moreover the virtual hardware of the virtual machine will not be as powerful as real hardware.

It would have been nice if you had stated from the start that the flickering occurs in a virtual machine.

In order to get comparable results, I will have to repeat the tests on a virtual machine.

Kind regards,
Karl

[Natsuki]

It would have been nice if you had stated from the start that the flickering occurs in a virtual machine.

I meant, "in a virtual machine too".

I will have to repeat the tests on a virtual machine

I don't think it will change anything, but if it will, then what - my drivers are "too bad" or yours are "too good"? Because your hardware is even older than mine (Athlon 1600+, 640mb ram, 128mb radeon 9600)

[karlchen]

Hello, Natsuki.

Repeated my test on virtual machine (VMWare):
+ AMD processor, 2.8 GHz
+ 1 GB of RAM
+ VMWare SVGA II graphics card
+ Windows 2003 std SP2, 32bit
+ Total Commander 7.50a
+ settings: ClearListBackground=0 and IconOverlays=1

Basically, the visible results were the same that can be seen on my ancient Pentium III. As a matter of fact, the process of redrawing the overlay icons and of the T.C. cursor line were even less noticeable than on my Pentium III.

So the question is which factor / which factors cause flickering on your virtual machine?

• How about content plugins which might slow down the process of refreshing the filelist? (No content plugins are active on my Pentium III and on the VMware virtual machine.)
• Which virtualization software do you use? (There has been at minimum one report that T.C. 7.5 seems to be slow on Sun Virtualbox: TC on virtual XP machine: sloooow
• How about the sizing of your virtual machine?
• How about the host machine? (Our virtual machine runs on a pretty powerful hardware which runs 4 or 5 virtual servers.) Do you perhaps run your virtual machine on a normal workstation machine which may or may not be powerful enough to run virtual machines?

Kind regards,
Karl
--
<Added>
RAM size of the VM
</Added>

[Natsuki]

So the question is which factor / which factors cause flickering on your virtual machine?

I checked VM just to be sure it is not some easy hardware-specific problem (and if it really is, then something is really wrong). Flickering happens on any machine.

How about content plugins which might slow down the process of refreshing the filelist?

Pure clean TC. Only one not default thing is turned on overlay icons. Also, it is more like the "process of redrawing". Unnecessary redrawing.

Which virtualization software do you use?

VMware 5.5.9. Both host and guest is Win XP SP3

How about the sizing of your virtual machine?

What sizing? Display is 1024x768 host and 800x600 guest.

How about the host machine?

The same hardware from previous post

But are last 2 questions relevant?

Also, I'll try on netbook some day.

[karlchen]

Hello, Natsuki.

Well, as not too many users have complained that T.C. flickers when refreshing the file list and as so far I have not been able to reproduce this behaviour myself, I have started asking questions about the hard- and software environment in which the flickering occurs.

Whether the sizing of the host machine and of the virtual machine are relevant? Sure, they are relevant.

Have a look at those technical details which have been given for our virtual machine:

+ AMD processor, 2.8 GHz
+ 1 GB of RAM
+ VMWare SVGA II graphics card
+ Windows 2003 std SP2, 32bit

Now let us assume that the host system runs 4 such virtual machines, but it has got only

+ Dual Core processor, 2.8 GHz
+ 4 GB of RAM
+ some ATI graphics card with 64 MB video RAM
+ OS: some Linux server version plus VMWare

It is not hard to guess that the 4 virtual machines are not totally unlikely to exhaust the resources of the host. As a consequence the performance of the virtual machines would be unsatisfying.

Or let us assume our virtual machine, having 1 GB of RAM, would run on Vista Business. The performance would not be overwhelming, either.

Or let us assume, our vitual machine were sized like this:

+ AMD processor, 2.0 GHz
+ 512 MB of RAM
+ VMWare SVGA II graphics card
+ Windows 2003 std SP2, 32bit

The performance would not be convincing. And a side effect could easily be that refreshing of list boxes took too much time and gave unpleasant visal effects.

So the sizing of the host machine as well as of the virtual machine are relevant factors.

---

Yet, another idea which has occurred to me is whether we are really seeing the same behaviour, but perceiving and judging it differently. Cf. the blue text lines here, please.

---

Anyway. As
+ we do not see what you see on your monitor
+ no-one else seems to have reported flickering for version 7.50
+ you confirm the flickering is still there in T.C. 7.50a
+ I cannot confirm so
it is pretty unclear which status this thread should be given: Looks as if it cannot be moved to the "Fixed Bugs" section.

Kind regards,
Karl

[Natsuki]

Just installed 7.50a on real machine. What can be seen is much less flickering than in 7.50, although it is not so obvious in VM. For now, the only thing I can notice is exactly that

The only things which get redrawn visibly when I press Ctrl-R are
the tiny overlay icons
the icon of the file/folder where the T.C. cursor is located

and some random icons, very subtle.
No need for shaman dances. Thanks to all.

[karlchen]

Hello, Natsuki.

Sorry if I should have given you the impression I were trying to talk the flickering problem to death. This was not my intention.

It is Christian who acknowledged the problem reported by you as a bug. And it will be Christian who will decide whether it can be called fixed, not me.

I wonder though, whether there may be a fix other than

• either reverting this change

  Yes, overlay icons are now always refreshed too, this was requested by many users.

• or making this overlay refresh optional

Kind regards,
Karl