11 replies to this topic

[ELeFevre]

Should I be using a memory manager? If so, can anyone recommend a good one? The Windows memory utility doesnt seem to kick-in until there's a problem.

[benbakelaar]

Try FreeRamXP Pro, it's pretty handy. However, if you regularly run into RAM overload problems (like I do on my laptop), you'll find it frustrating and end up turning it off. So it's strength is in protecting against crashes in the unlikely event, not the likely event. Unless you don't care about waiting 60-120 seconds for it to process/recover enough RAM for Windows to continue working/stop freezing.

Should I be using a memory manager? If so, can anyone recommend a good one? The Windows memory utility doesnt seem to kick-in until there's a problem.

[ELeFevre]

Thanks Ben. I'll give it a try and let you know how it works out. Typically I don't run into memory problems until the very end of a project. So maybe this will come in handy.

[benbakelaar]

I guess it would have been nice of me to post a link http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/

[ELeFevre]

I was able to find it no problem. So far the memory manager seems to be helping. Thanks. Erin

[MapMedia]

This might be useful.

I have 4 gigs and a cache setting of 4 gigs, but sometimes run into memory problems (on monster geoprocessing tasks). I also wonder since Windows XP only 'sees' 2 gigs max, if ArcMap is able to use 4 or just 2 - could never get a straight answer from my IT consultant nor the forums.

Any recomendations on memory managers?

[benbakelaar]

Here's some back/forth on a forum about your issue... not sure if anything conclusive ever gets stated though.

http://bink.nu/forum...5/ShowPost.aspx

Sounds like you need Windows Server 2003 configured as a workstation, or XP 64-bit version.

[MapMedia]

Thanks Ben - sounds like 4 gigs are available, but 3 recognized. After a fresh boot and start a basic Photoshop project, and run system info from Photoshop Help, it says I have 3 gigs but only 1.7 avail to Photoshop.

Maybe a memory manager will let me shift more memory to key apps.

Chris

[benbakelaar]

Thanks Ben - sounds like 4 gigs are available, but 3 recognized. After a fresh boot and start a basic Photoshop project, and run system info from Photoshop Help, it says I have 3 gigs but only 1.7 avail to Photoshop.

Maybe a memory manager will let me shift more memory to key apps.

Chris

Chris if you read more of the posts you will see someone mentions 2gb for photoshop may be a program limitation. Also, there are actually 3 pages of comments, and some people on the next page state that while Windows reports a maximum of 3, but thats related to windows Virtual Memory Manager and that the OS still supposedly accesses the full physical RAM capacity.

[GISRox]

I know that this is a bit "programmerish" but I thought I'd pass along a few links regarding extended memory use in 32bit Windows apps.

Applications can support larger memory blocks, up to 3GIG, but they must be compiled to use such memory space. I've been looking into this for an upcoming product release.

http://msdn.microsof..._ram_tuning.asp

(Caveat Emptor)

General overview of memory limits for various Windows versions.

http://msdn.microsof...ws_releases.asp

[Charlie Frye]

One note about this, particularly relevent to ArcMap, especially for printing and exporting, and most especially for the ArcPress drivers.

The memory limitations are not just about a quantity of memory like the hard 2Gb limit for a metafile. It also applies to the nature of that memory, which must be uninterupted. The 4Gb recommendation for a pagefile.sys is good, but if you don't protect that file it will become fragmented and essentially of no benefit.

One strategy that works very well is to create a 6Gb partition (though another physical drive would be the best option) on one of your drives and move your pagefile.sys into that partition. Use that partition for nothing else. That way it cannot become fragmented. We've been recommending that for several years to good effect. If you're producing files larger than 2Gb, then you'll want the pagefile.sys to be double the size of the largest file that you produce (rule of thumb).

Charlie

[benbakelaar]

One strategy that works very well is to create a 6Gb partition (though another physical drive would be the best option) on one of your drives and move your pagefile.sys into that partition.

Charlie, I haven't done desktop support regularly in the past 12 months, but as far as I can recall I don't think you can simply cut/paste or move the file from the C:\ to the newly created 6gb partition. Just as a warning for those who may find this advice in the futre... I believe you would have to go in and change some system settings to point Windows to the pagefile.sys on the new partition. I'll see if I can look up a tech article on it.