Improving load times in Linux LabVIEW executable

Question

I'm looking for (simple) ways to improve the loading times in a Linux LabVIEW executable. We're using a low performance, low cost CPU board, and loading times are terrible. The CPU is capable of doing everything after the application is loaded, but takes forever to get there.
One of the problems is the size of the executable, that grows everytime you just look at it. Are there ways to create smaller executables? It runs from a Compact Flash card, which is ofcourse much slower than hard disk.
Another problem is a dynamic vi, that is started for every TCP connection that connects to the application. It takes a long time to load, and connecting too fast can even effectively hang up the system. Starting a handler task takes about half a second, up to a few seconds for the first task.
We're using the LabVIEW 7.1 runtime, system is a 300 MHz cyrix SBC, running from a Compact Flash.

Answer 1

Dennisvr wrote:
I'm looking for
(simple) ways to improve the loading times in a Linux LabVIEW
executable. We're using a low performance, low cost CPU board, and
loading times are terrible. The CPU is capable of doing everything
after the application is loaded, but takes forever to get there.   One
of the problems is the size of the executable, that grows everytime you
just look at it. Are there ways to create smaller executables? It runs
from a Compact Flash card, which is ofcourse much slower than hard disk.   Another
problem is a dynamic vi, that is started for every TCP connection that
connects to the application. It takes a long time to load, and
connecting too fast can even effectively hang up the system. Starting a
handler task takes about half a second, up to a few seconds for the
first task.   We're using the LabVIEW 7.1 runtime, system is a 300 MHz cyrix SBC, running from a Compact Flash.
I'm
not sure about the first part of your question. LabVIEW is highly
binary and does a lot of memory allocations before even one VI is ready
to be started. So maybe the memory manager is a problem. Another issue
is that the Macintosh like resource file format that is used by LabVIEW to store its VIs etc. results in
lots and lots of individual disk accesses with a rther random like
character inside a single file. So if you can configure the read
caching of your disk to use more memory this may significantly increase
the speed of loading LabVIEW VIs or applications.
And finally spawning VIs through VI server is a rather costly operation
especially on low resoruce systems. A VI is more like an executable in
many ways as far as resource consumption is concerned rather than a
thread. A much better way would be to avoid spawning subVIs altogether
and implement a queued TCP/IP server similar to the Date Time Server
example. It is a little extra work to work with this shift register
architecture but it will not have the issues of long load times for
every new TCP/IP connection coming in.
Rolf Kalbermatter
Message Edited by rolfk on 03-07-2006 06:33 PM
Rolf Kalbermatter
CIT Engineering Netherlands
a division of Test & Measurement Solutions