DRC on 8.0.1 takes up way more time and resources

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I don’t really have much more information. Just wondering if anyone else is having the same issue. After the latest update the DRC spends a ton of time sitting at the screenshot below. After a few minutes it progresses but takes so much longer on each of the processes afterwards. In total I am spending 10-15 minutes on each DRC check. It also eats up a ton of memory and CPU while it’s doing this. I’ve never had this kind of behavior. DRC has always taken just a few dozen seconds.

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I just ran DRC on an Olinuxino A64 Rev C and timed it coarsly around 8 seconds. My PC has been purring happily with it’s Ryzen 5600G for 2 years now.

Application: KiCad PCB Editor x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 8.0.1-8.0.1-0~ubuntu20.04.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.2
	FreeType 2.10.1
	HarfBuzz 2.6.4
	FontConfig 2.13.1
	libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3

Platform: Linux Mint 20.3, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, xfce, x11

Build Info:
	Date: Mar 14 2024 15:11:44
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.71.0
	OCC: 7.6.3
	Curl: 7.68.0
	ngspice: 42
	Compiler: GCC 9.4.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
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Some of the commits since 8.0.1 tagging look like they are performance related, a few by Jeff Young might be fixes

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I tried out the latest testing version and there is no improvement. I tried running DRC with the kicad-cli and it was as fast as it usually is. It seems that with the GUI, the DRC is spending a long time on checking copper zone clearances. Any ideas on how to debug this?

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Can you share this project or make a demo project with the issue. The developers will be interested

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I will see what I can do. I cannot upload the files because it is company-owned.

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This seems to only be happening on files that were made with 8.0.0. Designs that I am making new with 8.0.1 don’t seem to have this problem. I will see if this pattern holds up but that is what I am seeing so far.

1 Like
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I see a commit today that fixes a very slow DRC issue on Windows OS

1 Like
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Yea it’s probably the same bug, low cpu usage + long delay on checking zone clearances.

It’ll happen on any zone-dense board but overall the bug impacts all DRC the entire time since v7.

@PatrickAtNion You can get a testing build of 8.0 here:
https://downloads.kicad.org/kicad/windows/explore/8.0-testing

if you want something pre-8.0.2 that should be fixed

2 Likes
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The next Testing build I think.
What I don’t understand is why I do not have this slowdown on my 6 layer projects on Windows using 8.0.1

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Wouldn’t have posted that if it wasn’t already true :wink:

My commit was b9a6f479, which is the latest in testing from last night.

Not enough zones. The one sample project that was tested had 2000 possible zone to zone collision checks :3

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What I would call a pathological case. I have about 20 zones

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