While testing Altia Design for Windows Vista, it was noticed that client applications linked with the TCP/IP socket (lan) version of the Altia API are slow to communicate with an Altia Design or Altia Runtime executing on the same computer. The communications performance is normal when the client application is not running on the same computer as Altia Design or Altia Runtime.

The solution is to specify localhost or 127.0.0.1 as the host when initializing the Altia API for the client application (versus just specifying a socket number or specifying nothing to use the default socket 5100).

For example, if the client application is passing argc and argv to AtStartInterface() or AtOpenConnection, then start the client application with arguments like:

application.exe -port localhost:5100

or:

application.exe -port 127.0.0.1:5100

If the client application is just passing something like ":5100" as the socket to AtStartInterface() or AtOpenConnection() or altiaConnect(), change the code to pass "localhost:5100" or "127.0.0.1:5100".

If there is no way to get a new socket description into the client (because it is ignoring command line arguments and it cannot be recompiled), another option is to set the environment variable ALTIAPORT before starting the application. In a command prompt or batch script, this is done with:

set ALTIAPORT=localhost:5100

It can also be done on a system-wide basis from the Environment Variables dialog (In Windows Vista, open Control Panel, choose System, choose Advanced system settings option, and press Environment Variables... button in the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog).

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Tom Walton
Altia, Inc.