Show HN: Avoid smooth spinners, use low-FPS spinners

hckrnws

Show HN: Avoid smooth spinners, use low-FPS spinners

by nh2

I got so annoyed by various apps (VScode, Chromium, Firefox, Thunderbird) burning CPU/GPU cycles and and making my laptop hot and sluggish with spinners on otherwise static content, that I made this little page to fight this.

echoangle
121d
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.
1. nh2 • OP
  111d
  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.
  1. adastra22
    71d
    It should not cost a visible fraction of CPU/GPU to update a little sprite even at 30fps.
    nh2 • OP
    61d
    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.
Diti
91d
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
1. creatonez
  01d
  > [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinner_(computing)
  Hah, I did not expect that. I can't imagine any end users will be able to name that one.
4d4m
217h
Can this be done in a lightweight way that uses less resources at full speed?
Low fps seems jerky/retro?
1. nh2 • OP
  114h
  Probably no.
  Does "Square ring" really look jerky/retro?
nonamesleft
01d
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.