Perfomance issues

Overall very slow performance

The principal slow performance problem relates to incorrect or out-of-date graphics drivers. There is more information about this in our Graphics problems article.

Slow file deletion

Adwatch (part of Ad-aware) watches what 3D Topicscape is doing when deleting files. In doing so, our monitoring (who watches the watchers, huh?) showed that it can take almost as much processor power as Topicscape itself. Please be aware that 3D Topicscape may run a good deal more slowly as a result.

During a major deletion in Topicscape, we have seen a case where the CPU time allocated to Topicscape leapt from 52% (without Adwatch) to more than 95% (with Adwatch). During both of those deletions, our anti-virus software (Norton) was taking up less that 0.1% of the CPU and our personal firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro) less than 2%.

Solution: Feel free to leave Ad-aware running to see that it does not report Topicscape as spyware, but during a deletion in Topicscape that involves many occurrences with files attached, turn it off temporarily.

Other slow file operations

Certain always-on processes can affect many types of operation in a PC.

Some examples that we have found include encryption of a partition or folder that Topicscape refers to, and file-indexing software.

To give a example: If you copy a folder prior to zipping it up, then delete the temporary folder, then take some action with the zip file before removing it, you can make your encryption and indexing software do a great deal of unnecessary work and slow things down. Sounds an unlikely scenario? Consider this example.