Route calculation time, Boston to San Francisco - looking for help

[ewjax]

Hi,

I recently purchased an XXL 540, and am a little disappointed with how slowly it seems to calculate routes (details here).

I'm wondering if a higher end unit will perform better, and am wondering if anyone here is willing to run an experiment for me?

A-B route: From Boston, MA city center to San Franciso, CA city center.
Options: IQ Routes, Departure time 2 pm July 10, 2010, Fastest Time, All avoidances set to "Ask me", time measured from last button press before it really starts working, to the time the unit asks about "Toll Roads found, do you want to avoid them"

For comparison, here is the data I have so far:

Nuvi 205 performance: 0:15

XXL 540 Performance:
- Trial 1 (IQ Routes On): 2:25
- Trial 2 (IQ Routes Off): 1:31

730 Performance (Test by spook45):
- Trial 1 (IQ Routes On): 1:45
- Trial 2 (IQ Routes Off): 1:10


Any 700-series owners want to run the test and report your data?

Thanks.

 

[spook45]

Tried your route with my TT730. Took one minute forty-five seconds with IQ Routes active. With IQ Routes disabled it took one minute and ten seconds.

 

[ewjax]

Thanks for taking the time to run the test Spook! That's a decent improvement, about a 25% reduction both ways, better but still pretty slow. Wonder why TT is so much slower than Garmin?

 

[spook45]

You're welcome.

I seem to remember that there are some units that will plot the route for the first few hundred miles and then complete the rest in the background. It would appear that it had done the complete route in a very short time but in actuality it would be plotting in background. I am not sure that Garmin does that but it might.

 

[ewjax]

You're welcome.

I seem to remember that there are some units that will plot the route for the first few hundred miles and then complete the rest in the background. It would appear that it had done the complete route in a very short time but in actuality it would be plotting in background. I am not sure that Garmin does that but it might.

Interesting possibility, but I doubt it, given the Garmin immediately displays the entire route - it couldn't do that if it were still calculating the route in the background.

My guess = the TT routing algorithms are probably better in the relatively new TT540 compared to the relatively old and simple Nuvi 205, but they are coming at a steep cost. The fact that my test got the same route might be because I happened to pick an "easy" problem and the Garmin got the same answer. I'm speculating all this, I really don't know if it's true.

What I would like is a way to put the TT into "dumb but fast" mode if I so desire. Or maybe for TT to refine the algorithm to recognize it needs to go into "dumb but fast" mode to get an initial answer, and to continue to refine the solutioni in the background. Or something similar. The current route calculation time is just too long.

 

[mvl]

What I would like is a way to put the TT into "dumb but fast" mode if I so desire. Or maybe for TT to refine the algorithm to recognize it needs to go into "dumb but fast" mode to get an initial answer, and to continue to refine the solutioni in the background. Or something similar. The current route calculation time is just too long.

Tomtom is addressing this on the new GO 1000, and a Tomtom rep said similar will make it to the USA eventually. The new model can supposedly calculate 1000km routes in seconds.

In general, Tomtom's route calculation is the slowest of all brands. It has time-specific speeds on every road in the map (and uses the time you get to the road, not the start time) so the algorithm is much more complex.