From 5 FPS
to 45+ FPS.
A customer arrived with a working Qt for MCUs cluster that couldn't exceed 5–6 frames per second. The display was circular, the content was dense, and the same screen area was reused for multiple information types. Crossware analysed the scene, decomposed it into five hardware layers, and delivered 45+ FPS without changing the target hardware.
A customer with a working cluster — stuck at 5 FPS.
The customer had already developed their Qt for MCUs motorcycle cluster in-house. The design was complete, the content was defined, the hardware was selected — NXP RT1176. But the rendering performance was stuck at 5 to 6 frames per second. Unacceptable for a production instrument cluster.
Having reached the limit of what they could achieve independently, they brought Crossware in to diagnose and solve the performance problem — without changing the target hardware or redesigning the cluster from scratch.
A circular display with dense, overlapping content.
The cluster used a circular display — a form factor that creates specific rendering complexity because the content fills non-rectangular screen geometry. More critically, the same screen area was being reused for different types of information across different cluster states.
The problem was not the hardware. The RT1176 is capable of far better performance. The problem was that the scene composition was not structured to take advantage of the hardware rendering layers available on the platform.
Decompose the scene. Assign each layer to hardware.
Crossware began with a detailed analysis of the cluster's visual scene — identifying every element on screen, its update frequency, its relationship to other elements, and how the display area was being reused across states. From this analysis, five discrete hardware rendering layers were defined, each with a specific rendering responsibility.
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Layer 01 StaticBackground & dial art
The static cluster background — dial markings, decorative arcs, frame artwork. Rendered once and held in the hardware layer. Never redrawn on subsequent frames unless the cluster theme changes.
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Layer 02 DynamicGauge fills & needles
Per-frame dynamic content — the RPM needle position, speed arc fill, and other real-time vehicle data representations. Isolated to its own layer so only this plane is updated each frame, not the entire scene.
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Layer 03 InteractiveMenu screen
Interactive menu content that overlays the main cluster display. Separated onto its own layer so it can be composited over the instrument view without requiring a full scene redraw when menus are opened or closed.
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Layer 04 TextOdometer & text overlays
Numerical readouts — odometer, trip distance, and other dynamic text elements. Placed on a dedicated layer to allow independent update of text content without invalidating the graphical layers beneath.
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Layer 05 SafetyTelltales
Safety-critical warning indicators — engine, battery, fuel and other telltale icons. Isolated on the topmost layer to ensure they always render above all other content and can be updated independently of the rest of the display.
The hardware compositor on the NXP RT1176 combines all five layers in real time — only the layers that have changed content are redrawn on each frame. Static layers are composited for free. The result is a dramatic reduction in per-frame rendering work.
Nine times the frame rate. Same hardware.
By restructuring the scene into five hardware-composited layers, Crossware achieved 45+ FPS on the same NXP RT1176 hardware the customer had already selected. No hardware changes, no feature removal, no visual compromise — the cluster looks and behaves identically, at production frame rates.
The customer's in-house development time was recovered. The cluster went from an unshippable 5 FPS prototype to a production-ready 45+ FPS implementation through scene analysis and layer architecture alone.