Slow OpenCPN on OP4

[Spidgrou]

Hi everybody,
i've just installed the OP4, on my Pi4.
Same hw setup as with the OP2 and OP3.

With OP4, OpenCPN is extremely slower than before.
And I said before, same hardware, same charts.
Is there anythng that I can do to make it faster?

Thanks

[PaddyB]

couple of things you could check >
make sure the 3d driver is enabled, open a terminal ( in the accessories menu) and paste in

cat /boot/firmware/config.txt

This will show the contents of the context file, there should be a couple of lines which say >
# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d

Also make sure the opengl graphics is turned on in Opencpn, in Options/advanced, "use accelerated graphics" should be selected>



Hope that sorts it out for you 

[Spidgrou]

Hi PaddyB,
thanks for your advice, unfortunately I've already check them.

Yesterday, I checked my OpenCpn version and I saw that it was the: Debian/Ubuntu Backports: OpenCPN 5.8.4+dfsg-1~bpo12+1
I removed it and installed the: OpenCPN 5.8.4+8089+1637c28fb~ubuntu22.04.1

Look at the image.
I don't know what is the difference between the two, but it is a little bit faster than before.
Now it is almost usable.
I hope it become faster in the future as before.
 
Thanks

[PaddyB]

you could ask the developers on cruisersforum, someone might know something >
https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f134/

[Olaf]

Hello @here,

I have similar issues. Although I do not think it is Chart related. In my case I just have the very coarse default coastal outlines with No additional charts loaded whatsoever.
I run Openplotter 4 headless on a Raspi5. With hardware acceleration enabled in the config.txt:
```
# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d
max_framebuffers=2
````
and in OpenCPN, "Use Accelerated Graphics (OpenGL)" is enabled.

I use "OpenCPN 5.8.4+8089+1637c28fb~ubuntu22.04.1" package version, installed via the OpenCPN installer app from Openplotter.

The Raspi is wired to a 1Gbps network port, and the remote device I use to access the raspi is connected to a 1Gbps port on the same switch.
To access OpenCPN on the device I use a RealVNC viewer session.

The whole interface is slow, Opening a function from the Navigation bar (like "Route and Mark Manager" or "Options") or performing a single Mouswheel click zoom action on the Chart display, takes any where from 7-10 seconds.

With any of these actions, CPU utilization does not exceed 10% While GPU utilization remains at a constant 1%.

On a second Raspi5 I am running a vanilla Raspi-OS image (bookwork) With the latest patches applied and the same OpenCPN version installed. This PI is using the default Wayland windows manager. the OpenCPN is as fast as I have ever seen it running on a Raspi. Even with proper charts loaded. THe machine does not blink to show a menu, zoom or scroll the window.

This machine obviously does have the annoying Wayland bug that causes some screen elements, like the small bottom right Zoom menu bar to be missplaced. In my case smack bam in the middle of the screen.

On this device I can not switch to X11 window manager to check if it may be the WIndow manager causing the slugish behaviour in OpenCPN.

with kind regards,

Olaf