On 20 Jan 2005, at 07:47 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Finale uses a lot of memory I have noticed. It uses a lot of shared memory too which leads me to believe that the new graphics are using up a lot of memory. I personally would trade the nice graphics for having the program use less memory.
I don't think that's really an option in OS X. And I would like to see Finale take *better* advantage of OS X graphics (i.e., Core Image), rather than go the low-res route. This is not incompatible with improved performance -- in fact, if it was implemented well, like in Sibelius, proper Core Image support would not only improve the image quality, but improve the speed tremendously as well. Finale's drawing engine is in drastic need of an overhaul in any event.
That makes sense...and that would explain why it looks like Finale is so inefficient when it comes to the graphics.
Well, there's storing them in RAM, but that would require *more* memory. I'm okay with that, though, especially if it's available as a Program Option. As you said, 1 GB of RAM is getting to be the new standard minimum requirement. (Although, in the case of my [hopefully soon-to-be-delivered] Mac mini, that's also the *maximum* memory... ). However, it's my experience that temp files rarely exceed 15 MB, so the additional memory requirements shouldn't be *that* onerous. And, of course, if the user runs out of room, just let the OS handle it by paging out to HD. No reason to store them on the HD by *default*, though -- that just slows down an already tremendously sluggish app.And there's got to be a better way to handle the temp file thing.
Another potential advantage to storing the temp files in RAM (in addition to the speed boost) is that perhaps if the files are stored in RAM, it would no longer be necessary to have all the currently open documents share temp files -- which seems to be the source of the problem.
You have really hit on something with all of this Darcy. Perhaps storing the temp files on a second hard drive might help a little bit too...which of course can be done through preferences. It is possible to create a RAM disk in OS X...though people get really nervous even bringing this up. But if one has a lot of RAM in a machine and they are sure that there is enough elbow room to make sure that the RAM disk isn't stepping on the toes of the the OS's lovely memory handling choreography, it can be effective under certain circumstances. Maybe this is one of them.
Coda says they have to do that to improve performance -- well, I bet having separate temp files for each document, but storing them in RAM instead of the HD, would at the very least result in no net performance loss.
I think there are many other things that MM can do to improve performance...as you have mentioned throughout this post. :-) They were really late to the party as far as OS X goes. The sad thing is that Apple is really great about supporting outside developers. There are people there whose only job is to assist developers in things like understanding the OS and even things that the developer needs from Apple to help with writing of applications. So MM could really be taking advantage of this to better the program to make it work more efficiently.
-K -- _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
