Threaded Updates

As of v1.1.0 of BiblioPixel, there is support for pushing data to the display on a background thread. In many cases, this can vastly increase the maximum frame rate at which the display can be updated. This is because the next animation frame can be generated while the display is updated, instead of waiting for the update to finish.

Threaded updates defaults to off and it is best to test with the feature both on and off before settling on which to use. It can be enabled by setting the threadedUpdate parameter to True, like this:

led = Strip(driver, threadedUpdate = True)

Depending on the display, operating system, CPU capabilities, and if multiple devices are being used, not using threaded updates may even be faster. For example, on a single CPU core system like the Raspberry Pi, the update thread must share CPU time with the frame generation thread. So there is little advantage. But on a multi-core CPU system, the generation thread and update thread(s) will likely run on different cores, therefore not sharing system resources.

If the frame takes less time to be generated then the display takes to update, have no fear. When the Strip or Matrix update() method is called, it will wait until previous updates finish. So, if the display requires 20ms to update and the frame takes 10ms to generate, the next update call will return after the remainder, around 10ms. This still speeds everything up since, otherwise, it would require 10ms for frame generation plus 20ms for update, for a total of 30ms per frame, instead of 20ms. Since display update takes longer than frame generation, that part is effectively free, from a time perspective.