@Ken Cole:

Would it be possible to include an option (at least within the registry entries) to define how much RAM DVD Profiler is allowed to use?
Since RAM is very cheap at the moment it would be nice to have the option of allowing DVD Profiler to use more MB of RAM to speed it up a little.

In most cases DVD Profiler is quite fast, but loading for example the profile of the complete "Married... with Children" Box (all 259 episodes in one box) is rather slow (thanks to the complete cast & crew list with 259 dividers and a headshot collection of about 430MB), even on my PC (Intel Q9550 (4x2,83GHz), 4GB DDR2-800 RAM), because the HDD gets strongly accessed when I select the profile.

Since memory usage is at the moment only about 160MB on my PC, I thought that it would be a nice performance boost if I could allow Profiler to use maybe about 1GB of RAM.

I know, not everybody wants such a high memory usage, so it should be a strictly optional thing. 

I agree with DJ.  That data has to be loaded into memory before you can view it.  There is no way the program can anticipate which profile you are going to click on, so the only solution would be to load every single profile, into memory, at start up.  That is not a solution I would like to see implemented.

You can look into setting up a striped RAID which will improve your overall access times but the cheapest way to speed things up (free) is to defrag your hard drive using a program such as AusLogics Disk Defrag or Windows Defrag if you're running XP or older.  Vista's defrag, well, doesn't.

If you desire speed and don't mind forking out a few hundred bucks, check out the newer solid state hard drives.  With no moving parts, they'll land the smackdown on ANY standard hard drive.

If you lust for speed, there's a RAM drive option but it's a lot of hassle as you have to copy the data onto it and then copy it back off if you make any changes.

I like the idea.  I wouldn't mind the program taking longer to load if it was lightening fast while running.

I'd also like the problem of profiler 'falling asleep' when kept in the background for a period of time and then being very sluggish when it's time to use it again.  Or is that just mine? 

The sluggish response when restoring from a minimized stated is because Windows swapped out its memory to use for other programs and has to load it back in.

I have four 1 TB drives in a stripped/mirrored RAID and partitioned it out to a 600 GB drive for Windows and programs, 100 GB for downloaded files and temp files, and the rest for my data.

The big problem with temp data is that it fragments your hard drive.  Creating a separate partition and setting the Windows Temp directories to it as well as your browser cache directories, it keeps all that garbage off your main drive and speeds up defragmenting considerably.

For the RAM drive option, you'll need to create a database on the RAM drive and copy/restore your main database onto it to set it up.  Then create a backup folder and copy all the files from the RAM drive onto it.  If you have your RAM drive initialized at Windows startup, create a batch file in your Program Files > Startup folder to copy the backup folder onto the RAM drive and then create a seperate batch file on your desktop to copy the files from the RAM drive to the backup directory.  You can also experiment with RoboCopy (comes with Vista) to only copy files that have changed.

Quoting Dr. Killpatient:

Quote:
The sluggish response when restoring from a minimized stated is because Windows swapped out its memory to use for other programs and has to load it back in.
[...]
The big problem with temp data is that it fragments your hard drive.  Creating a separate partition and setting the Windows Temp directories to it as well as your browser cache directories, it keeps all that garbage off your main drive and speeds up defragmenting considerably.
[...]

Thanks for the explanation Doc.  Is there any way tell windows to leave a certain program in RAM and only use the page file for other programs?  On a related note, would there be any problem taking stick of RAM from my other rig and using in in my main 1?  They are different brands but are the same size.  I know it's not ideal but would I still at least see some improvement?

As for the defrag bit I've got to add something I found out recently.  Moving the pagefile to another partition (1 or 2 gig) can reduce disk fragmentation greatly.  I did it and I've noticed a big improvement.

Quoting Dr. Killpatient:

Quote:
If you can move the swap file to another drive entirely, it'll increase performance by a small percentage because Windows can access two drives simultaneously.

But make sure it's really a physical drive, not just a partition of your HDD. Otherwise you'll get the opposite effect. When moving the swap file to another HDD make sure to move it into the first sectors. Preferable is to move the swap file to a fast media (RAM Drive / RAID 0 / SSD).

Quoting Dr. Killpatient:

Quote:
Typically, you can take a RAM stick from one computer and put it into another as long as it's the same type and speed, ideally the same size, as the existing RAM.

This will typically only increase the RAM size of your computer and not speed up the RAM-access. For faster access to your RAM you need two identical RAM sticks (Chipset / module-size / total size / clocking / etc.) also known as "Twin Set" or "Dual Channel". This works de facto like a striped set (RAID 0) for RAM