Performance enhancement

[SjB]

The background:

I'm running TomTom 5.1 (build 5160) on an iPAQ 2210 with SysOnChip CF 256 card antenna.

For the past year I have used the Pocket GPS speed camera overlays without problem, but have recently also installed CheckPOInt 5 together with the CheckPOInt UK speed camera overlays. The combined installation has resulted in 36 .ov2 files of between 1 and 118kb each.

Since installating CheckPOInt TomTom has struggled to keep up whenever the road topography is demanding; I have read the post about TomTom 5 bugs and see that it is easy to max out the processor without any additional processor demands such as CheckPOInt, so obviously want to do what I can to reduce load.

The question:

Can I help matters by either combining all .ov2 files in to one big file, or at least by combining all CheckPOInt .ov2 files in to one file, and likewise for all Pocket GPS files?

Inference from what I have found is that I can but I'd like to be sure before I mess things up.

Many thanks.
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[mikealder]

I would start by deleting the OV2 and associated bmp files completely, then just install a single set of cameras (I sugest the set from this site), if you want voice warnings specific to the cameras then modify the data.chk file (plenty of posts on here as to how to do it http://www.rayflanagan.co.uk/ for more information and voices) or go for the ones from this site - I find it quite stable in use - it looks like you have managed to duplicate some of the cameras by installing from two locations - Mike

[SjB]

Many thanks for your kind help and the very useful link; great stuff and I forsee a late night ahead!

I don't want to stop using CheckPOInt though, so your reply - which didn't include overlay merging as the speed enhancing option that I had guessed it might - leads to another question; how can I format (I guess extra "columns" are needed) the PocketGPS overlays to work with CheckPOInt, thus enabling me to discard CheckPOInt's own overlays and work solely with the "recommended" set?

For info, the reasons I am so keen to stick with CheckPOInt (and thus need to do some tuning as I consequently have two applications running when navigating) are:

1) A first AND second warning is given; TomTom only gives one
2) Average speed through SPECS is shown; TomTom can't do this
3) Warning is controlled by time not distance; it's easier to guess an appropriate value during configuration
4) Warning can be set idividually by camera type and speed; this means that I can set lower speed cameras to trigger 'later' than those for higher speeds. With TomTom everything triggers at the same distance, which is poor functionality.


Cheers.
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[CalumLawson]

Do you have the POI preferences set to display the Speed Camera overlays in Change Preferences - Manage POI - Enable/Disable POI)? If so you can untick them there. This will not prevent either the built-in TomTom POI notification nor Chedckpoint from actually advising you of their proximity. The only difference you will see it that they don't appear on the map screen when planning/viewing routes.

This make a tremendous difference on my PPC (iPAQ 2210)

HTH

Calum

[SjB]

Hi Callum,

Thanks for helping me.

I have enabled the Pocket GPS speed camera POIs but have not done so the CheckPOInt speed camera POIs. The reason for this is that I need to enable the Pocket GPS ones for them to display at runtime. I don't need to enable the CheckPOInt ones though since the CheckPOInt application picks them up and displays them on the TomTom map anyway at runtime.

Have I therefore done what you suggest, or do you mean something else, please?

Anyway, the result - as correctly guess by Mike earlier - is that 99.99% of the time I get two sets of warning and two POI graphics for every camera. If the Pocket GPS overlay is likely to be more up to date, then I'd like to do away with the CheckPOInt ones, but I don't want to do away with the rather useful CheckPOInt application. ergo; I need to find a way of getting the Pocket GPS overlays to work with CheckPOInt.

Possible? Easy if you know how? Or not?


Cheers.
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[CalumLawson]

If I understand what your saying (apologies if not) you have a set of POI from Pocket GPS and a set of POI from Checkpoint, you have the Pocket GPS camera POI's enabled so that they appear on your map when you view an area with them.

You don't have the Checkpoint provided ones enabled from within TomTom (ie they don't appear on the map).

However you have both (or is it only one) of sets activated in Checkpoint to give the warnings. If it is more than one it merely means you could get some double notifications.

If this is all correct, to improve you speed, what you don't need to do is to have any of the POI enabled (ie visible on the map view) from within TomTom for them to be flagged with Checkpoint (or TomTom's if you decided to use that instead)

I use the Checkpoint provied speed warnings and use TT5.1 and Checkpoint 5.0.2 and when I had the POI enabled in TomTom I used to get a delay when making direction changed, eg if I turned a roundabout it would sometimes be an exit behind the actual one I was at and would only catch up once I exited and went on a straighter with of road.

If this is the same for you, it should be just as I mentioned, ie from within TomTom goes to :-

Change Preferences - Manage POI - Enable/Disable POI

and disable all of the speed camera POI.

Checkpoint will still pick them up, they just won't appear on your map when you are planning routes or browsing the map.

Hope that helps (and I hope I have understood you )

Calum

[julianbarker]

To summarise - any third party POIs visible in TT5 dramatically degrade performace due to a serious bug in TT5 not there in previous versions. Note that Checkpoint and TT5 do not need to display POIs to give visual and audable warnings of POIs.

[SjB]

Calum

TomTom POIs are currently enabled in TomTom (only) to both display and give a warning in TomTom. No TomTom POI setup is done in CheckPOInt because they don't display in the CheckPOInt setup window. (See "All" below)

CheckPOInt POIs are enabled in CheckPOInt (only) to display and give warnings in TomTom; at runtime the CheckPOInt application then runs in the background at the same time as TomTom and sticks its oar in to update the TomTom map.


Julian
Thanks for the heads-up. I will see if I can run CheckPOInt to alert Checkpoint POIs but not to display them, and see if this improves TomTom performance. I hope though that by switching off all TomTom POIs and any processing drain they cause I can use CheckPOInt with acceptable performance (even if still a little slower than if I was exclusively using TomTom). See below.


All
What I really (REALLY ;-) want to do is to forget enabling speed camera POIs in TomTom completely and only do this in CheckPOInt for all the reasons described earlier (in essence TomTom POI functionality is weak and CheckPOInt's is stronger).

Everybody tells me though that Pocket GPS has the best POIs, so how can I edit PocketGPS overlays so they display in the CheckPOInt overlay setup window and behave as if they are CheckPOInt's own POIs?

At the moment Pocket GPS overlays don't display in the CheckPOInt setup window, but if they did, I guess they may need changing in layout to support the extra CheckPOInt features?


TVM
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[SjB]

Hi Calum,

I just realised that when I cut and pasted I missed off part of my reply top you. I'm sorry. Let's try again! ;-)

Calum

TomTom POIs are currently enabled in TomTom (only) to both display and give a warning in TomTom. No TomTom POI setup is done in CheckPOInt because they don't display in the CheckPOInt setup window. (See "All" below)

CheckPOInt POIs are enabled in CheckPOInt (only) to display and give warnings in TomTom; at runtime the CheckPOInt application then runs in the background at the same time as TomTom and sticks its oar in to update the TomTom map.

The above two paragraphs are my understanding of how things work, but from your kind reply it appears that ChekPOInt gives audible warnings from Pocket GPS POIs? If so, on the journey I have planned for this evening I will try disabling all PocketGPS POIs in TomTom and see what happens.

Stay tuned :-)

Ideally though I want to be able to edit PocketGPS POIs to behave with full CheckPOInt functionality; i.e. setting individual first and last warning intervals, sounds, and so on. Here is my real problem though. See "All" below.

Again my thanks for your help.
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[SjB]

Well, that's the second Top Tip I've received from this forum this week, thanks Calum! As you'll gather, disabling all POIs from displaying in TomTom and instead relying on CheckPOInt to show them worked a treat. Beautiful, smooth, seemless route display with absolutely no lag, even on tight and complex junctions, or roundabouts with closely spaced exits. I was amazed to find that CheckPOInt displayed the PocketGPS POIs even there is no means of selecting them in CheckPOInt setup, but it did.

I still want to find a way of getting the PocketGPS POIs to display in CheckPOInt setup though so I can define them to trigger with the nice features this application has instead of using the poorer TomTom warning functionality.

For your info, there is one side effect of disabling POIs from display; the CheckPOInt POI alerts (the white box at the top of the screen with countdown info in it) are wobbly, jittery, flickery, and hard to read. As soon as the corresponding CheckPOInt POI is enabled for display again in TomTom, normal steady display of that particular text box resumes.

Does your 2210/CheckPOInt5/TomTom5.1 setup exhibit this behaviour perchance?

Anyway, thanks again.
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[SjB]

BTW - I used the hotkey with CheckPOInt to report a new camera this evening; what a nice feaure with clear touchscreen icons to choose the camera type followed by a second page to select the speed limit in force. I also used the "remove false POI" option too, so both will be synched in a few minutes when I connect to the appropriate website. Hopefully a few others have reported them too so the update scripts will amend the overlay masters.
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[CalumLawson]

This other post may help you

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=25648&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75

Go towards the end of the thread for info.

Basically I use the built in TomTom warner (with a silent sound, as per the thread above) for the visual indication and Checkpoint for the audio warnings (I switch off the "Show warning information" in Checkpoint's general settings)


This does mean that, in addition to setting up the warnings in two places, the visual indicator comes on at a set distance away from the camera rather than time, but the audio warnings are time related and provide first and second warnings. This should be ok provided you stick a suitably large number in TomTom. I use 400 yards and it seems to be ok.

This gives me a flicker free display of the icon, but with 1st and 2nd custom sounds for my notifications.

As regards the Pocket GPS POIs, I don't use them myself, but you should be able to select them from the "Not synchronised" list in Checkpoint, this should be a list of all the POIs that you have installed in your map directory but aren't actually synched by Checkpoint. You should be able to pick these and set your warnings as per Checkpoints own POI files.



Calum

[SjB]

Thanks Calum.

Sounds good, though I have a problem with the 'silent' .ogg file as you can read if you follow the link you kindly pasted above.

Hopefully the problem is all I think it is.
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

[SjB]

To conclude the thread; "silent.ogg" file sorted as described in the thread that Calum hyperlinked above.

I'll now see how I get on using TomTom POI warnings to visually warn only (with no sound because of the chosen silent.ogg) and with CheckPOInt doing the audio warnings with no visuals (because they flicker horribly).

Hopefully I now have what I wanted all along! :-)
_________________
iPAQ 2210 / TomTom 5.10 / CheckPOInt 3 / SysOnChip CF card Antenna with 256Mb / Sandisk 1.0GB SD / Arklon amplified mount plus Brodit Proclip for Volvo V70 / 3.5mm-3.5mm audio lead for use with Autocom intercom on Honda Hornet motorbike

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