[cairo] Issues with Store-Bought v. Home-Grown builds of Cairo

[Andrea Canciani]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Jennifer Adams <jma at cola.iges.org> wrote:
> Dear Experts,
> I apologize in advance for a long email ... I'm just trying to be thorough.
> The bottom line is my own build of Cairo compared with the macports/yum
> build is MUCH too slow, and I don't know why.
> I am working toward getting Cairo to handle all the graphics for GrADS, an
> open-source program for the analysis and display of meteorological data. The
> old way of doing graphics in GrADS was a combination of direct calls to the
> X11 library (for the X window interface), calls to the gd library (for image
> output), plus some extremely dated code to create postscript output. All
> text was drawn in Hershey fonts. Cairo improves on this mish-mash in so many
> ways; the graphics are looking absolutely fantastic, the toy font API is
> adequate for our needs, and I know my users are going to be very excited
> when they see these improvements.
> For GrADS distribution, I provide binary executables for a small set of
> platforms, but many users must build from source. GrADS requires a long list
> of supplemental libraries to fully enable all its features: the current
> count is 20. With the exception of X11 and a few other system libs, we link
> statically with all these supplibs, so that our binaries are portable (some
> of the supplibs GrADS needs are rather obscure.) I get the impression from
> browsing through the forum archives that linking statically with Cairo isn't
> really the right way to do it, so during my development and testing I have
> been linking dynamically with a macports build of Cairo. It's been fine that
> way, a little slower than the old way of using direct X11 calls, but not
> deal-breakingly slow.
> Looking forward to the time when I must put out a release, I am trying to
> integrate Cairo into the GrADS autoconfiguration scripts and the setup we
> have for building all the supplibs from source. I can't assume that all my
> users will have macports or yum to do the dirty work for them, so I provide
> a set of instructions to build the libraries from source and link them with
> GrADS. It is something like the end-to-end build instructions on the Cairo
> website. I try to keep it as simple as possible, and tailor these
> instructions for the specific needs of GrADS.
> Testing out my home-grown Cairo recipe, it built without any problems
> (specifics given below). Then I linked GrADS two ways, one with the macports
> build (gfast), the other with my home-grown build (gslow). More specifics on
> how I linked the executables and output from otool are given below. The
> performance difference between glsow v. gfast is astonishing. Where gfast
> took 1-2 seconds to draw a plot, gslow took ~100 seconds to do the same
> thing. I reran all these steps on our 64-bit linux server running CentOS 5.4
> and got similar results.
> Thanks to earlier answers I got regarding getting cairo-trace to work, I
> created a huge trace file, but I'm not sure how to interpret it. It
> contained ~77,000 fills and ~10,000 strokes. I reran cairo-trace with the
> --profile option and posted it at ftp://iges.org/pub/jma/gs.89039.lzma . The
> output from running cairo-perf-trace on my trace file is given below. I have
> no idea whether the trace info is helpful.
> What I could use is some advice about linking statically v. dynamically for
> my binary distributions, and some guidance for how to build Cairo from
> source (with only as-needed features) and link it with my application so
> that I get the same performance as the carefully packaged, fully-enabled
> versions of Cairo.

AFAIK the are no major cons against statically linking pixman and cairo.
Please report any problem you get when doing so.

> Thank you!!
> --Jennifer
>
>
> --
> Jennifer M. Adams
> IGES/COLA
> 4041 Powder Mill Road, Suite 302
> Calverton, MD 20705
> jma at cola.iges.org
>
>
> OS X version 10.5.8
>> uname -a
> Darwin Atlantic-2.local 9.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 9.8.0: Wed Jul 15
> 16:55:01 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1228.15.4~1/RELEASE_I386 i386
>> gcc --version
> i686-apple-darwin9-gcc-4.0.1 (GCC) 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5490)
>
> Configuration options used to build cairo from source:
> pkg-config-0.23
> (I then set the environment vars PKG_CONFIG and PKG_CONFIG_PATH to the
> appropriate places)
> pixman-0.21.2
> freetype-2.4.3  --without-fsspec --without-fsref
> --without-ats --without-quickdraw-toolbox --without-quickdraw-carbon
> fontconfig-2.8.0  --enable-libxml2 --with-freetype-config=...
> cairo-1.10.2 --disable-dependency-tracking \
> --enable-xlib=yes \
> --enable-xml=yes \
> --enable-fc=yes \
> --enable-ft=yes \
> --enable-xlib-xrender=no \

My guess is that the "store-bought" cairo library has XRender enabled.
Please try enabling xlib-xrender and check if you get the expected speedup.

This enable server-side compositing of images and thus is a feature you
probably want to enable. It can have a huge impact on performance.

Andrea

> --enable-xcb=no \
> --enable-qt=no \
> --enable-quartz=no \
> --enable-win32=no \
> --enable-skia=no \
> --enable-os2=no \
> --enable-beos=no \
> --enable-drm=no \
> --enable-pthread \
> --enable-gl=no
>
> Linking commands used to build gfast and gslow (relevant bits highlighed in
> red):
> gcc  -g -O2  -lSystemStubs -o gslow grads.o gxsubs.o gxmeta.o gxchpl.o
> gxcntr.o gxstrm.o gxwmap.o gxshad.o gxshad2.o gaexpr.o gafunc.o gautil.o
> gagx.o gscrpt.o gamach.o bufrstn.o gabufr.o gabufrtbl.o gxX.o gxdxwd.o
> galloc.o gaddes.o gaio.o gacfg.o gauser.o gasdf.o
> gatxt.o -L/Users/jma/supplibs/lib -lcairo -L/usr/X11R6/lib
> -lX11 /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libreadline.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libncurses.a  /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libgd.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libpng12.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjpeg.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libgrib2c.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjasper.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libpng12.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libmfhdf.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libdf.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libudunits.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libsz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjpeg.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libhdf5.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libsz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjpeg.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libudunits.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libnetcdf.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libhdf5_hl.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libhdf5.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libsz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libcurl.a
>  /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libtiff.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libgeotiff.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libshp.a  -lm
> gcc  -g -O2  -lSystemStubs -o gfast grads.o gxsubs.o gxmeta.o gxchpl.o
> gxcntr.o gxstrm.o gxwmap.o gxshad.o gxshad2.o gaexpr.o gafunc.o gautil.o
> gagx.o gscrpt.o gamach.o bufrstn.o gabufr.o gabufrtbl.o gxX.o gxdxwd.o
> galloc.o gaddes.o gaio.o gacfg.o gauser.o gasdf.o gatxt.o -L/opt/local/lib
> -lcairo -lX11 /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libreadline.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libncurses.a  /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libgd.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libpng12.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjpeg.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libgrib2c.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjasper.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libpng12.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libmfhdf.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libdf.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libudunits.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libsz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjpeg.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libhdf5.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libsz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libjpeg.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libudunits.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libnetcdf.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libhdf5_hl.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libhdf5.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libz.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libsz.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libcurl.a
>  /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libtiff.a /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libgeotiff.a
> /Users/jma/supplibs/lib/libshp.a  -lm
>
>> otool -L gslow
> gslow:
>         /Users/jma/supplibs/src/cairo/lib/libcairo.2.dylib (compatibility
> version 11003.0.0, current version 11003.2.0)
>         /usr/X11/lib/libX11.6.dylib (compatibility version 9.0.0, current
> version 9.0.0)
>         /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current
> version 111.1.5)
>         /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current
> version 1.0.0)
>> otool -L gfast
> gfast:
>         /opt/local/lib/libcairo.2.dylib (compatibility version 11003.0.0,
> current version 11003.0.0)
>         /opt/local/lib/libX11.6.dylib (compatibility version 10.0.0, current
> version 10.0.0)
>         /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current
> version 111.1.5)
>         /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current
> version 1.0.0)
>
>> cairo-perf-trace gg.88743.trace
> [ # ]  backend                         test   min(s) median(s) stddev. count
> [ # ]    image: pixman 0.21.2
> [  0]    image                           gg    0.691    0.696   0.30%    6/6
> [ # ]  image16: pixman 0.21.2
> [  0]  image16                           gg    0.692    0.696   0.21%    6/6
>
>
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