QGraphicsItem - Rectangle "with holes": how to get a good performance?

hi guys,

i have a question regarding a specific graphics item and how to create it for best performance.
image a typical "connect four"-board: a rectangle with 7x6 holes in it. that's what i want to have, but the "holes" in it really have to be transparent/holes, meaning you can see moving items behind the "board" through those holes.
i hope my explanation isn't that bad ... if you don't understand it, just ask again! :)

currently i'm using a QGraphicsPathItem (added a rounded rectangle and 7x6 ellipses). that works so far, but it's really slow, for example when trying to resize the whole item.
in my graphics view's resizeEvent i have the following:

Code:

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fitInView(scene()->itemsBoundingRect(), Qt::KeepAspectRatio);

---

of course my "board with holes"-path-item is part of the scene ...
now when the graphics view is resized, it takes up to a second until the item is properly skaled, even on quite fast computers ...

now i'm looking for an alternative to using a QGraphicsPathItem to create the board i described above ... i hope there is a better way than mine.
the only idea i had was to somehow generate a texture with transparent circles at the holes' positions and use a QGraphicsPixmapItem, but that sounds just stupid ...

maybe someone here can help me out with one or some ideas? thanks a lot in advance!!

p.s.: sorry for my bad english ...

sincerely
julian