On Sat, 18 Sep 1999, David Monniaux wrote: > Hi all, > > Gimp has an internal virtual memory facility. The problem with it is that > when the cache size has been set too low for the size of images that are > to be dealt with, Gimp monopolizes the hard drive. On systems where > the system swap is on the same drive, this slows down the whole machine > tremendously. If your cache size is too small that's a problem. If it's too small because you don't have much RAM that's a different problem. It _might_ be possible to write code which will auto-tune Gimp for a single-user monopolizing a workstation, but such a feature would have to be default-disabled because it would probably cripple a multi-user compute/ session server. Given that Gimp is tuned correctly, and that you're not fighting other users for the RAM in your system then the only other thing that will really help (I agree with Marc that stopping doesn't help anything much) is to have memory access hints in the OS and in Gimp. ISTR that earlier Gimp's have resisted this temptation because it's not portable -- perhaps 1.3.x is the time to look at this again. How much may this help? Well for some operations Gimp definitely thrashes more than PotatoShop on a similar machine, but for others we're doing about the same -- and they're tuned for a single OS platform. Summary: There's no substitute for more RAM. Nick.
