File sizes, frame 9, comparison times

[Jeff Coatsworth]

The "- it can use it." I was referring to was his Win7 machine, not FM. Nobody's ever just running "only" FM - there's normally always some other apps in use - your e-mail program, a browser or two, some screenshot app, etc.

________________________________
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Dov Isaacs
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 9:10 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: File sizes, frame 9, comparison times
Importance: High

FrameMaker is a 32-bit application, not a 64-bit application. As such, it cannot use any more than a 2GB address space. Using FrameMaker under any 64-bit version of Windows with more than 2GB of memory only assists FrameMaker in that such additional memory can dramatically reduce system paging operations to and from disk. Generally speaking, the 64-bit versions of Windows have a much higher memory requirement threshold than the 32-bit minutes of Windows have. Under no circumstances would I ever recommend use of Windows 64-bit with anything less than a full 4GB of main memory, with 6GB or 8GB much more rational choices for that environment.

                - Dov

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Coatsworth
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 5:26 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: File sizes, frame 9, comparison times

I'd be chugging too if I only had 2 GB of RAM! You're using Win7 64 bit for God's sake! Throw a whack of RAM at it - it can use it.

________________________________
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Stephens, Adrian P
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 1:25 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: File sizes, frame 9, comparison times
Hello all,

I'm technical editor for IEEE 802.11REVmb,  this is a spec for a wireless LAN protocol,  and is current 2,600 pages in length.
The standard is a single book file comprising about 40 .fm files.  I'm using Frame 9 on Win 7 64 bit.

I have had two problems recently with this:

1.       Slow operation with large files.

2.       Slow compare operation.

The process we go through in IEEE standards is that large chunks of contributory material (called amendments)
are prepared and approved elsewhere.  Then I get to roll in the change.   The last two amendments were 400
and 200 pages in length,  consisting of a mixture of straight additional material and marked up changes.

Two files in particular have grown a lot recently.   One is a 50/50 mix of text and tables.   The other is pure text.
They are both about 400 pages in length each.  (The source with text/tables is 4MB in length,  the other one is 2MB).

Recently operations have slowed down.  Frame has started running out of memory (screen not rendering properly,
using a system font instead of proper font) when doing lots of work in the mixed file.     Cross-reference operations
(the bane of my life) take forever (i.e.,  10s user-interface response to any key,   30s pause after adjusting xref).

I have to prepare a "redline" document,  which I do by a book compare with a previous release.    With these files
of this length,  and a substantial number of operations,  this appears to be slowing down.   I killed one compare on
the purely text file after 4 hours of CPU time on a fast desktop machine.

I have split these files into 4 chunks,  and life has improved a lot.   OK,  400 pages is a long file (in terms of could
I read it before bedtime),  but 4MB is not much compared with the memory that frame occupies (200MB) or the
amount of memory on my machine (2GB).

Have others observed this behaviour?   Am I missing any tricks in dealing with big files?



Best Regards,

Adrian P STEPHENS

Tel: +44 1954 204 609 (office)
Tel: +44 792 008 4900 (mobile)
Skype: adrian_stephens

----------------------------------------------
Intel Corporation (UK) Limited
Registered No. 1134945 (England)
Registered Office: Pipers Way, Swindon SN3 1RJ
VAT No: 860 2173 47

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20110303/c941b0c9/attachment.htm>