How can I speed up Visual Studio 2010 text editor render speed?

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+3 Q:

How can I speed up Visual Studio 2010 text editor render speed?

Visual Studio 2010 moved to using WPF for rendering the editor. This is leading to slowdowns while I am editing code, especially if I'm running something else that uses other video capabilities.

How can I speed this up? A new video card? New drivers? Settings?

What technologies does WPF use to render and what video card would complement it?

+9 A:

WPF uses DirectX for rendering, so a new top of the line video card would certainly help you out here. Any solid ATI or Nvidia card nowadays supports the latest and greatest DirectX.

Charlie 2010-05-06 21:40:44

I understand why a high end video card would help, it is just hard to tell some of my Microsoft hating friends that I would need to have a high end card to edit code.

Rob Goodwin 2010-05-06 21:57:41

Well the fact is, you need a high-end card to effectively run Windows these days, as well as all the fancy graphics-intensive applications WPF is capable of creating. WPF is, at its heart, a UI technology, and a powerful one. If you are doing hardcore UI development and don't already have a good graphics card, you're probably due for an update. Coding dinosaurs and Linux die-hards would get snarky here, but it's a different kind of development and thus requires a different kind of development tool. Emacs isn't going to make any award-winning interfaces for you.

Charlie 2010-05-06 22:07:25

High end is a bit debatable, any (modern) discrete graphics card will give you a significant boost to running integrated. That doesn't mean you need to go for a 90deg power station just to program.

jeffora 2010-05-07 01:11:22

I'm not entirely sure this would help, even if it "makes sense" that it would. Since the OP accepted this answer, if you do end up trying a better graphics adaptor then could you report back with the results and whether it changed anything?

Coxy 2010-05-07 08:38:38

I'm running a 3yo medium grade Dell laptop and it does just fine...; it's not as quick as notepad, but it's doing a helluva lot more than notepad

Michael Haren 2010-05-11 19:37:00

@coxymla - what makes you think that this wouldn't help? I will post results - I'm due for an upgrade any ways, and will probalby try to snag a card that plays well with osx86 as well.

user144182 2010-05-12 14:33:18

I have this problem too. WPF tech uses direct3d render for rendering (MS says) but I found something interesting on about it. If I run progs like FRAPS for FPS measurenment I don't get FPS stats in VS2010 text editor, I am not sure that VS2010 text editor honestly uses direct3d.

MaxFX 2010-05-06 22:38:38

yes, it does; scaling, rotation (if applicable) and smoothing effects are all performed via hardware acceleration via DirectX if available - it greatky improves performance.Basically, if it's using WPF, in any case, then it's able to be hardware accelerated.

Andras Zoltan 2010-05-11 19:40:39

+3 A:

The answer from @Charlie is absolutely spot on; and I thought about saying this on a comment but then figured I should put it as an answer.

Under certain circumstances (certainly on my desktop at work, which uses a workstation NVidia card), which are listed in the installation issues (connected with Hyper-V in particular), VS2010 fails to enable video acceleration even if it is available.

Open up Tools->Options, and on the very first options panel you'll see a group in the middle 'Visual Experience'. Just make sure that everything is checked in there and that it says 'Visual Studio is currently using hardware-accelerated rendering...'.

I don't think the hardware requirements for VS2010 are particularly heavy - but your card certainly must be DX capable.

Andras Zoltan 2010-05-11 19:34:13

ansaurus

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How can I speed up Visual Studio 2010 text editor render speed?

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