JavaFX - "Pointless" (CSS) Shadow Effect, Drastically decrices Graphics Performance - javafx

Question

Hello, People [...]
🤔 Summary
Whenever i use Shadow-effect on my BorderPane or any Component/control/Element, the 3D Graphics performance (as seen, in the Preview section below) is getting way too low.
The "confusing" part is that, it even gets low performance when the effect is applied to something that really has nothing to do with my Tab, Subscene or even my moving Button, in a way [...]
I Use jdk-12.0.1.
👁️ Preview
⚠️ Recreating The Issue
Files Needed:
App.java | main.fxml | AnchorPane.css | MathUtils.java | SimpleFPSCamera.java
📝 General Code
(You can refer to Recreating The Issue Section for more Informations too)
AnchorPane.css
#BorderPane1 {
-fx-effect: dropshadow(three-pass-box, rgb(26, 26, 26), 50, 0.6, 0, 0); /* Comment it*/
}
App.java
public class App extends Application {
#FXML
public Parent root;
public TabPane TabPane1;
public BorderPane BorderPane1;
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
launch(args);
}
#Override
public void start(Stage primaryStage) throws Exception {
FXMLLoader loader = new FXMLLoader(getClass().getResource("main.fxml"));
loader.setController(this);
root = loader.load();
Scene RootScene = new Scene(root, 1120, 540);
primaryStage.setScene(RootScene);
Thread t = new Thread() {
public void run() {
//Setting NewButton2
Button NewButton2 = new Button();
NewButton2.setId("Button2");
NewButton2.setText("test2");
NewButton2.setPrefWidth(150);
NewButton2.setPrefHeight(50);
NewButton2.setTranslateX(-75);
NewButton2.setTranslateY(-25);
NewButton2.setTranslateZ(900);
// Setting group
Group SubRootGroup = new Group(NewButton2);
SubRootGroup.setTranslateX(0);
SubRootGroup.setTranslateY(0);
SubRootGroup.setTranslateZ(0);
// Setting Scene
SubScene SubScene1 = new SubScene(SubRootGroup, 0, 0, true, SceneAntialiasing.BALANCED);
SubScene1.setId("SubScene1");
SubScene1.setFill(Color.WHITE);
SubScene1.heightProperty().bind(RootScene.heightProperty());
SubScene1.widthProperty().bind(RootScene.widthProperty());
// Initializing Camera
SimpleFPSCamera SimpleFPSCam = new SimpleFPSCamera();
// Setting Camera To The Scene
SubScene1.setCamera(SimpleFPSCam.getCamera());
// Adding Scene To Stage-TabPane.Tab(0)
TabPane1.getTabs().add(new Tab("Without Shadows"));
TabPane1.getTabs().get(0).setContent(SubScene1);
// Loading Mouse & Keyboard Events
SimpleFPSCam.loadControlsForSubScene(SubScene1);
}
};
t.setDaemon(true);
t.run();
primaryStage.show();
}
}
Things I 've Tried Until Now
javafx animation poor performance consumes all my cpu
setCache(true);
setCacheShape(true);
setCacheHint(CacheHint.SPEED);
(i have tried using it with all components without having any success [it might be my poor javaFX knowledge too , [using it in the wrong way?] ])
...
💛 Outro
Any Idea? Thanks In Advance, Any help will be highly appreciated, 💛 [...]
George.

Answer 1

Most probably, you will have figured this out by now, but since I was also banging my head about this same issue in the past, here is your answer:
The drop shadow effect is "expensive" and drawing it is slow. If you use it on a node with many descendants and move any of the descendants, it will cause the effect to be re-calculated on the parent, so the whole animation becomes slow (regardless if the parent itself is animated or not).
I solved this by using a StackPane as the top-most container, to which I added a Pane as a first child (which has the css drop-shadow effect) and the normal top-level container for the actual controls as a second child.
This way, the "shadow" pane is not updated when something is animated down the layout tree and, voila, you have a working drop-shadow effect without a performance hit :-)