shinra358 Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 wouldn't that depend on theme makers considering we can already control the quality of the loading of the imagery with xaml? Or are you talking about the ram stuffz and things? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckp Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 This is kinda tough to swallow. I think my i5 2500k 8GB ram systems should be plenty to run BB and still have memory for actually running and playing games. Jason, with default BB theme, are you saying BB may likely use 3GB of ram all the time? If so, I think that won't really leave enough RAM for anything else on this 8GB system. I only see BB using about 1.2GB-ish RAM on my main system which has 16GB RAM, so I would expect no more than that usage on my 8GB system as well. They both use the same exact LB folder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 19 minutes ago, ckp said: This is kinda tough to swallow. I think my i5 2500k 8GB ram systems should be plenty to run BB and still have memory for actually running and playing games. Jason, with default BB theme, are you saying BB may likely use 3GB of ram all the time? If so, I think that won't really leave enough RAM for anything else on this 8GB system. I only see BB using about 1.2GB-ish RAM on my main system which has 16GB RAM, so I would expect no more than that usage on my 8GB system as well. They both use the same exact LB folder. If Big Box on your main system consistently only uses 1.2 gigs of RAM, then you must not be using all the bells and whistles. That's pretty much the bare minimum of typical memory usage. I'm not saying that Big Box should consistently use 3 gigs of RAM, of course not, but RAM usage will fluctuate significantly as images are used and disposed. 1.6 gigs of usage is not at all alarming. The way Windows handles RAM is very flexible and fluid, as it should be. Yes, Big Box may use 3 gigs of RAM while working, switching views, loading images, in attract mode, etc. That's certainly nothing new and should not come as a surprise because Big Box has used that much RAM pretty much since the beginning. Still, please try the new beta as it should make a difference. Just please don't expect RAM usage to always stay under a gig, because that's not even practical with everything going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 1 hour ago, lordmonkus said: I know this would require some work but maybe it's time to look into "Performance Presets" for BigBox. Have like 3 toggles, one with the full eye candy and made for high end systems, one middle of the road and one really stripped down bare bones preset for lower end systems. Yeah, a lot can be done here with different themes, but yes, something like this would be nice. Unfortunately though it's probably not currently that high up on the priority list. But we'll get there eventually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 4 hours ago, Jason Carr said: Yeah, a lot can be done here with different themes, but yes, something like this would be nice. Unfortunately though it's probably not currently that high up on the priority list. But we'll get there eventually. I know we have different opinions on your priority list but I think this is one you really should look into in the near future. Most people don't know what to turn off to reduce the system requirements of BigBox. I found using text lists, medium image quality and turning off transition effects really helps on crappy hardware. Just 3 selectable presets would probably be enough. Edit: I just installed the latest beta on my awful specced HTPC and letting Attract Mode run for a while to see what happens. System Specs: Windows 7 AMD Athlon 3800+ @ 2.4 GHz 2 gigs ram Radeon 7850 (1 gig DDR5 vram) Some generic 160 gig hard drive 2500+ games 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckp Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 27 minutes ago, Jason Carr said: Still, please try the new beta as it should make a difference. Just please don't expect RAM usage to always stay under a gig, because that's not even practical with everything going on. ok, i will. thx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 One thing I'm noticing with the RAM requirements is that the CoverFlow image quality makes a HUGE difference. I'm seeing Big Box easily stay under 1 gig of RAM always when the CoverFlow image quality is set to lowest. The most RAM-intensive part of Big Box is indeed the CoverFlow images, just because there are so many of them on the screen at once and they can be pretty big once loaded into RAM. I'm finding that the highest CoverFlow image quality setting can even be a tad bit too RAM-intensive on 8 GB systems while running CoverFlow. Edit: I think what I might do is force a lower CoverFlow image quality setting on systems with less RAM. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Ok I Just let Attract Mode run for 15 minutes using the text list view and ram usage is under 300 megs @ 291 to be exact. I will now switch to cover flow view and let it run again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 Just now, lordmonkus said: Ok I Just let Attract Mode run for 15 minutes using the text list view and ram usage is under 300 megs @ 291 to be exact. I will now switch to cover flow view and let it run again. Nice. Are you using WMP? Or do you have any videos in there at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 No videos at all. The system only has a 160 gig hard drive in it so its kept fairly streamlined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 5 minutes ago, Jason Carr said: Edit: I think what I might do is force a lower CoverFlow image quality setting on systems with less RAM From testing in the past going lower than medium quality made no difference in performance on my toaster of an HTPC and the visual difference between medium and highest quality was not noticeable at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 1 minute ago, lordmonkus said: No videos at all. The system only has a 160 gig hard drive in it so its kept fairly streamlined. Gotcha, that makes sense. I'm glad to hear that RAM is so low when you turn that stuff off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Just now, Jason Carr said: Gotcha, that makes sense. I'm glad to hear that RAM is so low when you turn that stuff off. With 2 gigs of ram you gotta really tighten things up, lol. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 Just now, lordmonkus said: From testing in the past going lower than medium quality made no difference in performance on my toaster of an HTPC and the visual difference between medium and highest quality was not noticeable at all. High quality is probably only noticeable in full-screen CoverFlow, where the images are bigger. I'm seeing a huge difference in RAM usage though between the Medium and Lowest image quality settings. Something like 400 megs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Just now, Jason Carr said: High quality is probably only noticeable in full-screen CoverFlow I'd say it's noticeable on a PC monitor sitting 1-2 feet away from it but on a TV at a distance of 6-8 feet not so much. I can say right now sitting here watching it scroll though the games it's flipping through the box art with very few hiccups at all. It did kinda chug for a moment when switching systems but it was only for a few seconds and it smoothed right out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Testing on my i3 with 4GB RAM doesn't go much higher than 600MB using text lists no videos with transitions off and image quality turned down to the lowest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 Ram usage on my 2 gig system is just over 400 megs, 417 to be exact when I looked at though I am sure it varies. There certainly was some more slowdown and missing boxart while caching it in on the larger libraries like the Genesis and SNES though, those are the only systems I have full game libraries for on this system. I certainly wouldn't expect full coverflow view to function well on this system with its specs and I would never use it myself but the ram usage is kept low enough. The other coverflow views with game details using the default theme function much better though and are certainly usable on this hunk of junk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 yeah performance isn't butter smooth for me either but its adequate for the hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckp Posted October 26, 2017 Share Posted October 26, 2017 On my i5 2500k 8GB RAM system, I want to be able to run, at a minimum, default BB theme with clear logo wheels, art, and videos (no text crap, yuk). I'm hoping I will see no more than ~1.5GB usage. And the wheels should be smooth on this system (but they haven't been). I think this is reasonable. I already have medium set on images. I will also switch to WMP. We'll see what happens when I try the new Beta tonight. Fingers crossed. In any case, I decided to write a script to run in the background on my HTPC that will close Bigbox.exe if the commit size exceeds 2GB. This way I can leave the PC running without fear of hosing my entire system and just hose BB. The script seems to be working for me with a test process. I'd rather not have to do that, but it's better than letting my entire system go south. I'll probably post this vb script in the forum in case anyone else wants to use it. I've seen that some people go to the extreme of auto rebooting every hour or so to avoid the problem and that seems like a horrible workaround, haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 26, 2017 Author Share Posted October 26, 2017 1 minute ago, ckp said: On my i5 2500k 8GB RAM system, I want to be able to run, at a minimum, default BB theme with clear logo wheels, art, and videos (no text crap, yuk). I'm hoping I will see no more than ~1.5GB usage. And the wheels should be smooth on this system (but they haven't been). I think this is reasonable. I already have medium set on images. I will also switch to WMP. We'll see what happens when I try the new Beta tonight. Fingers crossed. In any case, I decided to write a script to run in the background on my HTPC that will close Bigbox.exe if the commit size exceeds 2GB. This way I can leave the PC running without fear of hosing my entire system and just hose BB. The script seems to be working for me with a test process. I'd rather not have to do that, but it's better than letting my entire system go south. I'll probably post this vb script in the forum in case anyone else wants to use it. I've seen that some people go to the extreme of auto rebooting every hour or so to avoid the problem and that seems like a horrible workaround, haha. This is not at all a good idea as it could result in corrupt data files to routinely kill Big Box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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