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.
nh2 19 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.
adastra22 17 hours ago [-]
It should not cost a visible fraction of CPU/GPU to update a little sprite even at 30fps.
nh2 15 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.
SR2Z 12 hours ago [-]
You need a fairly modern laptop to change the screen refresh rate like you're describing. Older laptops do 60Hz (or whatever) refreshes at all times, they can't change refresh rates like that. The compositor should only paint relevant pixels on the screen.
I'm sure that some spinners are horrible and peg the CPU, but unless your machine is older than ~2018 there is something wrong with your setup if spinners (and not intense operations behind them) cause your battery to suffer.
nh2 5 hours ago [-]
I'm not describing anything about screen refresh rates, which I'm pretty sure are 60 Hz on my laptop even when the CPU+GPU are at 0% and don't draw anything. Compute != monitor refresh.
adastra22 1 hours ago [-]
Compositing is fast and energy efficient. The screen should not be doing a full refresh of the entire display for an isolated change.
Timon3 14 hours ago [-]
Did I totally miss how damage tracking has gone out of fashion, or what do you base this on?
nh2 5 hours ago [-]
The damage tracking doesn't seem to be effective at reducing the computational cost. Measurement:
Opening https://nh2.me/low-fps-spinners/smooth-spinner.html it doesn't matter if I zoom the spinner to 25% or 500%: Despite the 400x difference in pixels redrawn, the "GPU Process" CPU usage in the "Browser" tab of the Chromium Shift+Esc task manager is equally high.
It only scales down the cost when reducing the FPS.
adastra22 1 hours ago [-]
I am also mystified at how far things have fallen.
Lord-Jobo 13 hours 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.
jy14898 18 hours ago [-]
I'm on mobile so I'm not able to check, but can the will-change and contain attributes reduce the cost?
nh2 15 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.
Diti 19 hours ago [-]
Those aren’t spinners (also called numeric updowns, see [1]). Those are throbbers (also called loading icons, see [2]).
This is a rare instance where I think Wikipedia is plain wrong. Maybe the process to have multiple pages renamed is onerous? The thing in the original post I've usually heard to be called spinners, while this input element, which I'm not sure I've ever even seen, doesn't seem to have its name justified in any way on the Wikipedia page either. I can't really tell why it'd desperately need a concise name either, it's basically a numeric input with extra controls on it? anyhow, spinners spin and those spin so they're spinners, I won't hear otherwise.
Diti 5 hours ago [-]
Mozilla employees up until recently (2024), and research literature, seem to be calling them throbbers as well.
Anecdotally, I’ve only ever heard non-frontend developers call them “spinners”.
Maybe starting a discussion on the articles’ talk page could elicit some change? Language evolves, after all.
nh2 5 hours ago [-]
> I’ve only ever heard non-frontend developers call them “spinners”
Hah, I did not expect that. I can't imagine any end users will be able to name that one.
pwdisswordfishq 17 hours ago [-]
To be fair, those do spin, while "spinners" don't.
adastra22 17 hours ago [-]
That’s not how language works.
Diti 16 hours ago [-]
That is how language works.
account42 16 hours ago [-]
The general public says: no.
4d4m 8 hours ago [-]
Can this be done in a lightweight way that uses less resources at full speed?
Low fps seems jerky/retro?
nh2 5 hours ago [-]
Probably no.
Does "Square ring" really look jerky/retro?
4d4m 4 hours ago [-]
Square ring and the 2x2 look smooth!
nonamesleft 20 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.
Rendered at 03:39:05 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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.
I'm sure that some spinners are horrible and peg the CPU, but unless your machine is older than ~2018 there is something wrong with your setup if spinners (and not intense operations behind them) cause your battery to suffer.
Opening https://nh2.me/low-fps-spinners/smooth-spinner.html it doesn't matter if I zoom the spinner to 25% or 500%: Despite the 400x difference in pixels redrawn, the "GPU Process" CPU usage in the "Browser" tab of the Chromium Shift+Esc task manager is equally high.
It only scales down the cost when reducing the FPS.
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.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinner_(computing)
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throbber
Anecdotally, I’ve only ever heard non-frontend developers call them “spinners”.
Maybe starting a discussion on the articles’ talk page could elicit some change? Language evolves, after all.
Such as these non-frontend devs?
https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.3/components/spinners/
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/...
I think they fell out of fashion after the scroll wheel was invented
Hah, I did not expect that. I can't imagine any end users will be able to name that one.
Low fps seems jerky/retro?
Does "Square ring" really look jerky/retro?