Examples of fast .NET WPF/WinForms apps?

Question

I am currently investigating whether to build a windows application using unmanaged C/C++ or in .NET and would like to know of the kind of performance and responsiveness that is capable with a managed C#/.NET GUI app?

Not surprisingly it looks like the fastest most responsive applications (e.g. chrome, spotify, etc) are written in unmanaged C/C++. I've had a hard time finding examples of really good .NET applications and so I would like some help.

What's the best example of a fast and responsive .NET windows application?

Answer 1

WorldWide Telescope is a .NET graphics-intensive application that lets you browse a virtual night-sky as well as many other items releated to astronomy. It handles pretty massive amounts of data. Even though it seems to be in perpetual beta, it provides a very compelling user experience.

Windows Live Writer is another .NET application. It may not be a very big application, but it excels at what it does, and I've never had any issues with its responsiveness.

Answer 2

The latest version of Bing Maps is written in silverlight which counts as managed code.

Live Mesh is written in some form of .net (although I think it ships it's own version of silverlight with it so it has no other dependencies).

A few years ago, most RSS readers were written in .net. I think that the responsiveness is going to be down to what you're programming rather than what you use. At the end of the day with multithreading you can make the app responsive while it's processing no matter what framework you use.

Answer 3

TOAD for MySQL is a .NET application. It is pretty snappy. See http://www.toadsoft.com/toadmysql/faq.htm

Also, the upcoming version of Visual Studion 2010 has a lot of UI written in WPF. The performance of the Release Candidate looks good IMO.

Answer 4

DigiTweet is written in WPF http://www.digitweet.com/

Answer 5

Here is one of my favorites.

http://www.vertigo.com/familyshow.aspx

Once you install it, open the Windsor family and click around. Be sure to try:

• The "Time" and "Zoom" sliders in the lower left and right corners of the window.
• Typing in the "Filter" box in the lower right

Family.Show has several intentional delays inserted for a more compelling user experience, for example animations are used when navigating around the family tree. If you edit the source code and change the durations of all animations to "0" you will find that everything happens pretty much instantly.

Answer 6

Paint.Net is an OpenSource Example Writing By .Net.