Topic: temporary screen freeze in windows 7? can it be disabled?

[Bob Q]

I have switched to windows 7 from xp64 and in Windows 7 the "waiting" spinner thing pops up and the screen freezes in the middle of intensive autolisp calculations.  While I am guessing this is some attempt to increase speed on the system while doing large amounts of calculations, it also has the adverse side effect of not being able to see princ statements and what is happening graphically on the screen.  This is bad when you are trying to debug things.

Does anyone know of a way to disable this feature of windows 7 or even what it is called?

Thanks 

[CAB]

Using Win 7 Pro 64 and ACAD2006. no screen freeze here.

[hmspe]

Win 7 64 Home here.  I've never seen this with Autocad 2010, 2011, or 2012.  Are you sure that the freeze is coming from Autocad? 

[kruuger]

it happens very often
http://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=39931.msg452319#msg452319
k.

[Peter Guappa]

Same problem here.
Win7 Home.
Autocad 2010-2013
Bricscad 12.2

It "seems" Autocad/Bricscad is not responding anymore, while it is still calculating. Very annoying while debugging.
Didn't happen in XP, so I believe it has to do with win7.


 

[irneb]

I've explained the situation in the thread kruuger linked to. It "does" happen in XP, just not as often as in W7.

An old technique to overcome such thing in other languages (such as C++) would be to force a UI thread update by calling the Update method of the Application object. Or in C to call the ProcessEvents function. You could probably do something similar trough vla / textscr/graphscr, though I wouldn't hold my breath.

It's one of the problems of ADesk's fosilized implementation of their lisp interpreter. Unlike other interpreters (especially including all other lisps) there's no threading involved, so while a lisp runs, ACad can do nothing else until it completes - including not even answering windows with a "Are you still awake?" query. Thus the screen update doesn't happen and this could even cause windows to "think" that acad has crashed.

[trogg]

I don't know if this would be helpful - it was for a couple of routines at work. It temporarily turns off the autosave feature during long routines and then turns it back on at the end.
I'm sorry  - I don't remember where I found it either...

Code: [Select]

;;; For long routines. While in a routine that takes a long time,
;;; the autosave feature may come on and jack things up
;;; Simply change the autosave feature's variable at the beginning and
;;; then turn it back on at the end of the routine

(setq savetime (getvar 'savetime))
(setvar 'savetime 0)

;........

;; At the end of your routine reset the system variable as it was set before invoking the routine


(setvar 'savetime savetime)

[Bob Q]

Thank you for the input, it is however happening all the time....

[deegeecees]

Just a shot in the dark, but does it have anything to do with the Indexing?

[Bob Q]

Hmmmm not sure, I don't know what indexing is.... isn't it something to do with file searching?
I think it can be turned off. I will investigate....

[Bob Q]

I tried turning indexing off, tested again and it still does the same thing.
I wonder if a short pause statement would help..... ??
Maybe a routine that turn on and off pauses only while doing testing or something.
I will give it a whirl and see if that helps.

[KewlToyZ]

I remember when this issue first came up in the thread mentioned. It is still a nuisance.
I just wish there was an easy fix for it.
It isn't a freeze, its simply a pause in visual updating to run the process in the background.
The routine is running in the background just fine, just no visual actions demonstrate until it is complete, even with a counter present.

[KewlToyZ]

An example would be this routine for changing hatch/solids/fills properties and sending them to the back of the drawing order. Use it on a large drawing with numerous hatches and you get the screen update pauses.

[pBe]

It reminds of the "Animated screen character" on Windows file find. in this case instead of rover the puppy its a spinning disk. Maybe  there is a way to switch that off.

For now when it "thinks" it "spins"   

[KewlToyZ]

I was curious if these settings could affect it in different combinations:

(command "INTELLIGENTUPDATE" 0)
;   Controls the graphics refresh rate.
;   The default value is 20 frames per second.
;   If you encounter problems related to graphics generation or timing, turn off the variable by setting it to 0.
;   INTELLIGENTUPDATE works by suppressing the graphics update until the timer expires. Subsequent updates reset the timer.
;   The performance improvement significantly affects updates for scripts and AutoLISP graphics.
;   Those using regular AutoCAD commands will not see a noticeable difference in performance.

(command "NOMUTT" 0)
;   Suppresses the message display (muttering) when it wouldn't normally be suppressed.
;    Displaying messages is the normal mode, but message display is suppressed during scripts, AutoLISP routines, and so on.
;   0   Resumes normal muttering behavior
;   1   Suppresses muttering indefinitely

I'll try tomorrow