Animators make UI unresponsive

Slion

I'm trying to get a smooth animation and a responsive UI using Qt 5.3 and it's proving to be quite a challenge.

I have the following in a file named MarqueeText.qml

@import QtQuick 2.2

Item {
id:marqueeText
height: scrollingText.height
clip: true
property int pixelsPerSeconds:25
property alias text: scrollingText.text
property alias separator: separatorText.text

Text {
    id:scrollingText
}

Text {
    id:separatorText
    text:" || "
    x:scrollingText.x+scrollingText.width
}

Text {
    id:followingText
    text:scrollingText.text
    x:scrollingText.x+scrollingText.width+separatorText.width
}

ParallelAnimation {
    id: animation
    loops: Animation.Infinite;

    XAnimator {
        target: scrollingText;
        //from: 0;
        to: -scrollingText.width-separatorText.width;
        duration: (scrollingText.width+separatorText.width)*1000/pixelsPerSeconds
    }

    XAnimator {
        target: separatorText;
        from: separatorText.x;
        to: separatorText.x-scrollingText.width-separatorText.width;
        duration: (scrollingText.width+separatorText.width)*1000/pixelsPerSeconds
    }

    XAnimator {
        target: followingText;
        from: followingText.x;
        to: followingText.x-scrollingText.width-separatorText.width;
        duration: (scrollingText.width+separatorText.width)*1000/pixelsPerSeconds
    }

}





MouseArea {
    id:mouseArea
    anchors.fill: parent
    onClicked: {
        animation.running=true;
    }

}

}
@

I've been using it as follow:

@
Rectangle {
border.width: 2
border.color: "black"
color: "lightsteelblue"
anchors.horizontalCenter: parent.horizontalCenter
width: 250
height: text.height + 10
y:100
MarqueeText {
id:text
width: 200
pixelsPerSeconds:50
anchors.verticalCenter: parent.verticalCenter
anchors.horizontalCenter: parent.horizontalCenter
text: "start ------ abcdefghijklmnopqrtaksdjfkdfjklsdjflksdjfklsjadfkljsad;flasjdlfjasdfjldsdfljf---- end"
separator: " | "
}
}@

Animators make it run smoother than standard animation but somehow it creates terrible lags on the UI thread.

Slion

The following code using animations instead of animators does not have this UI unresponsiveness issue. That's odd cause animators are suppose to run a lot smoothers than standard animation right?
I'm probably missing something.

@import QtQuick 2.2

Item {
id:marqueeText
height: scrollingText.height
clip: true
property int pixelsPerSeconds:25
property alias text: scrollingText.text
property alias separator: separatorText.text

Text {
    id:scrollingText
}

Text {
    id:separatorText
    text:" || "
    x:scrollingText.x+scrollingText.width
}

Text {
    id:followingText
    text:scrollingText.text
    x:scrollingText.x+scrollingText.width+separatorText.width
}

ParallelAnimation {
    id: animation
    loops: Animation.Infinite;

    NumberAnimation {
        target: scrollingText;
        properties: "x"
        //from: 0;
        to: -scrollingText.width-separatorText.width;
        duration: (scrollingText.width+separatorText.width)*1000/pixelsPerSeconds
    }

    NumberAnimation {
        target: separatorText;
        properties: "x"
        from: separatorText.x;
        to: separatorText.x-scrollingText.width-separatorText.width;
        duration: (scrollingText.width+separatorText.width)*1000/pixelsPerSeconds
    }

    NumberAnimation {
        target: followingText;
        properties: "x"
        from: followingText.x;
        to: followingText.x-scrollingText.width-separatorText.width;
        duration: (scrollingText.width+separatorText.width)*1000/pixelsPerSeconds
    }
}

MouseArea {
    id:mouseArea
    anchors.fill: parent
    onClicked: {
        animation.running=true;
    }
}

}
@

Slion

The NumberAnimation version is definitely showing tearing and jerks.

Slion

XAnimation version is also showing jerks and tearing to a lesser extent I guess and as an added bonus you get UI lags :)

Slion

I'm running that on Windows 7 by the way.

Slion

Alright it's a lot smoother if I run it rather than debug it :)

Slion

Animator still lags/almost freezes the UI when running instead of debugging.

Slion

So I did check the animator example from the SDK, the one with the bouncing smiley and it exhibits the exact same problem I have. It's apparently also fairly easy to have it crash...

So really smooth animation on windows is not happening with Qt 5.3 and Quick, sadly.

Am I holding it wrong or do I have too high expectations? Are the dev recognizing those issues and working on it?

Slion

And now I know why https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTBUG-38728
Is there a way to enable threaded render loop on windows?

Slion

Ok one can use QML_FORCE_THREADED_RENDERER on Windows as explained http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/qtquick-visualcanvas-scenegraph.html#threaded-render-loop

This way the UI does not lag when running animators but the animation in my example is still jerky and awful.

Could be an issue with subpixel precision of that text animation.