If you want to simplify your Mimics to improve their performance, you need to be aware of the Mimic configuration aspects that place the highest demand on the processor:
- High Number of Transparent Items—Transparent and semi-transparent items require a higher amount of processing than solid colors. You can check the number of transparent items by examining the Transparent Objects data on the Mimic Details window (see Displaying Mimic Diagnostics).
Transparent items are a common cause of slower processing on Mimics that appear to be quite simple. The transparent items cannot be seen and yet cause a significant demand on the processor.
If your Mimic is slow, we suggest you investigate each of the possible causes. If a high number of transparent items appears to be causing slow performance, we suggest that you remove any unnecessary transparent or semi transparent effects.
- High Number of Items with Gradient Shading—Items that have fill gradient, pipe gradient, or radial gradient shading cause a higher processing demand than solid color items. This is because gradient shading is more complex and requires extra processing.
You can examine the number of items with gradient shading by displaying the Mimic Details window and checking the various gradient fill entries (see Displaying Mimic Diagnostics).
If your Mimic is slow, we suggest you investigate each of the possible causes. If a high number of gradient fills appears to be causing slow performance, we suggest that you replace some of the gradient shading with solid shading.
- High Number of Polylines—Mimics with a high number of polylines can cause extra demand on the processor. You may be able to reduce the number of polylines by using fewer lines with more segments. For example, Mimics that contain imported DXF files often contain excessive numbers of polylines as the lines on DXF files often consist of many separate lines—many of these lines are redundant.
- High Number of Embedded Mimics—If your Mimic contains a high number of embedded Mimics, you may be able to improve performance by increasing the Embedded Mimic Cache Size setting on the Options window (see Display the Options Window in the ClearSCADA Guide to Client Administration). The Embedded Mimic Cache Size setting is located on the General tab.
- Excessive Amount of Updates due to Fast Update Feature—When a Mimic updates, ViewX redraws the Mimic so that it is accurate. This can affect performance if there are an excessive amount of updates (due to a high number of Mimic items using the Fast Updates feature).
To determine the number of items that use the Fast Update feature on a Mimic, you need to examine the entries on the OPCDA Groups tab of the Server Status Tool (see Overview of the Server Status Tool in the ClearSCADA Guide to the Server Status Tool). First you should close any other Mimics on your client, then access the OPCDA Groups tab. In the Name column, examine the entries for your client PC—the entry with Fast at the end of the name is the entry for the Mimic you have on display. The Items number for the Fast entry is the number of items with Fast Update enabled on the Mimic.
If there are a high number of items with Fast Update enabled, you should either reduce the Fast Update rate so that the Mimic updates less frequently or disable the Fast Update feature for some items.
To change the Fast Update rate, see Define the Update Rates for a Mimic.
To disable the Fast Update feature, see Using the Expression Window.