Reducing CPU Use By WeatherCat Version 1.15 Build 25 (1.1.5)

[schwab]

Is there any way to reduce CPU use by WeatherCat Version 1.15 Build 25 (1.1.5) using OSX 10.8.3?

My Acitivity Monitor shows 175.3 MB of Real Memory and 224.7 MB of Virtual Memory allocated to WeatherCat and it is using 9 to 45% of the CPU capacity.

Thanks.

[Steve]

If you routinely have a lot of windows and charts open, that consumes some RAM. I have a separate desktop under Mission Control with 15 windows open all the time. My typical load is 208 MB real memory (1 GB virtual), and 5-12% CPU jumping to 20-25% during larger FTP uploads. (Note that CPU use is 5-25% of one core, not all four)

Steve

[elagache]

Dear Schwab, Steve, and WeatherCat fans,

Is there any way to reduce CPU use by WeatherCat Version 1.15 Build 25 (1.1.5) using OSX 10.8.3?

My Acitivity Monitor shows 175.3 MB of Real Memory and 224.7 MB of Virtual Memory allocated to WeatherCat and it is using 9 to 45% of the CPU capacity.

Thanks.

WeatherCat is a heavily multi-threaded application.  So it will try to run in parallel as much as possible.  That's a feature, not a bug, because a weather application needs to do as much as possible to stay in real time with the weather data.

If you want WeatherCat to use less CPU you need to take a look at what you are asking WeatherCat do to.  As Steve points out, large graphs and many of them require a lot of CPU to keep continuously updated.  Your sample interval will cause CPU processing.  So to reduce CPU, lengthen the time between sampling the station.  Generating a complex website requires a lot of CPU.  If you look at WeatherCat at the time is generates custom web pages you'll see the greatest CPU use.

However all this being said, don't you want everything that WeatherCat is doing now to continue?  Your CPU usage suggests to me that you are running WeatherCat on a Mac that isn't up to the task.  If you are enjoying WeatherCat enough to make your present Mac get this bogged down, perhaps you should either upgrade your Mac, or perhaps dedicated this Mac to WeatherCat only and get yourself another Mac.

Sorry, but sometimes the best solution truly is more horsepower!

Cheers, Edouard 

[Steve]

Or more RAM. Bumping my 4 GB iMac to 16 GB was somewhere around $100.