Real-time Charting (WPF) - Rendering performance enhancements (19.2)

The Goal

In this post, we will summarize the results of ongoing performance optimizations made during our v2019 development cycle. As you may recall from previous posts on this subject, our objective was to increase Chart Layout rendering speed without sacrificing built-in functionality.

If you’re currently using real-time charting within your WPF application, we hope you’ll notice improved rendering performance after you upgrade to our most recent release (v19.2).

Optimizations and Test Results

To help track progress and compute improvements, we used our “Real-Time Chart” demo module as our target app.

The demo module we shipped in our v18.2 release displayed six Line Series with 1000 points each. Series were split across three separate Panes and we applied a data refresh rate of 40ms.

v18.2 rendering speed: 16 FPS (average)

Realtime demo module screenshot (v18.2)

After applying various optimization methods and running a series of tests, we saw that the rendering performance improved by at least 300%.
We also found that the resulting FPS count was more than 40 if we added two extra Series and another Pane.

So, our “Real-Time Chart” demo now includes eight Line Series with 1000 points each shown in four Panes. We set the refresh rate to 15ms.

v19.2 rendering speed: 49 FPS (average)

Realtime demo module screenshot (v19.2)

We recorded a short screencast for a side-by-side comparison (v18.2 vs v19.2). As you can see, our latest version (on the right) executes much more smoothly than its predecessor.

Here are the specs on our test machine should you wish to replicate this test and share your results with the DevExpress developer community.

HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15-cx0xxx
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Intel® Core™ i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz
16Gb RAM

Your Feedback Matters

If you are already using our newest release and would like to provide feedback, feel free to comment below. As always, we appreciate your continued support and commitment to DevExpress WPF technologies.

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