Modify the rendering engine in QlikView 12.30 from Skia to GDI+ and other related information

[Albert_Candelario]

In QlikView 12.30 the rendering engine has changed from GDI+ to Skia.

Reasons for the change:

• Deprecated Microsoft libraries
• Performance improvements when rendering charts

Impact:

Skia uses more RAM and CPU, but it stays within the Working Set limits. This is expected as Skia creates significantly more sessions and completes more actions.

QlikView Desktop Client fonts may appear quite small and rendering issues may occur with high-resolution screens (4k, etc). In cases where these issues are seen, you can revert back to GDI+.

Resolution

Settings on the settings.ini of the QlikView Server and/or QlikView Desktop can also be changed to move back to the GDI+ rendering engine.

By default, the Settings.ini for QlikView Server is located at C:\ProgramData\QlikTech\QlikViewServer\Settings.ini
For QlikView Desktop and the plugin* is located in C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\QlikTech\QlikView\Settings.ini

Go to the settings.ini file and add the follow line under [Settings 7]:

GraphicsBackEnd=0

For additional information regarding Skia Performance, see the following links:

Clarification regarding new Skia rendering engine and IE Plugin
Technical Brief: QlikView November 2018 Skia Rendering Library

For the issue related to the Desktop Client and rendering, one workaround is to follow these steps:

1. Go to the QV.exe which is located in C:\Program Files\QlikView\
2. Right-click the QV.exe file and choose properties
3. Click on the Compatibility tab (settings may be governed by domain policy - speak to your administrator if you cannot adjust them)
4. Click the Change high DPI Settings button in the Settings area
5. check the Override high DPI scaling behaviour and also change the dropdown value to System (Enhanced) option
6. Close all dialogues and restart the Desktop Client

 
* Please note: the easter egg setting was discontinued in 12.40 and higher version, when it comes to QlikView Desktop, the AJAX client, and the 64-bit version of the plugin. Those clients are now Skia-only.
Because of limitations of the 32-bit architecture, the 32-bit version of the IE plugin currently still uses the GDI+ library as the default. More details in Clarification regarding new Skia rendering engine and IE Plugin
In order to avoid discrepancies in the look of objects, we recommend using AJAX.

Environments:

QlikView 12.30 (November 2018)*

[doherja]

What subsequent versions does this apply to?  After upgrading to April 2019 and keeping the same settings, it seems like we are no longer seeing GDI+, although I don't know how to be sure.  Thanks

[Michael_Leigh]

Can this article please be updated to provide information about applicability versions later than 12.3?

[Daniele_Purrone]

Hi @doherja  and @Michael_Leigh , the easter egg only applies to 12.30, as specified in the article. In 12.40 and higher, GDI+ was fully disabled.

The only exception is the 32-bit plugin, where we still use GDI+ as the default. The reason for that is that Skia requires a higher memory usage, and that might cause problems with a 32-bit architecture.