Topic: Reduce Resource usage? (Read 5579 times)

tlongacre · « **on:** August 02, 2003, 10:04:57 am »

Does anyone have any tips on how to reduce MC9's resource usage? I can rarely run MC9 with ANY other program on my computer.

Media Center Registered 9.1.218 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows 98 SE
Intel Pentium III 498 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 261 MB, Free - 2 MB
Resource Info: System - 13 %, GDI - 59 %, User - 13 %

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.81 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 / Shell32.dll: 4.72.3812.600 / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: N/A

Ripping / Drive G: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: Yes / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: No / Play sound after ripping: Yes Soundfile: chord.wav

Burning / Drive G: PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4012A Addr: 0:0:0 Speed:40 MaxSpeed:40 Use MJ Engine:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: No
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** August 02, 2003, 10:38:55 am »

You must have something else going on.

Try shutting down any MC plug-ins or add-ons.

Try shutting down other Windows applications, including anything you can in the right side of the taskbar.

nila · « **Reply #2 on:** August 02, 2003, 11:10:19 am »

GDI resource is what's high - isn't this to do with windows imaging? I used to get a LOT of problems to do with that with 98 - I'd have plenty of RAM left but the GDI resources were always filling up and causing crashes.

You have to restart if I remmeber correctly to empty GDI resources and fix the problem - it never really goes back down properly after a program is closed.

KingSparta · « **Reply #3 on:** August 02, 2003, 11:37:59 am »

Quote

Does anyone have any tips on how to reduce MC9's resource usage?

a better idea is dump the 5 year old OS for Windows XP

tlongacre · « **Reply #4 on:** August 02, 2003, 01:11:17 pm »

Nila,

Yes, that does definitely seem to be the issue. I have one other program -- Quicken -- which is worse than MC9, but neither of them seem to return what they use.

KingSparta,

Unless yer gonna buy me a new computer, not the most helpful suggestion.

JimH,

I do have a couple of MC9 plug-ins. I'll try turning those off (how??) and see if that helps. Thanks.

Doof · « **Reply #5 on:** August 02, 2003, 01:17:49 pm »

If I'm not mistaken, those percentages are what's free. So your GDI resources are the most available, not the least.

How many items do you have in your system tray (by the clock)? If it's more than 5 or 6 you may want to rethink what you absolutely need to be running all the time in the background.

Try doing a fresh reboot and before you start any application, start up Resource Monitor (I belive you can start it by going to Start -> Run and typing in "Resmon") and report back what it says.

nila · « **Reply #6 on:** August 02, 2003, 04:56:52 pm »

Best way to control what starts at startup is a program called: Startup Control Panel - a search at google will give it as the first hit - install that!

As for GDI resources - there was no real fix for them and they SERIOUSLY mess up the system and cause a LOT of crashes - used to happen to me all the time.

Forget about XP - it's not going to happen on that system.

2k probably would work on it though and if it does it'd give you an almost instant HUGE performance increase - u'd instantly notice it being 10 times more reliable and find you weren't having to restart the computer every day/few hours if doing alot of work and going in and out of different programs.

SOME of the memory management programs worked a BIT to help solve it - cant remember which one worked best.

NT4 would be your best option if your system cant handle 2k. If it cant thou I do strongly suggest upgrading your CPU to the fastest that your mobo will support (dont forget to check for BIOS updates that might let it support higher). U'll be AMAZED how cheap you could get your hands on say a 700 or 800Mhz CPU these days and either of those work great with 2k (know from experience).

Doof · « **Reply #7 on:** August 02, 2003, 05:02:45 pm »

You don't want NT4.

Take every difficulty you ever had with Windows and multiply it by like 10. Take every incompatibility problem you've ever experienced and multiply that by 50.

That's NT4.

I don't dislike it. From a certain point of view it's a much better OS than 98. But the home user doesn't typically deal with PC's from that point of view.

2K would be a better choice. But while your relibability might improve (still depends on the quality of your hardware and whether or not you run so many apps in the background that your system tray takes up half the taskbar), you're system performance will degrade.

dragyn · « **Reply #8 on:** August 02, 2003, 05:12:15 pm »

Quote

Forget about XP - it's not going to happen on that system.

His system has more memory than mine and MC 9.1 runs smoothly here.

KingSparta · « **Reply #9 on:** August 02, 2003, 05:25:31 pm »

Quote

His system has more memory than mine and MC 9.1 runs smoothly here.

I agree it should run fine per microsoft specs, more memory would be better.

if you noticed he has 2 megs free from 261 and windows 98 is not using it, he just has alot of crap running he maynot be aware of.

nila · « **Reply #10 on:** August 02, 2003, 05:36:53 pm »

Memory sure but that wont mean it's faster if yours has a faster CPU.

If the CPU is slow it can only process the data so fast no matter what type it is, having tons of RAM just means that big huge que is able to get to the CPU fast, doesn't make any difference to how fast the CPU can deal with it all - just gives it a nice dump spot to shove stuff while it's working - like a notepad.

XP had problems on my Athlon 700 which is why I upgraded to my XP 2000 last year.

too fast a CPU with not enough RAM = slow system
slow CPU with unlimited RAM = slow system

Match of fastest CPU with the max RAM that YOU need = fast system.

I never noticed the lack of Memory - make sure your swap file is pretty big - try stopping windows managing it and mange it yourself - make it like 1 gig and see if your system runs better.
Memory upgrade wouldn't cost you much either.

I would recommend checking out new systems though - what country do you live in?

U'd be amazed how cheap they can be built for.

dragyn · « **Reply #11 on:** August 02, 2003, 05:42:43 pm »

We both have the same speed CPU. Pratically everything is the same. He just has more memory than me. I can't pull sys info in MC because it's giving an invalid arguement right now.

WinXp and 9.1 runs nicely being on a 500Mhz CPU. So saying he can't run xp is not entirely true. That's all I'm getting at.

Charlemagne 8 · « **Reply #12 on:** August 02, 2003, 06:09:35 pm »

I bought an upgrade for Windows XP Home. I have Windows 98SE now. I ran the setup disk and was then informed that some of my applications wouldn't run and some of my hardware wouldn't work if I continued so I didn't continue.
I understand now that it MAY be merely a driver issue and the right drivers would fix the hardware problems.
Still I am running 98 with all it's problems.
What helps me tremendously in running Media Jukebox and now Media Center is a program called RamBooster. When your free RAM gets below a certain point, it reclaims it up to the limit you set. This is certainly not a cure-all but it really does help.
Just my experience. Yours may be different.
CVIII

smsully · « **Reply #13 on:** August 02, 2003, 09:28:39 pm »

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I still have an AMD K6 2 400. I'm running Windows XP Pro and it works fine for me with 256 Megs of RAM.

Doof · « **Reply #14 on:** August 02, 2003, 09:39:33 pm »

Quote

I never noticed the lack of Memory - make sure your swap file is pretty big - try stopping windows managing it and mange it yourself - make it like 1 gig and see if your system runs better.

1 gig is a bit excessive. A nice value would be 2.5 times the amout of RAM that you have. So if you have 256 MB RAM, then you'd want your swap file to be 640 MB. If you're going to do this, it's best to disable your swap file entirely, reboot, defrag your hard drive, then re-enable the swap file and give it a minimum and maximum size that's 2.5 times your system RAM. If the min and max values are the same, then Windows won't waste a lot of time dynamically resizing it, and if it's nice and defragmented, then Windows can more quickly read and write to it.

I'm still curious about what Resmon has to say about your system resources after a fresh reboot, and what applications you have running in the background.

nila · « **Reply #15 on:** August 03, 2003, 12:13:39 am »

Point accepted Dragyn - I'm impressed XP will go back that far. I had problems with it on my 700. Guess it depends a lot on other hardware too.

KingSparta · « **Reply #16 on:** August 03, 2003, 02:29:02 am »

Quote

Memory sure but that wont mean it's faster if yours has a faster CPU.

it does, because the system will not be using the swap drive. and you just can't run windows xp well on 256k you should have 512.

no matter what MS wrote on the box

nila · « **Reply #17 on:** August 03, 2003, 07:16:13 am »

MS always exagerates.

My point about the memory more clearly is that there's a limit to what adding more RAM can achieve if other things are causing the system to be slower - a slow CPU is going to cause a bottleneck there with the data processing.

KingSparta · « **Reply #18 on:** August 03, 2003, 08:14:14 am »

well no one said it would be a screamer.

but anything you can do to eliminate the swap drive use will help.

he could also be running something with a memory leak and may need to update the video drivers etc.. and maybe a program to recover the ram may help.

jleerigby · « **Reply #19 on:** August 03, 2003, 08:41:42 am »

I have 3 sticks of 512 so there's plenty of RAM and I have my swap drive set at 2304 (1.5x as recommencded by XP). Do I really need this much swap drive?

If not I'll reduce it 'cos I'm really struggling for capacity at the mo as my system partition is only 10GB with the other 102 given over to music (and 8GB given over to MBR or ? etc). My 102 of music is full and my 10 for system has only 1GB left so if I can safely reduce the swap without adverse system performance I will. I know that at some point I need more HDD space but I'm just putting it off 'cos I don't want to reinstall the OS.

So after all the ramblings back to the original queston: Can I safely reduce the pagefile?

Lee.

Quote

Media Center Registered 9.1.226 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 1804 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1572 MB, Free - 1210 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.57 (1008) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1997 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.57 (1008)

Ripping / Drive E: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Drive F: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: Yes / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: Yes Soundfile: chord.wav

Burning / Drive E: LITE-ON LTR-52246S Addr: 1:0:0 Speed:48 MaxSpeed:52 BurnProof:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None

KingSparta · « **Reply #20 on:** August 03, 2003, 09:09:54 am »

Quote

I have 3 sticks of 512 so there's plenty of RAM and I have my swap drive set at 2304 (1.5x as recommencded by XP). Do I really need this much swap drive?

If not I'll reduce it 'cos I'm really struggling for capacity at the mo as my system partition is only 10GB with the other 102 given over to music (and 8GB given over to MBR or ? etc). My 102 of music is full and my 10 for system has only 1GB left so if I can safely reduce the swap without adverse system performance I will. I know that at some point I need more HDD space but I'm just putting it off 'cos I don't want to reinstall the OS.

So after all the ramblings back to the original queston: Can I safely reduce the pagefile?

Lee.

if you have that much ram, you should have the setting let windows control the size of the swap file. the swap file will be almost nothing.

on another note:

I do not have my system to go into standby or hybernate (if i am not mistaken) the system will then use swapfile.

jleerigby · « **Reply #21 on:** August 03, 2003, 09:17:20 am »

Thanks King, I'll change it now.

Doof · « **Reply #22 on:** August 03, 2003, 10:37:37 am »

What I typically would do in that case is run some sort of system monitoring tool and have it monitor swap file usage. Have the tool keep a log so you can go back and look at your usage. Then set your swap file to that size, with maybe another 32 MB just to be safe. With that much RAM you may even find that XP never actually uses the swap file at all, so you may be able to disable it altogether.

nila · « **Reply #23 on:** August 03, 2003, 04:52:26 pm »

Quote

I need more HDD space but I'm just putting it off 'cos I don't want to reinstall the OS.

Lee.

Why would u have to re-install the OS just to add a hard drive?? U've lost me there. Just plug in the new drive and the prices are non stop plumetting - a 200 gig drive is like 130 with an 8meg buffer these days.

nila · « **Reply #24 on:** August 03, 2003, 05:00:51 pm »

Oh yeah - and if your running ouf of space here are some tips:

Go to control panel - add remove programs - go through the list and see what you ACTUALLY use - uninstall a few that u haven't used in ages and aren't too likely to use.

Delete ALL the files from Temporary Internet Files - this can get pretty big.

Delete ALL the files from : C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp

Sometimes a few gigs can build up in there.

check here and delete the files: C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Installations

Right click on the desktop, Monitor power - turn off hibernation - then go to your root C drive and delete the hibernation file - this should instantly get you like 1 gig.

See if you have any games installed - if so, if you haven't played any in a while - removing one of these usually instantly gives back half a gig.

Get your hands on a piece of software called: Tree size Pro - it'll give you a graphical view of your folder sizes in a chart and show you each folders size so you can easily see which folders are huge and check them to make sure they need to be and aren't full of something u forgot about.

I usually just format when i fill my 15 gig SYSTEM partition and that instantly gives me back stupid amounts of space - even after re-installing all the software I used from before.

KingSparta · « **Reply #25 on:** August 03, 2003, 05:12:21 pm »

you forgot turn off system restore in windows Xp, and Dump GoBack If that is installed.

jleerigby · « **Reply #26 on:** August 03, 2003, 10:15:09 pm »

Quote

Why would u have to re-install the OS just to add a hard drive?? U've lost me there. Just plug in the new drive and the prices are non stop plumetting - a 200 gig drive is like 130 with an 8meg buffer these days.

'cos I already have 2 HDDs, both 120s. 1 is in a removable caddy and used for backing up. So if I buy I bigger drive I'll buy 2 and sell the 120s.

Thanks for your advice about freeing up space. I've done all that except the hibernation thing. Good one - thanks.

I'm a bit nervous about turning off system restore as I do use it occassionally and it's got me out of a few holes. Thanks again for the advice Nila, and King.

Marko · « **Reply #27 on:** August 03, 2003, 10:34:25 pm »

If you don't like to turn system restore off, have you, or have you considered reducing it's HDD allocation?

Obviously, the less space you allocate, the fewer the number of choices in the system restore calendar. It defaults to something silly like 10% of the drive/partition space, but you can squeeze it down to a minimum of 200 Mb.

You know where it is, yes?
(windows key + pause/break to bring up system properties; then click the system restore tab. just in case)
-marko.

jleerigby · « **Reply #28 on:** August 03, 2003, 11:16:41 pm »

Yes, thanks Marko. i have it set at 500 mb. Time to go shopping for 2 big HDDs and a 2800+ CPU. I think it's going to be an expensive week!

nila · « **Reply #29 on:** August 04, 2003, 12:50:03 am »

Dont ditch those 120's - they're a couple of BIG drives. It'd suck to waste them.

Get a RAID card - put your new drives on that then you can have all of them.

jleerigby · « **Reply #30 on:** August 04, 2003, 02:51:30 am »

Yeh my board supports raid - 8 drives if I want but all I really need is 1 big one and 1 in my removable HDD caddy for backups. I'll easily sell the 2 120s for about £90 each as they are the mega fast WD Caviars with 8MB cache.

BTW - I saw your post to Zeveles thread where you talked about backing up all your MP3s to CD. Isn't it cheaper, quicker and easier to back them up to a second drive. The removable drive bay that I bought (from CCLComputers.co.uk) was only £12 and it's great. Supports up to ATA133 and just slides in whenever I want to use it.

nila · « **Reply #31 on:** August 04, 2003, 04:02:36 am »

Sure it's easier and cheaper - it's even cheaper to just shove them onto DVD as I have a DVD burner.

Unfortunately - neither work in my car cd player

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Author Topic: Reduce Resource usage? (Read 5579 times)

nila

nila

dragyn

nila

dragyn

nila

nila

jleerigby

jleerigby

nila

nila

jleerigby

Marko

jleerigby

nila

jleerigby

nila