f.lux CPU usage

I've been using f.lux on and off for some years. The reason I always end up disabling it is because I don't understand why it's constantly consuming around **0.3 **CPU, of course, that doesn't have impact in performance, but I just don't understand why, if most of the time it's suppose not to be doing anything.

And it has always been like this on OS X across different versions.

Elhem Enohpi

You know it doesn't have any impact on performance, but it makes you decide to disable it. Sorry, but that's just silly.

I suppose it needs to keep checking the time, to see if it needs to change states or send notifications, and so on. There are dozens of different processes using small amounts of CPU on a Mac, it's nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, this f.lux forum software causes Firefox to use 70% CPU while typing a reply, and makes the fans come on in my Macbook. Now, that's annoying...

I know something about programing, and I'm going to explain something to you, for a process to do something at a given time or after a certain amount of time it doesn't need to check anything, or use any CPU in the mean time.

And this is why I don't understand why it needs to use ANY CPU time while it should be IDLE. It is checking something, at very small intervals of time, it seems unnecessary, and I would like to know what it is.

What I would like is to hear from the actual developers. ;)

herf

Hi --

There is no system-wide notification when another app (screensaver, etc.) screws up the color profile, so we have to poll for it, because at certain settings it is pretty painful to have the screen return to normal colors.
There are a few bugs regarding external monitor add/remove events in OS X, so we have to poll to clean those up. (There is an API for this and we use it, but it sometimes breaks or takes a very long time to figure things out.)

We are a lot closer on Mac to "poll-free" than on Windows (especially on dual-GPU machines that use the f.lux color profile).

It is a good goal to remove all polling, and there are only a few bugs left--we could probably make it an option in a future version.

@herf
Thank you very much for the clarification! Now I understand I bit better what's going on.
I'll be waiting for a zero polling version in the future, thanks. :)