I’ve previously successfully used kicad for projects on Windows and Linux. Got a new computer, and now I’m trying to run it on OS X. It ran fine for a couple of days, but today Pcbnew started running unworkably slowly (3+ seconds to change zoom level).
The computer has a 2.2GHz quadcore and 16GB of memory. I’ve barely begun laying out the board, but it does have around 80 0603 resistor/capacitor type components. I tried deleting those footprints, but I still found that the performance was lacking. The performance problems continue even if I make certain layers invisible.
Has anybody run into this issue before, and is there a good solution?
Oddly enough, I just found that putting the pcbnew screen on my external monitor fixed the issue. Not sure what the deal is, maybe somebody has an idea?
Well, even an Intel graphics adapter is a GPU (it does graphics, it does vector processing, it’s a GPU); just not maybe the best of GPUs. The problem has nothing to do with the bottom part of your laptop, it’s the top part; the Retina display. KiCad currently has a known issue with speed on Retina displays, http://www.kicad.org/display/DEV/Known+System+Related+Issues. There are two workarounds, one is using low-res mode (ick), the second is to use the OpenGL GAL mode. If you go to view, switch to OpenGL or hit F11 it’ll put you in OpenGL GAL and you’ll notice a huge speed up. There is a downside as I’ve found the GAL modes to be missing a few things (scroll bars, AHEM) and having a few keymap bugs. I do, in general, prefer the way GAL works, behaves, and renders; though.