Speed of text rendering?

[AlexTP]

I want to know how much faster the BGRABitmap text renreding comparing to LCL one. On Linux gtk2/qt5.
(On Windows it is interesting too, but I guess that win32 API ExtTextOutW is very fast so BGRABitmap cannot be much faster.)

You can find benchmark project here, it is for pure LCL only yet:
https://github.com/Alexey-T/FreePascal-tests/tree/master/Canvas%20TextOut%20speed%20test

[Thaddy]

Then measure it. Then you will know. That's usually how I do it.

[circular]

BGRABitmap default text rendering is slower than LCL rendering, because it is based on a call to the LCL with additional computation for texture or fine antialiasing.

However there are various text rendering methods that can have different speed:
- when using the vectorial text rendering of BGRAVectorize, the glyphs are cached as vectors.
- when using BGLFont, the glyphs are cached as textures.
- when using BGRAFreeType, the font is rendered natively using FreeType package of Lazarus.

[TRon]

- when using BGRAFreeType, the font is rendered natively using FreeType package of Lazarus.

Is that a runtime option ? I just recently found out that Freetype will be used by BGRA (in case defined) at compilation time (f.e. nogui widgetset defines it).

[AlexTP]

- when using BGRAFreeType, the font is rendered natively using FreeType package of Lazarus.

yes, this is the interest. Is this rendering faster than LCL one on Linux gtk2/qt5?

[circular]

Good question. To test this, assign the FontRenderer property of a TBGRABitmap and compare times.

For LCL rendering, create each time a new instance from BGRAText.TLCLFontRenderer.

For FreeType, a new instance from BGRAFreeType.BGRAFreeTypeFontRenderer. Of course you will need a TTF file for this one.