Insufficient Memory in BEYOND

[bungy]

I am a QuickShow user who has recently upgraded to BEYOND. In QuickShow, I had a workspace where I had all my shows saved as cues across a few pages. I never had any issues and was always able to edit and manipulate shows in the QuickTimeline without problem.

Now I have created a "Shows" workspace for BEYOND and imported all my QuickShow shows as cues. After I imported everything, I noticed that BEYOND's memory usage was up around 2GB. I have 8GB installed in my system and I am running Windows 7 64-Bit.

I can play cues, but when I try to edit them, I get an error that there is insufficient free memory. Is there any way to increase the amount of memory that BEYOND can use?

 

[Bob@Pangolin]

Do show playing from the playlist option, don't load them into cues.. that will cost enormous amount of internal memory.

 

[bungy]

Why even allow loading a show into a cue then?

Using the cue interface is a lot nicer and easier than the playlist screen, which is just a list of text. Additionally, a playlist implies a set order of shows, but I generally don't play shows in any specific order which is another plus for the cue screen.

Why couldn't the cue screen launch shows the same way the playlist does? The cue wouldn't need to have the whole show loaded for a preview, just a reference frame or frame range.

 

[Pangolin]

Rather than make assumptions about what *might* be going on, I'd rather *know* what is going on, and then come to a solution from that point.

To that end, I'd like to get your workspace in our hands, so we can try it for ourselves and see what's happening. In fact, I'd like to have both your QS workspace and your BEYOND workspace and then we'll see what the differences are, using our memory analysis tools. Once we understand what is really happening, we can render a much higher quality answer.

Please make arrangements to send us your workspaces, whether that is through DropBox or some other public file sharing facility.

Best regards,

William Benner

 

[bungy]

Thanks for looking into this Bill. Regardless of the resolution, I think it's important to not let the user put the app in a low memory situation through normal actions.

I have uploaded the QS and BEYOND workspaces to my Dropbox space:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39156940/Shows.BeyondWorkspace
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39156940/Shows.QSW

Most of the shows in the workspaces were downloaded from the Pangolin shows portal.

Interestingly, the BEYOND workspace is 1.4GB and the QS workspace is 368MB, and the memory footprints are very similar while in use. I'm sure the BEYOND file needs to be larger as it is a more fully featured app, but the difference is quite substantial. Probably a non-issue, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

I have not included the related music for either workspace as the low memory problem happens whether the music is there or not.

My system is a Lenovo Ideapad laptop with an Intel Core i7 CPU @ 2.2Ghz, with 8GB of RAM, and the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can provide to help.

 

[ENOT]

A few remarks about memory use.

- BEYOND is 32 it application. By default 32 bit application can address 2G of memory. With a special flag in exe file - 3G. This is theoretical limit. Practically the fail happen at approximately at 2.5G level. At that level of memory use software can not really work correctly, it will fail. For preventing such situation, and keeping the application functional, BEYOND check the use and start to block various operations after 2G. In this case software still work, no exception or anything like that. BEYOND check the memory use in many places with the only goal - keep working and do not fail. The message box is not a error. It is a reaction of BEYOND on low memory. Software has the limits, software knows its limits.

- Independently on OS type or installed memory in the computer, 32 bit applications can not use more memory.

- Uploaded workspace of BEYOND has 52 cues. Workspace of QS - 18.

- BEYOND is much bigger than QS. Start QS and BEYOND in empty folder and you will see that BEYOND use 100 meg more than QS. The difference in memory use in Task Manager reflect different memory use by application itself.

- QS compress the files. BEYOND do not. The compression disabled because it require extra memory for decompression what duplicate memory use during show-cue loading. Without compression file buffer, but RAM use is decreased what is important for big workspaces. BEYOND use another logic of workspace data format specially optimized for decreased memory use. Using the file size as a main point for measurement is not really right.

Best Regards,

Alexey.

 

[bungy]

Alexey,
Thanks for the detailed explanation, it all makes sense - I am a Windows developer myself. And thanks for touching on the internal differences between QS and BEYOND even though it has no bearing on the memory issue. Not sure why the QS workspace only had 18 cues, it should have been the same as the BEYOND one.

So, we can put BEYOND in a low memory state by loading shows into cues - as each cue is loaded directly into memory for quick access. And BEYOND won't crash or throw errors, it just restricts functionality in a low memory state - ok.

Since loading shows into cues is a valid action, and the user can load as many shows into cues as he wants, then is it reasonable to think that "show" cues should be treated differently (e.g. loaded on demand, even if there is a slight delay) so that the user doesn't eat up all the memory?

I understand that Pangolin's position is to use the playlist feature to play shows. However I find it easier/more intuitive to use the cue grid to load shows as I usually don't have a set order, and I would assume other users might do this as well. In no way am I demanding or even expecting a change for this, but don't you think it's best to avoid a low memory situation if possible?

Greg

 

[ENOT]

Hi Greg,

I understand all what you talking about on all 100%. I agree that I looks attractive to have load "on demand", to have endless workspace, and do not think about memory limit at all. Yes, no doubt it will be perfect, and one more time, I understand what you talking about.

I think that situation is under your control. You may load the shows into memory up to the limit. You may keep the memory clean, and use Play list. It is your decision. BEYOND is just a tool.

Alexey.

 

[pyroglenn]

64 Bit

Will we be seeing a 64 bit version of the software any time soon that will be able to take advantage of some these powerful systems around these days, I use a ASUS G74 laptop with the intel I7 extreme processesor with SSD boot drive 2tb storage drive 16gig on board mem and 2 gig on the video card using win7 64bit ultimate operating system I live in hope of the day.

A few remarks about memory use.

- BEYOND is 32 it application. By default 32 bit application can address 2G of memory. With a special flag in exe file - 3G. This is theoretical limit. Practically the fail happen at approximately at 2.5G level. At that level of memory use software can not really work correctly, it will fail. For preventing such situation, and keeping the application functional, BEYOND check the use and start to block various operations after 2G. In this case software still work, no exception or anything like that. BEYOND check the memory use in many places with the only goal - keep working and do not fail. The message box is not a error. It is a reaction of BEYOND on low memory. Software has the limits, software knows its limits.

- Independently on OS type or installed memory in the computer, 32 bit applications can not use more memory.

- Uploaded workspace of BEYOND has 52 cues. Workspace of QS - 18.

- BEYOND is much bigger than QS. Start QS and BEYOND in empty folder and you will see that BEYOND use 100 meg more than QS. The difference in memory use in Task Manager reflect different memory use by application itself.

- QS compress the files. BEYOND do not. The compression disabled because it require extra memory for decompression what duplicate memory use during show-cue loading. Without compression file buffer, but RAM use is decreased what is important for big workspaces. BEYOND use another logic of workspace data format specially optimized for decreased memory use. Using the file size as a main point for measurement is not really right.

Best Regards,

Alexey.

 

[ENOT]

We should be able invest time into x64 platform after release of BEYOND 2.0. The talk about more than 1`100`000 lines of code, such thing can not happen over night.