When one presses the REAL-TIME SHIELD button in the avast! window there is a somewhat high CPU utilization oscillating in pace with the SHIELD TRAFFIC graph refresh. The CPU usage gets progressively higher as the avast! window is enlarged. My computer virtually froze when the window was maximized due to a 100% CPU utilization.
This may not be much of a problem in faster machines but it is a nuisance for slower ones. In any case this high CPU usage is not justified for such a simple task. Of course one could close all SHIELD TRAFFIC graphs as a workaround but in doing that the useful information under them cannot be read. The solution is to make the avast! window as small as possible.
In my opinion these SHIELD TRAFFIC graphs are not much useful and only add bloat to the program, in addition to this CPU waste.
The process in question is AvastUI.exe. And this happens in two different computers. Of course, in the faster one the CPU utilization is not as high, but the oscillation in CPU usage (in pace with the graph refresh) is still quite noticeable in the Task ManagerPerformance graph.
Maybe your computer is fast enough to mask this problem. While taking notice of Soure73 observation, I must add that the two installations are quite different, except for both being Windows XP SP3.
If you simply have the file shield main window open at max size, CPU usage is absolutely minimal, less than 2% peak occurring in sync with the graph segment moving along the line. The same applies if you have the size of the window at about half full screen.
But … If you then drag the Avast window around on the screen, then during repositioning CPU activity rises, on my PC to around 35% peak. There is nothing wrong with this, real time updating of any graphic during movement involves a significant amount of processing.
@olddog: If you then drag the Avast window around on the screen, then during repositioning CPU activity rises, on my PC to around 35% peak. There is nothing wrong with this, real time updating of any graphic during movement involves a significant amount of processing.
Actually the CPU increases when you drag any kind of window, even a Windows Explorer window, but of course even more so if the windows had a refreshing graph going on. This is not an avast! idiosyncrasy.
But my complaint is for a static windows. I still think the graph refresh is spending too much CPU, at least in my somewhat old computer.
OK, so you are talking about the CPU usage for updating the graph only. As I posted previously this sits at less then 2% on my PC, peaking at about 4% when there is a large amplitude spike on the graph. Hardly what I would call “High CPU utilization”.
More importantly it occurs only the graph window is open. I don’t know about you, but I would think that most people have better things to do with their PC’s than sit and watch these AV graphs and hence in normal usage it is not really important.
In my book the core purpose of the AV system is to sit in the background and stop my PC from being infected. The less I have to look at it, or play with it once it has been setup, the better.
Well, in my pc, the avastui.exe process, when idle is 0% of CPU, and when maximized (1680 x 1050) is about 3% only. I have Win7 64 bits, as stated in my signature. I supposed this is not an issue in my case.
Well, I guess I just have to get a higher speed CPU :P.
And, as a final note, I do not stay looking at graphs all day long, just made an observation about CPU utilization by them in older machines. In fact, as I mentioned in some other post in a different thread, I think these real-time graphs are not really needed at all, as they just add bloat to the program.