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[wladdy]

I want to use MC12 to manage a very large collection of pictures (~2M pictures, 380GB). Unfortunately, I am plagued with interruptions such as "Runtime error" or "Out of memory", not onlly when I import but also when I browse. I just upgraded my PC's RAM from 2GB to 4GB, but there was no improvement (in fact, Window's control panel's 'System' reports only 3GB and MC's 'System info' only 2097MB!).

What are the best practices when it comes to allocating MC as much RAM as possible? Is my system poorly parametered? Would buying a high-end graphical card make a difference (I currently use a 256MB GeForce 6500)?

Thanks for you ideas!

W.

Media Center 12.0.510 Registered -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
AMD Unknown 1980 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2097 MB, Free - 1426 MB

Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.11 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive E: _NEC    DVD_RW ND-4551A   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive N:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive E: _NEC     DVD_RW ND-4551A    Addr: 0:2:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices:


Interface Plugins:
  last.fm (Active)
  Library Server (Active)
  TiVo Server (Active)
  UPnP Server (Active)

[JimH]

That sounds like something more basic.  Virus checker?

Try the thread called "Weird Problems" in my signature.

Try importing a single filetype at a time.  Or a single directory at a time.

Window's control panel's 'System' reports only 3GB and MC's 'System info' only 2097MB!

Your system doesn't like at least one of the new memory sticks.

[Alex B]

Window's control panel's 'System' reports only 3GB

It's the memory address space limitation. The maximum amount of addressed memory is 4 GB on a 32 bit OS.

The system devices may easily consume 1 GB of the total memory address space. When the amount of physical RAM is for example 2 GB that is not a problem. 4 GB - 1 GB = 3 GB, so there are enough free addresses for 2 GB or more (up to 3 GB which is the maximum amount of physical memory that can be available for SW if the devices reserve 1 GB of the address space).

I have 3 GB on one of my PCs, but only 2.8 GB is available for the OS and programs because my devices consume 1.2 GB of the 4 GB memory address space.

[DarkPenguin]

I think the 3GB thing is just a windows thing.  Vista reports my home machine only has 3.25GB.

Windows also divides the memory into 2GB user space and 2GB kernel space.  So an application like MC will only be able to see 2GB of the 4GB.

[DarkPenguin]

Can you break this up into smaller pieces?  Does it fall apart on import or in use?

That's a lot of images to manage in one library.  You might consider multiple libraries.

[Matt]

Would it be possible to split the library into a few 500k libraries?  That's a size Media Center is pretty comfortable with.

At the several million mark, it gets rougher.  I have a 4+ million track library I use for testing, but it's not the most fun to use.

Consider that the most memory the program can use is around 2GB.  With 4 million tracks, you can never use more than 500 bytes per record or you're sunk.

Media Center is pretty clever about how it stores and manages database memory, but there's still a limit.

You can speed up any size library and use less memory by using simple views that don't use expressions or other advanced features.  The new Panes On Top (thin) is particularly fast with a large library because it doesn't fill the panes until you use them.

[Duncanmusic]

this particular posting has proved to be very helpful for this nive with a large library. Thanks
Duncan