The 'X-Factor'
I have found this discussion intriguing.
I note with interest the mention of an 'X-Factor' as a possible explanation for some of the irregularities in NX2 performance. I would like to suggest however that is it not the presence of an X-Factor that is controlling; it is rather the absence of a 'Y-Factor' - as in Why do Nikon/NIk demonstrate such visible and active interest in this issue?
I have the trial software installed on 2 XP computers, roughly 30 days apart. Both installations have been set up following the most usable and valuable guidance developed by Tom and published on this forum.
The earlier of the two installation runs with acceptable performance (only 'acceptable' given the computing resources being used!) and outstanding functionality and stability. It is an excellent product.
The later installation is unique in my experience (i.e unique to me, on any computer I have used; these results do not apply to anybody esle).
I need to be more precise about this: to find an application that is slower I have to go back to 1978 and the first 'connect' processing on the IBM 8100 under DPPX. That took 12 hours, but, in fairness, was on a system that had more trace and performance measurement software than application software.
If you factor in the increase in all aspects of computer hardware performance in the intervening 30 years, then NX2 is actually slower. It is the slowest application I have ever experienced. Not only that, but it makes the remainder of this otherwise very capable computer barely usable.
For example, NX2 is running as I type this; the last operation, about 20 minutes ago, was to change the location of the temporary files folder to another hard drive. My system has been running at 100% CPU - 99% of it used by NX2 - since then. It has taken about 10 minutes to get to this forum page and about 10 minutes to type this far. I can easily fill the keyboard buffer while NX2 is (not) running.
Another statistic: I tried opening a 1 Mb jpg over my home network. I actually had time to go to my local grocery store, by bicyle, do a quick shop and return before the file was opened. All other applications on this computer will open a jpg across my home LAN in less than about 5 seconds.
As part of finalising the installation of NX2, the Nikon Message Center advised me of the availability of 2.0.1. The update was claimed to be 2 Mb. The download of this update took almost 10 times longer than the 38 Mb that Windows Update downloaded and installed on this computer just prior to installing NX2
The intriguing part is that, as an end-user, I have absolutely no idea of why there should be such significant differences between my 2 Win XP/SP3 computers in NX2 performance. Not only that but I can't think of an effective and robust problem source identification process. That's where the Y-Factor would be really helpful:
Nikon/Nik why don't you give us some clues as to what is going wrong when NX2 performs so badly? I don't mind accepting all responsibility for this if I have made an installation error, but I need to know what the error is and why before I can fix it.
Or is it just me?
PS: In order to speed up the creation of this post I tried closing NX2, but gave up after waiting 30 minutes for it to close. I killed it with the Task Manager. NX2 now crashes immediately on being started, with the usual 'sorry for the inconvenience...' message and option to send a report to Microsoft. Unless there are some experts out there, I think this is the end of my involvement with NX2 on this particular computer. (And the trial has evaporated on the other one....)
