Graphics2D setfont() heavily slows down the start up of java application

Question

I am making a game by java and it refreshes itself 60 times per second. Every time it executes a loop and I use g2d to draw images and strings. Things work fine if I do g2d.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.PLAIN, 8));and drawstring and it would be normal, but if I set the font to some "unfamiliar" fonts and do the same thing, the swing would show white screen in the first second of start up then paint everything correctly and it's apparently too slow (2 secs).

I put a jpanel in a jframe and override the paint() method of jpanel to draw everything I need. I've already used SwingUtilities.invokeLater in my code.

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class Window extends JFrame{
    public Window(){
        add(new Board());
        setSize(800,600);
        setVisible(true);
    }
    public static void main(String[] args){
        new Window();
    }

    private class Board extends JPanel {
        Font font = new Font("Bitmap", Font.PLAIN, 64);

        public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
            super.paintComponent(g);
            Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;
            g2d.setFont(font);
            g2d.drawString("This is slow", 220,200);
            Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync();
            g2d.dispose();
            g.dispose();
        }
    }
}

This is not in a loop but it's very laggy.

http://fontsov.com/download-fonts/bitmap1159.html

This is the cutie font that slows our application down. "Arial" will load blazingly fast. How can I make this less laggy?

Answer 1

First and foremost, for best help, create and post your minimal code example program for us to review, test, and possibly fix. Without this, it will be hard for us to fully understand your problem.

Consider:

• Overriding paintComponent not paint to get the advantage of double buffering.
• Avoid using invokeLater unless you're sure that the code is being called off of the Swing event thread and you are making calls that need to be on the event thread.
• Put slow running code in a background thread such as that which can be found using a SwingWorker.
• Putting your text in a JLabel, not drawn on a component.
• Draw all static images to a BufferedImage, and displaying that in paintComponent . Then draw all changing images, such as your moving sprites, directly in the paintComponent method.
• Don't forget to call your super.paintCompmonent(g) within your paintComponent(Graphics g) method override.

---

Edit
A BufferedImage solution could look like,....

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;

import javax.swing.*;

public class FooFun {

   private static void createAndShowGui() {
      ChildClass mainPanel = new ChildClass();

      JFrame frame = new JFrame("FooFun");
      frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
      frame.pack();
      frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
      frame.setVisible(true);
   }

   public static void main(String[] args) {
      SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
            createAndShowGui();
         }
      });
   }
}

abstract class FirstClass extends JPanel {

   private static final int FPS = 20;

   public FirstClass() {
      new Timer(1000 / FPS, taskPerformer).start();
   }

   ActionListener taskPerformer = new ActionListener() {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
          gameLoop(); //do loop here
          repaint();
      }
  };

  private void gameLoop() {

  }

  @Override
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
   super.paintComponent(g);
   Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;
   paintGame(g2d);
   // Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync();
   // g2d.dispose();
   // g.dispose();
}

  public abstract void paintGame(Graphics2D g2d);
}

class ChildClass extends FirstClass {
   private static final Font font = new Font("Bitmap", Font.PLAIN, 64);
   private static final int PREF_W = 900;
   private static final int PREF_H = 600;
   private static final String NIGHT_IN_VEGAS_TEXT = "a Night in Vegas";
   private static final int NIV_X = 240;
   private static final int NIV_Y = 130;
   private BufferedImage mainImage;

   public ChildClass() {
      mainImage = new BufferedImage(PREF_W, PREF_H, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
      Graphics2D g2 = mainImage.createGraphics();
      g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
      g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
      g2.setFont(font);
      g2.setColor(Color.black);
      g2.drawString(NIGHT_IN_VEGAS_TEXT, NIV_X, NIV_Y); 
      g2.dispose();
   }


   @Override
   public void paintGame(Graphics2D g2d) {
      if (mainImage != null) {
         g2d.drawImage(mainImage, 0, 0, this);     
      }
   }

   @Override
   public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
      return new Dimension(PREF_W, PREF_H);
   }

}

---

Edit 2
Or with a SwingWorker background thread....

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.beans.PropertyChangeEvent;
import java.beans.PropertyChangeListener;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;

import javax.swing.*;

public class FooFun {

   private static void createAndShowGui() {
      ChildClass mainPanel = new ChildClass();

      JFrame frame = new JFrame("FooFun");
      frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
      frame.pack();
      frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
      frame.setVisible(true);
   }

   public static void main(String[] args) {
      SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
            createAndShowGui();
         }
      });
   }
}

abstract class FirstClass extends JPanel {

   private static final int FPS = 20;

   public FirstClass() {
      new Timer(1000 / FPS, taskPerformer).start();
   }

   ActionListener taskPerformer = new ActionListener() {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
         gameLoop(); // do loop here
         repaint();
      }
   };

   private void gameLoop() {

   }

   @Override
   protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
      super.paintComponent(g);
      Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
      paintGame(g2d);
   }

   public abstract void paintGame(Graphics2D g2d);
}

class ChildClass extends FirstClass {
   private static final Font font = new Font("Bitmap", Font.PLAIN, 64);
   private static final int PREF_W = 900;
   private static final int PREF_H = 600;
   private static final String NIGHT_IN_VEGAS_TEXT = "a Night in Vegas";
   private static final int NIV_X = 240;
   private static final int NIV_Y = 130;
   private BufferedImage mainImage;

   public ChildClass() {
      imgWorker.addPropertyChangeListener(new ImgWorkerListener());
      imgWorker.execute();
   }

   private class ImgWorkerListener implements PropertyChangeListener {

      @Override
      public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent pcEvt) {
         if (pcEvt.getNewValue() == SwingWorker.StateValue.DONE) {
            try {
               mainImage = imgWorker.get();
               // repaint() here if you don't have a game loop running
            } catch (InterruptedException | ExecutionException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
            }
         }
      }
   }

   SwingWorker<BufferedImage, Void> imgWorker = new SwingWorker<BufferedImage, Void>() {

      @Override
      protected BufferedImage doInBackground() throws Exception {
         BufferedImage img = new BufferedImage(PREF_W, PREF_H,
               BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
         Graphics2D g2 = img.createGraphics();
         g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING,
               RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
         g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
               RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
         g2.setFont(font);
         g2.setColor(Color.black);
         g2.drawString(NIGHT_IN_VEGAS_TEXT, NIV_X, NIV_Y);
         g2.dispose();
         return img;
      }
   };

   @Override
   public void paintGame(Graphics2D g2d) {
      if (mainImage != null) {
         g2d.drawImage(mainImage, 0, 0, this);
      }
   }

   @Override
   public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
      return new Dimension(PREF_W, PREF_H);
   }

}

Answer 2

it's a bit uneconomic to create a new Font each time paint() is called (which happens a lot), you could move that to your constructor. and the font should be changed to some orthodox fonts (Arial,Calibri etc)