Slow-down when simulating TX16S Mk3 and using Lua widgets in Companion 2.12

[nickthenorse]

Is there an existing issue for this problem?

• I have searched the existing issues

What part of EdgeTX is the focus of this bug?

Simulator

Current Behavior

When simulating a TX16S Mk3 in Companion 2.12 there is a significant slow down in simulator responsiveness when adding lua widgets.

If I change to another radio profile, the slow down appears not to occur.

Expected Behavior

No impact on performance when adding lua widgets.

Steps To Reproduce

Start simulator for the TX16S Mk3 profile.

Add lua widget to the main screen.

Version

2.12.0-RC

Transmitter

RadioMaster TX16S MK3

Operating System (OS)

macOS

OS Version

MacOS 15.7.3

Anything else?

No response

[3djc]

I'm not seing that I think. What kind of mac is that. MK3 does have a higher resolution screen so thats more pixels to compute dan draw, but the rest should be very similar

[nickthenorse]

I'm on an MacBook Pro with an M2 Max.

The slow-down is so severe that the entire simulator lags/hangs. It is effectively unusable.

The slow-down gets progressively worse when adding multiple lighter widgets to the screen, or is immediate if adding a single more complicated widget. Again, only when simulating a TX16S Mk3.

The same widgets in Companion 2.11, or in 2.12 while simulating a TX15, behave perfectly.

[3djc]

I have an M2 Max macbook pro as well, and clearly not seing that, could you share a model doing that ?

[raphaelcoeffic]

Could you upload the widgets you're using as well as .etx file?

[nickthenorse]

I updated to macOS Tahoe 26.4 just in case, no change. I've confirmed also on a Windows 11 PC, this is not an issue on Windows OS.

Thanks for helping to investigate this issue :-)

I know you've asked for an .etx file, but because I'm experiencing it just on a new default profile and the simulator won't save any of the changes I'm making to the actual .etx file, I'll describe the detailed steps to recreate instead:

Setup:

• New "Radio Profile" based on defaults, with radio type Radiomaster TX16S Mk3
• New fresh 2.12 c800x480 sd card folder download
• New fresh 2.12 "en" English SOUNDS folder copied to folder
• "ePowerBar" lua added to WIDGETS folder (https://github.com/bob01/etx-widgets)
• New default blank "MODEL01" created in Companion

NB: problem not specific to "ePowerBar" lua script.

Steps:

• Start to simulate radio
• Activate simulated CRSF telemetry, including battery monitoring
• In MDL setup, discover new telemetry sensors. Already now the simulator is starting to feel a bit sluggish.
• Add ePowerBar lua widget to display via TELE menu
• Try to select the RxBat, Bat% and Capa sensors in the widget options

By now the simulator is nearly completely unresponsive, reacting very slowly or not at all to any user input. Also the telemetry to the simulator keeps dropping out/reconnecting, presumably due to the overall sluggishness of the system.

If I now close the simulator (which in itself takes a long time, again because user input is so sluggish), and change the Radio Type to TX15, all the above steps can be recreated and the simulator performs perfectly, just as it did in Companion 2.11.

[raphaelcoeffic]

What I can see immediately: one thread is taking 100% and seems to be fighting with screen refresh, which is pretty odd. @elecpower any clue what has changed in the simulator between 2.11 and 2.12?

@nickthenorse could you check the "Activity Monitor" while this is happening and tell us what you see there? In my case I see one thread using 100% CPU (1x core).

[nickthenorse]

@raphaelcoeffic When simulating the TX16S Mk3, CPU usage is at 102-103% in Activity Monitor. If I switch to simulating a TX15, CPU drops to 82-84%.

[raphaelcoeffic]

@nickthenorse it might take a little while for the build to finish (1-2 hours), but you should then be able to test with the build from #7249 (go to "Checks" -> click on "Companion" workflow, then at the bottom of the page, "Artifacts" should be available once build is finished). This makes the CPU usage here go down to 22-24%.