To follow on the "speed issues" I wanted to add my two cents... I've been using ram drive technology with cad and other high end software for about fifteen years. It's a must to improve performance but one has to know how to use it. You can find multiple "ramdrive" products. Some are even hardware made of a special memory board... There are some even available for free on the Microsoft Web site but I don't remember if it will be available for the most recent versions of Windows
You can find some ram drive products that automatically transfer the files you are working on in the ramdrive, as you close your file, it will automatically save it back on a specific hardrive, etc... There are also memory defragmenter. Those can reorganize the location of you program in memory (similar to a hard disk defragmenter).This can speed up your applications and save memory. Usually, they can be set to optimize whenever your computer is on and using less then a specific amount of processor usage (ex: less then 2%)(Some are freeware...) I used to design computer system to optimize gis and cad application but I haven't been in that business for years... I am not up to date with what is out there. There were some hard drive controllers that used to really improved some application like digitizing, working with huge raster by having their own processors and memory. I have seen improvement up to a 100 times with it if you could afford the $2000 they use to cost. Like I said, I'm not sure what is available, cost, etc. anymore. They are also raid hardrive systems that will copy the same data to multiple drives and when you retrieve it, it gets it from more then one location. That will also improved you application and servers a lot... I still use ramdrive but as far as other products, one should look over the net to find what is available these days. The efficiency of those utilities depending on maker... One algorithm can be efficient for a specific software or/and a version of windows and not so good in other situations. As an exemple, Quarterdesk used to make a few utilities like that and was sooooo efficient with Autocad in windows 98. In those years, with the high price of memory one could easily save 95% of hardrive work and save over an hour a day for a software that used to cost a hundred bucks! The choice of your Ramdrive product could also be influenced by the way you data is located. Some can also be use on the network server. This can really improved "shared files" or web server application. There are some products specially made for this and need to be set properly. Some application work with temp files. A ramdrive can then significally improve your application. As an exemple, software like illustrator that some of you may use can be set to a specific drive. What an improvement using it with a ramdrive! The same with Mapbasic applications. Sometime we have to make extraction of files and save them in temporary files to be able to work on specific issues. This is also a good use of a ram drive. I've used once to optimize a program (not in Mapinfo but with an other GIS on Unix)that used to take about 24 hours to process. By changing a few lines of codes and ramdrive technology, I cut it to less then 10 minutes! An other issue is the way that window manage memory. As I mentioned before, I don't keep myself up to date with the latest technology but I would like to introduce an other concept to improve performance. It's called "bashing". Most of you know that computer as regular memory and a bit of faster and more expensive memory called cache. This can improved calculation. The CPU takes the data it's working on, send it to memory but copy it first to the cash. To retrieve again the data from memory to continue the operation, it makes a call to memory but look at cache first. They are many types of cache and some are made to use regular memory within the operating system. A performance problem can occur, when the application copy elements in the cache then elsewhere in memory or hardrive, sometime if you copy an element "A" in cache, it will also be copied in the memory or hardrive. If you then work on an element "B" that will overwrite the content of the cache (A) and after ward when you need to call back "A". It has to do the process of looking in the cache, can't find it, look elsewhere, find it, copy it again in the cache and finish the process. That would have process faster without doing the process of using the cache... This is usually a computer with more cache will have a tendency to make less bashing since it has more room to store the data. I wouldn't be surpised to see application somewhere that could used those techniques very efficiently within windows (it used to be but haven't checked latest version...) and someone with a good amount of memory (that is more affordable everyday with the odd ups and downs), that know its software, uses some of the techniques mentioned can really improved speed. In resume, know how you application works and find the appropriate add-on that will benefit you the most and if the time and money investment worth it... Gilbert -----Original Message----- From: Jakob Lanstorp [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 10:43 To: MapInfo-L@lists.directionsmag.com Subject: RE: MI-L : Speed processing issues Have you tried RAM disk from Super Speed. http://www.superspeed.com/index.php I have not tested it throughly yet. If you get 2 GB RAM, your can reserve 1.5 GB RAM for your MapInfo data. Prehaps other on this forum have experience with RamDisk, this very simple test, below, with 2,2 million points (300MB), turned out to run 62.5% faster, when all MI data was copied in the RAM with RamDisk, compaired to data present on the harddisk. dim start as integer dim elapsed as integer set table DavAdrDK undo off fastedit on start = timer() update DavAdrDK set row_id = ROWID elapsed = Timer() - start print "Time sec: " + str$(elapsed) unDim start undim elapsed Mvh. | Regards Jakob Lanstorp Software Developer Geographical Information & IT COWI A/S Odensevej 95 DK-5260 Odense S Tel +45 99 36 77 00 Direct +45 99 36 77 86 Fax +45 99 36 77 01 Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cowi.dk -----Original Message----- From: Data Directions [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 20 December 2004 13:37 To: MapInfo List Subject: MI-L : Speed processing issues I am doing erase, combine and disaggregate operations on 1.3 Gb files, and needless to say, the processing times are ridiculous ... hours and hours .. ad infinitum! I have implemented the idea of using the MapBasic window and choosing to bypass transaction files by the process: set table YourTableName fastedit on undo off Aside from the impractical option of purchasing a Sun Sparc station, would it help if I was to increase my RAM or even processor speed? I am currently running on a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 Mb RAM. Or should I maybe consider doing these operations in another product that imports MID/MIF files? 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