Chart FX-Tuning Settings and Features for Performance and Scalability Tuning Chart FX

Chart FX-Tuning Settings and Features for Performance and Scalability Tuning Chart FX

While it is true that many development tools and web development technologies significantly reduce development time and allow for quicker deployment, this paradigm presents a whole new challenge for developers; among them, server scalability and performance. The real issue in web application design is user experience. To make an application perform as a traditional desktop application when it is actually a distributed application that could be simultaneously servicing hundreds or even thousands of users. To understand how Chart FX impacts server performance, consider every time a web page containing a chart is accessed, the Chart FX Server component creates a chart in memory using a device context created on the server. Therefore, hardware and software settings on your server affect how quickly these charts are created. In general, Chart FX performance depends to a great extent on the chart format generation (Image, .NET Control, SVG, Flash, etc) and the chart return mechanisms (GetHtmlTag or GetHtmlData) chosen. Also, when generating chart images you should pay close attention to the Chart FX default settings and chart size as major performance factors when the server is under a heavy load.

Settings, Features and Their Impact on Performance

Chart FX was designed to conform to web development guidelines and to take advantage of the server-bound nature of web applications. Nevertheless, many of the product's default settings are tailored for improving the chart's look rather than focusing on server performance. In situations where Chart FX is heavily used, these default settings may need to be configured to improve performance.

For example, Chart FX uses a default smoothing algorithm (anti-aliasing) on text and markers that negatively impacts server performance. This feature can be turned off by using the SmoothFlags property to “None".

Turning off the smoothing feature also increases the amount of users you can serve concurrently.

In general, if server performance is of real concern you should refrain from making extensive use of the features geared towards achieving a cosmetic effect on the chart. Particularly, features like Borders, Transparency and Gradients which heavily use the system graphical API as a way to improve the way charts look.