I'm using the number of milliseconds since midnight as a way to randomize the choice of image to display on the top. But the big question mark has always been how granular that was.

Used to be, back in the days of Win95, it actually changed at 30 hz. So it would increment by 33 (or 34). But is that still true? Today I decided to find out. And I need your help, below the fold.

UPDATE: Chooser version 28, 20121108. Total number of images remains the same at 1772. But the way it chooses the image to display is different, and it should give you a wider variety of pictures. Subjectively it seems to for me, but that's not really scientific.

Also, I used to have a place you could click to get a new image, but it seemed to have a slow memory leak so I took it out. I figured out where the leak was and fixed it. So now, if you mouse-hover the upper left corner, you get the info screen. If you click it, you get a new image.

This flash runs a loop five times. Each loop waits until the clock changes, stores the clock value, then waits until it changes again, and reports how many milliseconds that took. On my Win7-64 system with IE9, I was very surprised to see that it is incrementing by 1. What I see is "1 1 1 1 1".

If you see anything different than that, please tell me what it is, and tell me what OS and browser you're using. The browser probably doesn't matter; this is probably an OS issue, but I could be wrong.

UPDATE: Thank you, everyone. I've got enough feedback now.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Site Stuff at 11:12 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
Post contains 291 words, total size 2 kb.

1

15 16 16 16 15.  Opera12 on WinXP Professional 64-bit.

(Protip: don't use WinXP 64-bit.  Nobody makes drivers for it.)

Posted by: Mikeski at November 08, 2012 11:24 AM (1bPWv)

2

Apparently the clock on XP runs 60 hz. I expected some version would do that. I wonder whether this was a Vista change, or a Win7 change? Since no one in their right mind runs Vista any longer, I probably can't find out.

I'm not actually certain the clock rate was 30 hz on Win 95; it may have been 60 back then, too.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 11:29 AM (+rSRq)

3

In my WinXP virtual machine on my Win7 computer, it seems the clock is 100 hz. It changes by 10 milliseconds.

Win7-32 (Saten) also changes by 16, i.e. 60 hz.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 11:33 AM (+rSRq)

4 Mac OS 10.6.8, Safari or Firefox: always 1 1 1 1 1
Same machine, Chrome: most common result by far is 15 followed by a bunch of 10/11, with very occasional variations like "13 11 11 9 8".

-j

Posted by: J Greely at November 08, 2012 12:00 PM (fpXGN)

5 Firefox 16 on 64-bit Intel Linux: 1 1 1 1 1 (consistent across multiple reloads of the page)

Chrome 23.0.1271.64 on the same machine: plenty of variation. I've seen 4 6 6 6 150, 7 7 6 5 16, 5 5 97 6 6, 5 5 5 4 6, and 7 6 5 6 5 in five (re)loads of the page. Overall things seem to cluster around 5 and 6.

Posted by: Chris Siebenmann at November 08, 2012 12:09 PM (YmdZq)

6

I think I'll make it so that Chooser directly measure it. Especially since I already have the code.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 12:22 PM (+rSRq)

7 15 16 16 15 15

I'm using Firefox16 on Windows XP.

Posted by: metaphysician at November 08, 2012 12:59 PM (3GCAl)

8 WinXP 32-bit:

Firefox 16.0.2:

15 16 16 16 15 (on 3 separate reloads; can get some 32s after a few, but that might just be more browser loading lag)

Chrome 22.0.1999.94:

1 1 1 1 1
2 2 2 2 2
3 3 2 2 2


So, it might be Flash interacting on top of the broswer, on top of the OS.  Fun times!

Oh yeah, and, do I spy, with my little eye, a Strike Witches Movie subtitled release from Underwater?

Posted by: sqa at November 08, 2012 01:42 PM (iWwXY)

9 Win7 HomePrem 64-bit
Firefox/Chrome/IE (latest stable)

1 1 1 1 1

Posted by: Jaked at November 08, 2012 01:46 PM (Td8PJ)

10 It looks like the 1 ms tick is Win7-64, all versions. Everyone else is slower. Anyway, test complete and I think you all for your help.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 01:52 PM (+rSRq)

11

Oh yeah, and, do I spy, with my little eye, a Strike Witches Movie subtitled release from Underwater?

Finally! About damned time! (Downloading now!)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 01:54 PM (+rSRq)

12 Interesting experiment, none the less.

And, yeah, when I saw that up there, I thought you'd be happy.

Posted by: sqa at November 08, 2012 02:25 PM (iWwXY)

13 When I click the image to refresh I get no image just a plain gray field with the Chizumatic title and show title.  If I refresh a second time a new image will appear.  This is consistent, only get an image every other time. Running 64 bit Win7 with Firefox 16.0.2

Posted by: Doyen at November 08, 2012 02:33 PM (nV9J4)

14

 Doyen, sorry. That appears to be a Firefox strangeness and I have no idea what the problem is or how to fix it.

That function isn't exactly critical, and I don't intend to chase it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 03:24 PM (+rSRq)

15 SQA, I'm about a third done now. It took a while for the swarm to start working, what with few seeds and many leeches, but it's a lot more reasonable now.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 03:26 PM (+rSRq)

16 BTW, Chrome/Win7-64 I'm seeing that clicking to get a new image also only works every other click.  The top right updates to refer to the new image, and the info hover works too, but the picture doesn't actually load.  It does NOT do that in IE.

Posted by: RickC at November 08, 2012 05:41 PM (WQ6Vb)

17

Folks, you don't need to tell me any more about that bug, please.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 08, 2012 05:45 PM (+rSRq)

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