Demetri writes:
<<I have problem of blanks if I open too many .bmp windows. Sometimes I can
open all windows I need with no problem. Other times I have problem if
only open half as many windows. Reason for this inconsistency?
Is there a setting that changed will alleviate problem?>>
1. Possible reasons for inconsistencies:
1. Size of files you have open (you are effectively stuffing all open
files/windows into memory, whether visible or not. All items showing in
taskbar are being held in memory, even if minimised). Even 384 RAM won't go
far with .bmp's. Some files being larger than others may account for
seeming inconsistencies.
ANY dealing with .bmp's can quickly run you out of memory. I find that out
the hard way yesterday when scanning some pix on a friend's scanner on his
newish computer with Win 98 and 256Mb RAM. I wondered why the thing was
running slower than my 5-year old computer with only 32Mb RAM. Then it
started freezing repeatedly, despite reboots.
I checked the default settings of the scanner, and found that it was saving
as hi-res .bmp's, some of which were over 35Mb in size. No wonder the poor
thing wasn't coping, just giving up the ghost after every two or three
scans. After resetting to save as .jpg's, it was then as fast as lightning
and no more problems. And the scans were exactly the same quality.
The moral of this story? Don't use .bmp files if you can possibly avoid
it. They are usually very large. If used extensively in ANY graphics
software manipulation, they are VERY likely to cause memory-loss crashes.
They are an antiquated format, with little or no practical use today.
Ms Paint uses only bitmaps, I think, but then, that's a very antiquated
piece of software anyway, and I've no idea why Ms still includes it any
OS. Perhaps they don't any more, or perhaps they've now improved it--is it
still in XP in its old form?
2. Too many other programs running.
3. How long since last reboot. Rebooting frequently when using
memory-intensive applications helps maximise free memory.
4. Running short of free hard drive space.
Possible remedies:
1. Convert your .bmp's to .jpg's. You will see no visible loss in quality,
and the files will be reduced by a factor of 3 to 10 or more. 60%
compression is fine for most purposes.
Irfanview will do batch conversions easily and quickly. If you MUST keep
your files as .bmp's (I don't know of any reason why you would need to)
then convert them back to .bmp when you have finished playing around with them.
2. Set the swapfile to a large max/min. Rather than have Windows manage
memory, change this setting to manual management. The usual convention is
to make both max and min twice the size of your real RAM, but this depends
on your system, size of hard drive, and how you use your computer.
When doing extensive graphics work in CorelDraw, for example, I've found
that I get far less freezes (in fact, none) with the swapfile set to max 4
times physical RAM and min 2 times. ie with 32Mb RAM, I have max set at
128 and min at 64. Slightly unusual, but works for me.
With Windows managing memory, I frequently got freezes or out-of-memory
warnings when pushing Corel too hard. I wouldn't even think about editing
.bmp's with it.
To make these settings, open Control Panel/System/Performance/Virtual
Memory and tick "Let me specify".
For more info on the complex subject of memory management, see my
Intermediate Level tutorial on "Memory leaks and management".
Don Penlington
Free computer tutorials at: http://www.geocities.com/donaldpen/
Also Fractal Galleries, free icons, poetry, and beautiful Queensland beaches.
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