Calibre 4.2

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It was said by Kovid that the reason for seeing the unformatted eBook and then seeing it formatted is due to an old video driver.

I respectfully disagree with this assessment. I’ve seen it a couple of times on my netbook, but chalked it up to my computer needing a second to redraw the display. Atom processor, low memory, nondescript video… it makes sense. Limited resources take their toll in the form of time.

While it’s true that offloading that task to a GPU can speed it up and make the refresh effectively invisible, that’s not at all the same thing as blaming the slow refresh on an outdated driver.

I will observe that I did not see this two-step refresh on 3.x, though. I can definitely tell that calibre 4.x’s rendering engine is first displaying the default HTML styles, then applying the ebook’s stylesheet(s) with a refresh.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

I respectfully disagree with this assessment. I’ve seen it a couple of times on my netbook, but chalked it up to my computer needing a second to redraw the display. Atom processor, low memory, nondescript video… it makes sense. Limited resources take their toll in the form of time.

While it’s true that offloading that task to a GPU can speed it up and make the refresh effectively invisible, that’s not at all the same thing as blaming the slow refresh on an outdated driver.

I will observe that I did not see this two-step refresh on 3.x, though. I can definitely tell that calibre 4.x’s rendering engine is first displaying the default HTML styles, then applying the ebook’s stylesheet(s) with a refresh.

Do you think it might be that deback is on 32-bit Windows instead of 64-bit Windows where it could take advantage of the 16GB of ram his system has?

[deback]

First, the only response I saw Kovid give about this little bug in 4.* is that he couldn't replicate it.

Second, glad to know that someone else has seen this little bug in the File Preview.

Third, my video driver is up-to-date, so blaming it on an outdated driver has to be false.

Rev. Bob said:
"I will observe that I did not see this two-step refresh on 3.x, though. I can definitely tell that calibre 4.x’s rendering engine is first displaying the default HTML styles, then applying the ebook’s stylesheet(s) with a refresh."

This is exactly what's happening, and it still doesn't make sense to me. Oh, well...

Deb

[deback]

I would have stuck with 4.2 and put up with the slow refresh rate in the File Preview, but after the Editor crashed (window disappeared) at least twice in the last few days, I decided to just go back to the more stable version, 3.48, and wait until more of the bugs have been fixed.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by deback

I would have stuck with 4.2 and put up with the slow refresh rate in the File Preview, but after the Editor crashed (window disappeared) at least twice in the last few days, I decided to just go back to the more stable version, 3.48, and wait until more of the bugs have been fixed.

As Rev. Bob said, maybe it's a slow system or lack of memory. So going 64-bit would give you much more memory and maybe speed up your system as it would be doing less caching to a slow hard drive.

[deback]

It's not a slow system; it's a fast system. It's not a slow hard drive; it's a Samsung 500GB SSD. It's not a lack of memory; I have 16GB of RAM, even though it's using less than that because I'm using 32-bit Windows. Everything is fast on my system, except for this new "refresh" problem in the File Preview window in version 4.0 and later. This doesn't happen in 3.48. I have a hard time believing that the code was written to first look at default HTML styles and then refresh the preview window using the ebook's stylesheet.css codes after every edit.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by deback

It's not a slow system; it's a fast system. It's not a slow hard drive; it's a Samsung 500GB SSD. It's not a lack of memory; I have 16GB of RAM, even though it's using less than that because I'm using 32-bit Windows. Everything is fast on my system, except for this new "refresh" problem in the File Preview window in version 4.0 and later. This doesn't happen in 3.48. I have a hard time believing that the code was written to first look at default HTML styles and then refresh the preview window using the ebook's stylesheet.css codes after every edit.

It very well could be a lack of memory as 32-bit Windows are limited to 3GB. Calibre 4.x is a total under-the-hood change from previous Calibre. Calibre 4.x now uses QT webengine because the other QT Calibre was using was rather buggy and is not really supported. So a change had to be made.

[deback]

Did Kovid add the additional RAM requirements on his Download page for v4.0 and higher? Seems he should do this if the QTWebEngine is such a memory hog. That could be why so many people are having problems with 4.0 and later.

And this still doesn't answer the question of why the File Preview doesn't check to see if there is a .css file in the epub first before displaying the text using the default HTML styles.

[theducks]

a 32 bit system (in any form) has been hobbled by today's standards.
Having 16G of RAM would be fine if you were running Linux. You are not.
32 Bit Win has coded 3G as the wall (same folk who brought you 'Who needs more than 640K )

The drivers you have ARE the latest . They are OLD and outdated because nobody wants (or can) bring them up to current app DEMANDS.
Hardware Mfgrs are crying because the market has stagnated. That system from 2005 will do everything the common user needs, so why upgrade. (Gammers are the ones that push for more-faster-insane faster) Oh! Get the OS and App guys to use features ONLY supported by newer hardware

[deback]

I'm pretty sure I'll be buying a new video card. I just need to do some research and try to find one that will be faster than my current one.

Current card is: EVGA GeForce GT 730 4GB DDR3 128bit Dual DVI mHDMI Graphics Cards 04G-P3-2739-KR

[NiLuJe]

It won't help. As was mentioned, you *are* running the final 32bit drivers nVidia released for your card (the way nvidia internally versions its drivers is just a bit quirky, which makes parsing the device manager output slightly trickier), which happens to fall in the same batch of drivers as the latest generations.

TL;DR: You'd be using the same driver on a newer card (unless it's so new that it wasn't even supported before the 4xx branch, in which case, you won't even have any hardware acceleration at all on a 32bit OS). And before someone chimes in, Linux won't help, they discontinued 32bit support at the same time.

TL;DR: 32bit OS are EOL. That's your issue, not having up to date drivers is simply a byproduct of that fact.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

TL;DR: 32bit OS are EOL. That's your issue, not having up to date drivers is simply a byproduct of that fact.

This news will come as a surprise to Microsoft, which is still maintaining Win10/32.

[deback]

Well, let's put this all into perspective:

I use Calibre only to edit epub files. I use it for nothing else. Version 3.48 works fine for me, and I'm fine with that. I will save time in the future by not having to update the program every week.

At some time in the future, I'll upgrade to 64-bit, but I'm in no hurry to do that and have no need to do that at this time.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice and suggestions!

[AnotherCat]

I wouldn't rush out and buy a new graphics card unless you can return it in case it doesn't give you the result you need.

I don't have a GT730 here but have set up a test with a similar age (2014) GForce 850M in a notebook and I put an old 2008 vintage GForce 9400GT into an old tired low RAM PC to test both with Calibre 4.2. Both machines Windows 10, 64bit.

Both rendered books faultlessly in both the Viewer and in the Editor preview for the small set of tasks I conducted. The old GForce 9400 was noticeably much slower than the newer 850 but only when opening books for first read; whereas the 2014 vintage 850 prepared a typical novel for first read in less than a second.

Laptop with 850M; 5000 series i7 processor, 64bit, 16GB RAM. Video via USB3 to docking station, HDMI docking station to display. (The Intel integrated graphics in this notebook worked faultlessly too, maybe slightly slower opening for first read)

PC with 9400GT: 2000 series i5 processor, 64bit, 4GB RAM. Video via DVI to display.

It would be surprising if a GT730 could not handle the new Calibre software while the much older and the contemporary aged boards I tested can. Maybe you have something else amiss (I think you have hinted at other problems?).

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

It would be surprising if a GT730 could not handle the new Calibre software while the much older and the contemporary aged boards I tested can. Maybe you have something else amiss (I think you have hinted at other problems?).

@deback - I think you need to resolve the conundrum of why you built a system that appears to be plenty good enough to run Windows 10 64 bit yet you installed Window 10 32 bit.

Maybe you use a 'hard wired' 32 bit app - are there such things? I have almost 30 installed 32bit apps and several 32bit 'portable' apps all of which just run - no compatibility mode, or run as administrator - out of the box, the oldest of which I last downloaded in 2002.

Calibre 4 64 bit runs on my Alienware Alpha (Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M), albeit slowly - but that's been the case since I got it (about when V3 was released) - but I didn't get it to run calibre.

BR