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Layouts and grouping/07

Rendering and Performance

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Keep thousand-item boards responsive.

FenSight keeps large boards responsive by reducing decode cost, drawing the right level of detail for the current zoom, and switching dense boards onto virtualized surface rendering. The defaults favor stability on fresh installs while still allowing detail to be raised when hardware has room.

LOD tiers

Board rendering chooses a level of detail from the item's physical-pixel size in the current viewport, including DPI. The goal is to avoid decoding or drawing more bitmap detail than the user can see.

TierThresholdPurpose
PlaceholderFree
Invisible items or items smaller than 2 physical pixels.Draws a cheap placeholder or skips bitmap detail when the item is off-screen or sub-pixel, keeping pan/zoom work bounded.
ThumbFree
Items up to 256 physical pixels.Uses thumbnail-sized imagery; large boards tighten this further with LargeBoardThumbMax 128 and HugeBoardThumbMax 64.
MediumFree
Items up to 1600 physical pixels.Uses medium-detail imagery for items large enough to inspect but not large enough to justify full source detail.
FullFree
Items above 1600 physical pixels.Uses full-detail imagery only when the current zoom makes that detail visible.

Ingest and rendering

Large imports are handled as a staged ingest path: cheap item/header work can populate the board first, while decode workers fill in thumbnails and richer media detail afterward. On very large boards, FenSight can proactively choose surface-only visuals before every item has a full WPF container, reducing pressure on GDI and the UI thread.

  • LimitImageDecodeSize defaults to true and MaxDecodeDimension defaults to 2048, so fresh installs downscale oversized images during decode.
  • IngestPerformanceMode defaults to "Balanced"; Maximum uses 2-64 workers at normal priority, Quiet uses up to one quarter of cores below normal priority, and Balanced uses about 60% of cores with a floor of 2.
  • DeferThumbsOnLargeBoards and CacheVideoAndDocumentThumbnails default to true, so thumbnail work can be postponed and reused instead of blocking navigation.
  • UseVirtualizedBoardSurface and UseVirtualizedBoardSurfaceInput default to true, allowing dense boards to render and hit-test through the board surface path.

Performance controls and defaults

Setting or thresholdDefault / triggerEffect
BoardSurfaceCacheMbFree
200 MB.Caps the board-surface cache budget used by the renderer.
RenderingDetailLevelFree
1.0 by default; clamped from 0.25 to 4.0.BoardLoadPerfTests cover the threshold scale: itemCount / 3000 is clamped 0.5-3.0, divided by user power, and user power is squared at values >= 1. Higher detail lowers the bitmap draw threshold.
QualityModeFree
"Low" by default.Biases the renderer toward lower-cost drawing on fresh installs.
ShowBoardPerfOverlayFree
false by default.Enables the board performance overlay/HUD when the setting is on. The exact keyboard toggle was not sourced here, so this page uses the setting name.
Large boardFree
More than 400 items.Large-board paths can defer thumbnail work and use lower thumbnail caps so navigation remains responsive.
Huge boardFree
More than 2000 items, or safe graphics mode with more than 500 items.Huge-board paths use tighter thumbnail caps and more aggressive surface rendering behavior.
Massive boardFree
More than 2000 items.BeginIngestSession turns on proactive surface-only visuals at totalItems >= 800 to avoid GDI exhaustion before the board reaches massive scale.

Virtualized surface behavior

For incoming large boards, FenSight estimates the projected item count before committing to heavyweight visuals. If the projected count is at least 400, or if safe graphics mode is active, it enables virtualized board surface rendering and virtualized input. The same enforcement path disables the regular item metadata overlay so that per-item text does not add cost during the most constrained mode.

  • MainWindow constants define LodThumbMax 256, LodMediumMax 1600, LargeBoardThumbMax 128, and HugeBoardThumbMax 64.
  • Thresholds are based on physical pixels, so monitor DPI affects when Thumb, Medium, and Full imagery are selected.
  • Performance HUD / ShowBoardPerfOverlay is the setting name for board rendering diagnostics.

Connected guides

Follow these related pages when the workflow crosses into setup, search, organization, export, security, or another board-level system.

Built-in LayoutsEvery one-click arrangement in the layout dropdown.Cluster Labels and BackgroundsReadable group headers and frame shapes.Interface overviewCanvas, docks, menus, and overlays.Clustering DimensionsEvery heuristic FenSight can group by, and how each is computed.Cluster ShapesHow clusters and their contents are packed: Group Shape vs Shape.Custom Cluster LayoutCompose Group Shape + Shape + heuristic into a saved preset.

Linked from

Keyboard shortcutsSettings and backupsImporting media and foldersSupported formats and thumbnailsImage sequencesVideo playback and thumbnails