Speed Contest...Linux Vs Windows

[Brutzy]

Running my LabView application on Win98 Pent III-550 is too slow. Will it run faster on Linux ?

I am checking the height of stamped metal parts with a laser, a DAQ, and a shaft encoder. The washers are 1 mm thich [high].

I need to check min height as well as max height. I am launching these 1/2" OD washers on to a rotating 24" diameter bowl. I am calibrating out the effect of bowl wobble. While I would like to run the bowl at say 20 rpm, the system is struggling at 3 rpm just measuring max height.

It seems like I can maybe use maximum two "if" statements [blocks] per loop.

The shaft encoder can be set to "click" 1000, 2000, or 4000 times per revolution. Thus each program loop is required to run in approx 1 millisecond
.

I would like to not have the expense of LabView RT.

[CoastalMaineBird]

Before you make ANY decisions about alternate platforms, the first question you should ask (and answer) is "Where is the time being spent?"

The PROFILE tool can help with that.

Are you initializing a new DAQ operation every time? You shouldn't.

20 RPM = 0.333 Hz = 3 Sec per rev. At 4000 clicks per rev, that's 1 click every 750 uSec. That's not unreasonable.

Are you trying to react to every event? It's possible you may not need to - just read however many readings there are, process however many readings there are, and repeat.

Without seeing your code, it's hard to guess whether you truly are taxing the CPU, but maybe you could elaborate. I'm in the business of making things run faster.

The short answer is that you can't make the prog
ram run faster, you have to make it do less.

Linux or other OS will only help if your problem is in the OS portion of your code. (disk i/o ? graphics?)