perf(backgrounds): animated chat backgrounds cost ~5% CPU instead of 50 to 70% (#337)
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background-position can't run on the compositor, so every frame of the
animated chat backgrounds repainted the whole chat area: 51 to 72% main-thread
busy while idle in a room at 60 fps. The drifts are slow (3 to 22 px/s,
under a pixel per frame), so each animation now uses steps(): about 12
updates/s for fireflies, stars and aurora and about 24/s for rain and
pulse.

Measured headless (20 s idle in a room, CDP TaskDuration):
  none 0.7% → 0.9%; rain 50.7 → 5.9; stars 71.2 → 4.5;
  pulse 64.9 → 5.8; aurora 58.9 → 4.2; fireflies 71.7 → 3.8.

Aurora and pulse used ease-in-out; with steps() their motion is now
even-paced. Pause animations / reduced motion still strip the animation.

Fixes #337

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017PCb59uY3UKqDqt7B6hzd5
This commit is contained in:
Lotus CI
2026-10-16 19:05:52 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5.5
parent 508a123150
commit 2700aad209
6 changed files with 15 additions and 10 deletions
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ export const animStars: ChatBgVariants = {
'0 0', // nebula A
'0 0', // nebula B
].join(','),
animation: `${starDrift} 90s linear infinite`,
animation: `${starDrift} 90s steps(1080) infinite`,
},
// Light: an airy pre-dawn sky. No literal white-on-white stars — instead very
@@ -112,6 +112,6 @@ export const animStars: ChatBgVariants = {
'0 0', // wash A
'0 0', // wash B
].join(','),
animation: `${starDrift} 100s linear infinite`,
animation: `${starDrift} 100s steps(1200) infinite`,
},
};