Forums mIRC Help High cpu usage when scrolling/marking text

For some reason mirc uses an insane amount of cpu (close to 100%) when I scroll in channels or when I select some text. I've tried using a clean mirc install without scripts/addons/etc but it's still the same. I've also tried enabling/disabling Windows' smoothing of screen fonts with no effect.

Seems odd that a simple display of scrolling text should bring a rather new computer to its knees?

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Sysinfo: Core 2 Duo E8500, ASUS P5Q PRO, 512 MB RADEON HD 4850 ASUS GDDR3, 4gb ram, 1920x1200 resolution. Windows XP 64bit. mIRC 6.35.

Have you compared this with scrolling in any other program? In Firefox I get higher CPU% usage than mIRC.

GDI in Vista is a very intensive process because unlike XP, it's not hardware accelerated, meaning updating the UI is the CPU's job; it's not surprising that a lot of scrolling will generate high usage. Even with hardware acceleration, you should expect that the OS will devote prioritized CPU time to active UI tasks. The question should not be "why is my CPU at 100%" if there are no other programs that need CPU at the same time, that should actually be relatively normal. Also, for how long is this % being used for? If it's just for the duration of the scroll then it's pretty normal as well.

No other programs show the same behaviour as mIRC, firefox is around 10% cpu when scrolling on heavy sites like deviantart.com, Notepad++ has 5% cpu when scrolling a 4mb irc log file.
mIRC is 100% cpu when scrolling a single page of text, or marking a single word with the mouse.

When I stop scrolling/marking mIRC's cpu usage drops to 0 again.

If it was just the cpu usage in mIRC I wouldn't care. But mIRC is extremely laggy and unresponsive when scrolling or selecting text. If I go nuts and scroll 400 times, mIRC will literally keep scrolling for seconds.

(ps: I'm using XP as I wrote in the original post)

In mIRC type

//echo -a $script(0) $dll(0) $com(0) $remote $md5($mircexe,2) $version $os $nopath($script(1))

and paste the results here

Scrolling in mIRC Script Editor doesn't even get above 1% cpu but that's probably not related to the irc text display.

It seems you've cracked or otherwise modified mIRC's executable. We do not support such copies.

Yes I use(d) an exe that kept mIRC only visible in systray. Downloaded the original exe now and got different hash
Still same problems with extremely laggy text display though :=

It has definitely become worse after I changed to XP 64bit instead of 32bit.

I even tried installing an old mirc version (6.03) just to see if the bells and whistles in the later versions were the cause of the cpu usage and unresponsiveness, but the problems were still there.

it seems you have 4 scripts loaded, one of which being popups.ini(?). Assuming this was a clean install of mIRC, there should be only 1 script loaded, and it should be empty.

Run a fresh copy of mIRC by copying mirc.exe into a new folder, creating an empty mirc.ini in the same folder and run the exe.

Basically the following:

Unfortunately still the same.


This high cpu usage was achieved just by scrolling in the status window, not even having a single channel open.

And just for good measure: the script test in the mirctest:
1 0 0 7 2f63a83968f9586fe4fb48134253619c 6.35 2003 remote.ini

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Is there some sort of text smoothing feature in mIRC that's enabled by default that I could disable?
mIRC is the best irc client I've tried (and I've tried quite a lot in a search for alternatives) but it's a pain when the unresponsiveness and lag is so huge that I can't even scroll or select a piece of text without locking it up and making mIRC by far the most resource heavy application.

Did you test so it's not something in your end making this happen? like a faulty ram or something like that? you don't use mirc on a driver that are full? do you have other program's running while testing mirc? any firewall/virus program running?

No sparta, this is a brand new 64xp install and I ran memtest prior to installing so there are no faulty rams. Nothing else running while testing mirc.

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A quick survey in an irc channel suggests that mIRC in a 64bit environment is the problem. I asked them to scroll and report the cpu usage.

XP 32bit gives ~5%cpu
XP 64bit gives 100%cpu (on one core)

win7 64bit gives 100%cpu (on one core)

I couldn't find anyone using Vista.
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A bit sad that the irc program I've been using since 1999 suddenly went from 1% cpu usage to 100% just because I changed to a 64bit operating system :&

I running mirc on windows xp 64 bits, and i have no problem with high CPU usage, so i don't believe it's windows foult, it must be something else that messing things up for you. I tested in window 7 before, no problem there, and also in windows vista without any problems. both with 64 bit's..

Some additional sysinfo: http://massman.dk/tmp/cpuz.htm

What is that "something else" that causes the problem then?
It seems odd that of the (granted small) sample of people I've asked that used 64bit system, all of them got high cpu usage when scrolling, and none of the 32bit xp users had problems.

What I just can't comprehend is how mIRC Script Editor can scroll with 1% cpu, while any channel/query/statuswindow scroll gives full cpu usage and huge unresponsiveness. If I go nuts and scroll 3000 times, or change between 2 channels 3000 times, mIRC will lock up and be unresponsive for more than 10secs.

Just adding one line of text, people joining/parting etc, cause short bursts of +40% cpu before idling back at 0% again.

It just doesn't make sense that displaying simple text is the most cpu heavy task that my computer will do during an average session. Especially when I know that mIRC performed flawlessly on 32bit xp.

Maybe it's cos you have 1 CPU core? i have dual core, windows xp 64 bits have better support for dual core and more ram, i using windows xp 64 cos i want to use all of my ram, and as i said before i have no problem, i running 3 mirc right now, and i also played a game, and i haven't noticed any problem at all with windows 64 and mirc, how much ram do you have? something make your computer run 100% CPU, and i don't think mirc alone can create this problem for you, must be something else too.

;------ Wanted to add some stats from my computer.

System:
Operating system: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional x64 Edition.
Current system uptime: 5days 10hrs 47mins 29secs.

Hardware
Gfx-card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512MB.
CPU Name: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+.
Speed: 3107 MHz. Load: 0%.
Socket: M2. Availability: running or full power. Architecture: x64

Mem stats
4GB. Free: 3.23GB, used (19.14%)

off topic, but nice system, sparta.

Sigh, where do you get the information that I have 1 core?

As I wrote in the first post, I have a Core 2 Duo E8500 and 4gb ram. I even linked a cpuz output file in my previous post with detailed info.
My comp specs are more than enough to run mIRC.

I ran xp32 until a week ago and mIRC never used more than 5-15% cpu and it never locked up when scrolling or selecting text. I've been running xp64 for about a week now, fully updated and legal version.

The hardware is unchanged.
The mIRC install is unchanged.
The only change is using xp64 instead of xp32.
It's pretty difficult not to point towards mIRC having problems when run in a 64bit environment.

If I was really bored I could install xp32 again, just to prove my point. But I doubt that would change anything.

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One thing I noticed is that when I change to a channel the text flickers a lot for about half a second, as if the text is being formatted/parsed/whatever multiple times.

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Once again I urge you to be more specific since your current attempts at helping are rather fruitless. What is "something else" that could cause this problem?

The solution I've come up with is a rather dull one. If I make the mIRC program window smaller, like 600x400, instead of maximized, then there's less text to be displayed. Then mIRC uses 100% cpu at shorter intervals and this way mIRC at least becomes usable again.

Pretty retarded "solution" though :=

That tells me you have some sort of driver problem, your graphic card or something like that, or it can be your mouse that trigger the problem, you need to check all your hardware and make sure you have the latest drivers to them, you have been installing drivers for windows xp 64 bits?

http://massman.dk/tmp/DxDiag.txt

Yes I use 64bit drivers. Though I must admit I can't quite understand why a driver issue would only manifest itself in mIRC and other programs work flawlessly. Unless mIRC still has some 16bit code?

i have been working on allot of computers that had that problem, but often when you scrolling large amount of text, and at 99% of the cases it ended with me updating the drivers, and after that everything worked ok, and this is just a tip for you to try, if i should be able to point at the problem, then i need to sit in front of your computer and test things my self, but it can be settings or drivers or hardware or any other of the 1000+ reasons why you see this lag. and as i stated before, i have been testing mirc on windows 7, windows vista, and last on windows xp (all 64 bits), and i haven't noticed any problem so far, only thing is that on 64 bits system some things like dialogs and custom windows can look a bit different, and one thing, look so your hard drive don't run in PIO mode. (property's on your hard drive) it should be in udma mode..

I can see this being a possibility in order to maintain compatability with earlier versions, but, to my knowledge, Khaled is the only one that can say for sure.

Got a new PC today and unfortunately noticed that I have exactly the same problem as MassMan now.

100% CPU usage on one core while scrolling, while marking text, or when there's a lot of activity in the active window.
Not having similar problems in any other applications than mIRC at all.


Intel Core 2 Duo E840 @ 3.00 GHz
ATI Radeon HD4870, 512 MB DDR5
2GB DDR2 RAM Dual Channel

Windows XP Professional SP3, 32 bit
mIRC v6.35

His issue happens only on 64bit O/S
He has NVidia - You have ATI
He has AMD - You have Intel

Allthough the issue is possibly related, it likely wouldn't be a hardware issue, and needs more investigation.

Huh?






I'm not sure if this helps in any way, it's Process Explorer showing the 50 CPU usage while scrolling in mIRC:




If there's anything else I can do or try to resolve this issue somehow I'll be glad to do so.

I've been using mIRC for years and love it, but these CPU usage spikes and the lag makes it not exactly enjoyable anymore, I really hope this can be resolved somehow, whatever is causing it.




P.S.: My userlevel software setup is pretty much the same as it used to be on my previous PC.
Apart from mIRC I mainly constantly run Firefox, PUTTY, and COMODO Firewall, but as I said I used to use these before already, and stopping them didn't help either.

I found a solution for this on my Windows 7 7100 build 64bit version. Right click on mIRC.exe Click properties select "Compatibility" tab. Then check box Run this program in compatibility mode for: "Windows XP SP2" This has fixed all cpu / scrolling problems I was having before. Seems to be stable now.

-T4K

Machine specs: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.83 @ 3.4ghz, 4g Ram, ATI 4850 1Gig 2560x1600