MiKTeX and proTeXt ⇒ Compilation speed question (eTeX/pdfeTeX; MikTeX 2.4 vs 2.5)

[Pawel]

All,

I'm running the MikTeX/WinEdt combo at home and @ work. Compilation of LaTeX files (both to DVI and PDF) takes about two times longer (measured on a number of different files) on my new PC at work than on my four year old laptop at home (work: Dual Core P4 3GhZ, 2GB RAM vs home: Single Core P4 Mobile 2.8GhZ, 1.2GB RAM).

I tried to time the compilation speeds in settings which were as comparable as possible, i.e.
- identical files were compiled from the same directory on a recently defragged local hard drive
- all files had been precompiled & 'bibtexed' and yap / acrobat were open in the background
- nothing else (other than the anti-virus / firewall software) was running.

I asked people in my IT support at work to look for possible 'bottlenecks', and having monitored resource usage during compilation, they claim that RAM /or virtual Memory was fine, disk was fine, paging was fine. Apparently the CPU was the most heavily hit with an average usage of one processor at over 70% and the other over 30% - but even at these levels this is unlikely to be causing bottlenecks.

The main differences between the two systems, so far as I can see, are:
- anti virus: home Zone Alarm Security Suite vs Sophos as work
- Windows:'home' at home vs 'Profesional' at work
- MikTeX: I'm running an older version (2.4) at home with compilation to DVI done using e-TeX and to PDF using pdfeTeX vs a newer version (2.5 I think) at work with compilation to both DVI and PDF done using pdfeTeX.

Frankly, I wouldn't expect any of these to be causing such massive differences in compilation speeds but I was wondering if anyone might have had similar issues and whether you have any thoughts / ideas to share?

Also, I was wondering whether it would make sense to try and revert back to MikTeX 2.4. at work in order to try and make files compile faster?

Any comments and suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks Pawel

[localghost]

After upgrading from 2.4 to 2.5, I experienced a similar behaviour of MiKTeX. The compiling performance has been increased with version 2.6 and the current version 2.7 of this system. I recommend an upgrade to MiKTeX 2.7 both at home and at work (if possible there), because both versions are outdated.


Best regards
Thorsten¹

[Pawel]

Thanks a lot. That's very helpful.

Pawel