My Pictures - Virtual Memory Issue

[daphatty]

I've been using My Pictures to display photographs for friends and family when we have them over for dinner and such. It's quite the conversational piece and sure beats bringing out photo albums, especially when multiple people are interested in the photographs.

One thing I've noticed that as time passes My Pictures will reach a point where it can no longer display my photographs and instead displays a white screen with a red border and two diagonal red lines running from corner to corner (looks somewhat like an envelope). Upon further investigation, I have found that Windows has run out of virtual memory and I believe this to be the likely cause.

Now before you answer with, "increase your page file size and voila", I think it's important to note that I have 768Megs of RAM and roughly 768Megs - 1536Megs of additional disk space configured as my page file. It sounds to me that My Pictures isn't really managing its memory space too well. With my current setup I can run My Pictures for about 30-45 minutes before the screen goes white. I'm forced to shut down GeeBo and restart it again in order to show my pictures again.

Is there any way to fix this problem?

[reven]

yeah there is a way to fix the problem, but im too busy/lazy to bother with it. it usually only happens if your pictures are really large, i remember one of my lecturers saying that with .net the garbage collector cant remove things from the page file. ive got my system setup with no page file,just using 1280 mbs ram, and it runs fine (i had it running over night with 256mb ram and 1000 mb page file, without any problems, but those pictures were only around 100-300k). so in short, it wont be fixed any time soon.

i just dont use it enough for it to bother with, most of my time is spent on my videos (i always use that). once the semester is over at uni i might rewrite the entire plugin and fix the problem.

[daphatty]

once the semester is over at uni i might rewrite the entire plugin and fix the problem.

Wow, I didn't realize fixing this would require a complete rewrite. I assumed it was a simple matter of adding some code that occasionally cleared the occupied memory space. Of course, I'm using abstract terms so what do I know.

Thanks for replying so quickly. I actually use My Pictures much more frequently now that I've figured out that GeeBo can play a Net Radio stream and a My Pictures slideshow simultaneously. My 3.2 Megapixel photos look great on my 30" HDTV. They truly are a big hit during parties.

[reven]

it wouldnt require a complete rewrite, but i really should do a complete rewrite, the code was adapted from the original version of my videos (which has had a major update, but my pictures hasnt). its on the todo list , right after graduating from uni (thats been there for ages..............).

[reefboy]

I love the program as well. I used to use it but I have the same problem as you daphatty. Since I'm using a 6 megapixel camera and have thousands of photos it only takes 10 minutes or less before my computer gets to the point it barfs and I have to reboot it.
When it was 1st happening I would pull up the task manager and watch the virtual memory start out really small and slowly increase in size until it was close to 1500mb and then it would just barf.

I will just have to wait until Reven gets a little more time to tweak it a little more. I am definitely a big fan of the program and can not wait until I can use it and just let it run while family and friends are over. I love the random photo feature along with the other MP3 playing abilities.
Reven, what can we do to say thanks and add a little initiative? This is one of my favorites from your My Series as it adds so much more the overall GBPVR experience.

[reven]

Reven, what can we do to say thanks and add a little initiative?

nothing im too busy to worry about this, it will have to wait to the end of the semester which is about 2months away (5 weeks of class then 3 weeks of exams, until then i wont be touching my pictures).