Show HN: Avoid smooth spinners, use low-FPS spinners(nh2.me)
18 pointsby nh212 hours ago3 comments
  • Diti6 hours ago
    Those aren’t spinners (also called numeric updowns, see [1]). Those are throbbers (also called loading icons, see [2]).

    [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinner_(computing)

    [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throbber

  • echoangle7 hours ago
    Your claimed GPU usage seems really high for a simple spinner, even considering the CPU is pretty old. I wonder if there's some other problem going on with your setup.
    • nh26 hours ago
      I don't think so. This is just what happens when you redraw the screen.

      Doing it 30x more frequent than needed costs more, no matter if it's only 1 pixel.

      This problem is not isolated to me or to just one machine. Check out the chromium bug about the tab loading spinner, for example. It is a "simple" spinner as well.

      Or the Zed editor, which spams screen redraws even when nothing changes at all, so it has high GPU usage for still picture.

      • Lord-Jobo32 minutes ago
        I miss the 1 update per second animations of ye olden times, even if it would be ugly as sin in a modern product.
      • adastra224 hours ago
        It should not cost a visible fraction of CPU/GPU to update a little sprite even at 30fps.
        • nh23 hours ago
          But it does. The GPU rerenders your entire screen with all its pixels, even if you change only one. The only thing you can do to avoid that is to not ask the GPU to render a frame. For that you need to reduce FPS.
          • Timon3an hour ago
            Did I totally miss how damage tracking has gone out of fashion, or what do you base this on?
      • jy148985 hours ago
        I'm on mobile so I'm not able to check, but can the will-change and contain attributes reduce the cost?
        • nh23 hours ago
          Avoiding unnecessary browser repaint of the rest of the page is a basic technique and often already done correctly. If people don't do that, it's just ultra-bad.

          But do really have the CPU/GPU go idle, you need to not use them; the only solution to that is to show still images, aka reduce FPS.

  • nonamesleft7 hours ago
    I truly wish i could get everything to use the ticking clock one at 1Hz (or maybe 0.5) for spinners, animation in user interfaces causes me anguish in general, so i have to go around filtering them on webapps.