Speed up loading and screen refresh

Suggestions and feature requests.
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Geoff
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Joined: 19.10.2007, 03:45
Location: Australia

Speed up loading and screen refresh

#1 Post by Geoff » 19.10.2007, 03:56

On my PC (2 physical drives with about 6 partitions on each drive, FreeCommander takes about 4 seconds to respond after clicking the icon to launch it, and I'm not sure if I clicked it or not...

Using Vista, 4GB RAM, 3.0 GHZ P4 CPU

Also scrolling through list of files in a folder with many files with detail view enabled.

ian
Posts: 28
Joined: 07.10.2007, 08:06

#2 Post by ian » 19.10.2007, 06:27

I don't think this shouldn't be in feature requests area (as it really wouldn't be a 'feature'!)

And the problem is something on your system, ie I've tried FC on quite a few computers and haven't had that problem. Turn off your virus checker and try, that's the thing that normally kills system performance. If that fails, it's probably time for you to do a clean install again...

Then again, maybe it's just that vista piece of crap, who know what microsoft are doing in the background in that enormous piece of bloatware..

Geoff
Posts: 13
Joined: 19.10.2007, 03:45
Location: Australia

Performance issues

#3 Post by Geoff » 19.10.2007, 08:33

Hi Ian,

I'm not sure if you are one of the developers of FreeCommander software or not?

Based on what I've seen so far I think this is a great product and resolves much of the grief I have come to expect with Windows Explorer.

My primary development machine has about 0.5 TB of storage and is home to over 250,000 files. Depending on which projects I'm working on at any time and that can grow to 300,000+ files.

On the machines you have tested, what is the greatest number of files you have tested with on a single partition / folder / over all?

Also; I'm not running any real-time anti-virus software.

Regards

Geoff

ian
Posts: 28
Joined: 07.10.2007, 08:06

#4 Post by ian » 19.10.2007, 08:50

nah, not one of the developers, though am using it a lot and trying to help out a bit! :-)

That's a lot less files than my normal machine (the one I'm using right now) as I never have less than 2Tb in it, and sometimes 8 physical disks.. Don't know how many files at the moment, but it was well over a million last time I ran a duplicate file finder! I'd have over 300,000 files on just one of my disks..

But I typically don't have more than a few thousand files (say 5K) in a directory, as windows (doesn't matter what software you use) tends to not like it ie very very slow to access..

FC still starts up instantly (about a second) and the mouse pointer will change as soon as the icon has been double clicked..

And I'm running a C2D (2.6ghz) with 2GB ram - but not vista which I won't be going anywhere near..

Geoff
Posts: 13
Joined: 19.10.2007, 03:45
Location: Australia

#5 Post by Geoff » 20.10.2007, 00:48

I think I've worked out what part of the problem is...

FC automatically interrogates .zip files (similar to Windows Explorer) and I have some reasonably large .zip files (1000s of file contained within each etc) and it slows to a crawl when trying to view a drive/folder which contains several of these .zip's

I moved them into another folder out of the way, and presto things started responding.

Q: How do I disable automatic .zip content display?

Thanks,

Geoff

Marek
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#6 Post by Marek » 20.10.2007, 22:53

Hi Geoff,

if you do not want open a zip file in FC with double click, then change the settings: Extras->Settings->Archive file: from Enter/DblClick to Ctrl+Enter/Ctrl+DblClick.

Geoff
Posts: 13
Joined: 19.10.2007, 03:45
Location: Australia

#7 Post by Geoff » 21.10.2007, 08:57

Hi,

The problem is not with double-clicking to open the archive with external .zip program.

The problem, is FC tries to display the content automatically. With .zips containing 50,000+ files and several GB of data, FC grinds to a halt trying to display the content of the .zips.

Is there a way to turn off the automatic display of the content of the .zips??


Regards,

Geoff

Marek
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#8 Post by Marek » 21.10.2007, 21:34

The problem, is FC tries to display the content automatically.
It is not true. FC shows the content of the zip file only if you open the file (Enter or DblClick). Probably, I do not know what you mean.

Geoff
Posts: 13
Joined: 19.10.2007, 03:45
Location: Australia

Sorry about confusion, let me elaborate

#9 Post by Geoff » 21.10.2007, 22:28

Firstly I think FC is a fantastic program. I am merely trying to provide feedback, so that if you wish, you may make some improvements...


My computer has multiple physical drives and partitions on each drive.

On my drive S:

Scenario #1
If I have no .zip files in the root directory
Navigate to s:\ so that it has the focus in the tree view
Exit FC
Restart FC
Load time ~2.75 sec


Scenario #2
Copy several large .zip files into the root directory.
Eg:
S:\BigZip001.zip
S:\BigZip002.zip
S:\BigZip003.zip
S:\BigZip004.zip

In this example I used a mixture of .zips with varying number of files contained in each zip file.
The total size of all zips as stored (compressed size) is ~500MB

The content of the zips where
8277 files
4566 files
44055 files
537 files

So I effectively have 4 .zip files in the root directory.
Total size of .zip files (compressed) is ~500MB
Total files contained within the zip files is 57,435 files

Navigate to s:\ so that it has the focus in the tree view
Exit FC
Restart FC
The hourglass is not displayed and there appears to be no response??
Load time ~13.85 secs



Conclusion:
If I was to place 4 ordinary files totalling 500MB in the root-directory of drive I would not expect to notice any change in performance.

However, FC is clearly interracting with .zip files in some fashion, which is taking an extra ~11 seconds, during which time the program appears non-responive.

I hope this explanation helps...


Regards,

Geoff

ian
Posts: 28
Joined: 07.10.2007, 08:06

#10 Post by ian » 22.10.2007, 02:23

I just had a go at doing that - I opened a directory with a stack of zips in it - ranging from 10gb to 50gb in size (yep, my big backup zips) and many 100,000's files, then got out of FC and back in again.

Made no difference - was still fast! So there must be something happening somewhere on your machine... :-)

Geoff
Posts: 13
Joined: 19.10.2007, 03:45
Location: Australia

Interesting

#11 Post by Geoff » 22.10.2007, 03:17

Very perculiar...

Were those zips in the root directory as I described?

I've checked all the usual suspects, defag, have disabled anti-virus etc.

Any suggestions on what else I could try???

ian
Posts: 28
Joined: 07.10.2007, 08:06

#12 Post by ian » 22.10.2007, 11:08

yep, in the root directory - and over 300gb of zip files.. Still no delay like you are getting!

Have you got another machine to try it on with the same files?

Ian

Marek
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#13 Post by Marek » 22.10.2007, 21:50

Hi Geoff,

try to start FC without freecommander.ini. Test your problem without tree view.

Geoff
Posts: 13
Joined: 19.10.2007, 03:45
Location: Australia

#14 Post by Geoff » 23.10.2007, 00:35

Hi Marek,

I think you may be on to something here...

If I have no .zips in the root directory and it had the focus prior to closing fc, the load time is ~1 sec.

Put a zip in the root repeat test, and load time increases to ~10sec.
Turn off tree view
Restart fc load time ~1 sec.

It would appear something is happening with tree view??


I couldn't work out how to start fc without the .ini, can you provide instructions.

Thanks for the help!!

Geoff

ian
Posts: 28
Joined: 07.10.2007, 08:06

#15 Post by ian » 23.10.2007, 09:55

..which is funny as I have tree view on and am still not getting the delay...

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