Screen Refresh Delay

[marty1452]

I have a solution I'm working on to calculate home loans. I have 3 databases, purchase, refinance, seconds. They have simular calculation basics. All have some calculated text labels that could be eliminated. But the Refinance screen is painfully slow. 20-30 seconds to refresh. The others only take 1 - 2 seconds. The differences between them are so minimal I can't believe it show do anything more than double the refresh to 4 -5 seconds. I could live with that.

There are many relationships is all of the files. I doubt there is anymore in one than the other. They all basically have the same form and function.

I set the cache to 2048. Same results. I delete all of the files and loaded in only one record. Same o same o. I tried to reduce the number of uncalculated fields. Only primary fields have indexing turned on. The ID's primarily.

The acutal file size is 958 KB for the purchase, 650 KB for the refinance and 560 KB for the second. I mention this because we're not talking about thousands of records that could slow down the database.

Anybody have any ideas of what else I can look at to correct this.

Thanks

Marty

 

[Schlogg]

Hi, Marty.
Have you got any odd borders around your fields? I inherited a db with dotted lines around tightly packed fields. Takes forever.
Double/triplecheck your calculations for long 'paths'.
Cheers,
Paul J.

 

[marty1452]

No what I would call odd borders. I have most of the display only fields set to no background with a 1 pt regular line around the field. I have grouping box lines drawn around groups of fields with a grouping label. I'll check my calculation fields but the interesting thing about this is that the Purchase file is almost a twin to the Refinance file. Same basic screen layout, similar fields, similar functions in both files. Dramatic difference in the screen refresh.

Marty

 

[marty1452]

Thanks for the advise. I checked my suspect calculation fields, (those I know are more intense), and by deleting the code from 3 fields, my screen refresh rate is restored.

So now I know those 3 fields are the culprit. I had one field called loan amount looking to my 3 problem fields, conv, fha and va fields. Basically these three fields calculate the results of each loan type, (non-displayed), and loan amount looks to the appropriate calculation for the results. I can see this means basically 3 identical calculations being done with only 1 used each time a field is changed. I tried combining the 4 fields together using a case statement thinking the case statement will only calculate the right results one time because only one case will be true. For fun I printed out the formula required to do this and it's 2 1/2 pages long. This also causes undesirable screen refresh delay. Does anyone have any experience with mamoth calculation requirements?

Would it help to break it down into smaller pieces?

I could have a field for calculating Conv-cash out, another for Conv-no-cash out, etc. Then loan amount looks to Conv-cash out when the right options are selected.

Option 2 is a plug in. Could a plug do these calculation quicker or because the plugin is external - could this slow down the calculation more?

Any ideas?

Thanks

Marty

 

[Schlogg]

Wow! I have a few complex calculations but nothing that big.
My impression, (R) impression, is that the time to carry out a calculation rises exponentially, or worse, as the size increases. Buried deep in my damaged brain cells is a vague memory of splitting a calculation to try to speed it up. No idea what the result was. (The last time I tried this approach, re-looking at the calculation led me to simplify it dramatically.)
Sorry, that's the best I can do. Maybe someone else can help? Cheers,
Paul J.