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Hello friends :
Below you find (imho ) a very good article on this
subjet.
Jay Cruce and Wilty van Rees : your
remarks are exact to the point.
(Wilty : the Realtime Use of Metastock by
Igor is probably "an exceptional use of resources"
imho).
( i thought this detailed article (below) i found
could enlighten just a little more on this subject).
my personal conclusions : (only my humble
conclusions :) )
a) W2K is in most cases the solution
!
( Igor : if you have Realtime
Metastock with 3 experts then you are probably using a lot of resources : check
f.i. the file-sizes
to estimate how much, i think you would be
surprised to find how much Data you are using in 3 hours RealTime
!!)
So (for me) with EOD data : W2K
solves in -probably all- cases this annoying "low resources
problem".
b) the use of "fraudulent" utilities
(see below) does NOT solve this problem.
c) for W98 users there are 2 solutions
:
1) upgrade to
W2K (probably the best but i can imagine not everybody has the
money).
2) if you can or will not
upgrade : a) temporary solution : shut down background
applications.
<FONT face=Arial
size=2>
<FONT face=Arial
size=2> b)
Reboot W98 . (the Quick and Dirty Trick).
d) for those who are use both W98 and
W2K (like me) : to lose a lot of problems : upgrade to W2K or
XP (preferably XP
professional). and forget as much as possible
W98.
(BTW : W2K networking is also much
easier than W98 networking and W2K-W98 mixed networking).
The article ( written by Alex)
A common topic of confusion amongst Windows 9x users is the difference
between resources and memory. If you use Windows 9x, you'll sooner or later run
into a situation where you get an error message about low resources. However,
this has nothing to do with the physical memory or RAM that's installed in your
PC. Let's take a look at what those system resources are, how they get depleted,
how you can monitor them, and how they can be refreshed.
The term System Resources actually covers two main areas of Windows memory
that are reserved for and used by specific Windows components. They are called
User and GDI. Each one of these memory sections is 64KB in size, which is fixed
due to the Windows 9x architecture, and cannot be increased.
User system resources refer to the input manager User.exe. It handles input
from your mouse, keyboard, and other sources, such as communication ports.
GDI stands for Graphics Device Interface and is in charge of graphic
components of Windows. It stores fonts, brushes, bitmaps, and other graphics
stuff, as well as lends support to other graphic output devices such as
printers.
(TL : are the Metastock programmers
inefficiently using this GDI in W98 ? probably : yes ! why donot they fix
this ?
<FONT face=Arial
size=2> probably because
this is too difficult and W2K fixes this problem so : Wait and forget
attitude. )
The term free resources therefore refers to :
the unused portion of each one of these memory areas
(TL : notice that these are very small areas !)
( and is usually
measured in percent for simplicity).
As a side note, versions of Windows that are based on the NT kernel such as
NT 4 and Windows 2000, DO NOT HAVE
THOSE LIMITATIONS and handle resource leaks a lot better than Windows
9x.
(TL : as eXPerienced by W2K users !)
Resource
Leaks
As you can see, these two resources are vital to Windows and every program
that you run. Each application on your PC will consume resources as you run
them. Small applications might only use one or two percent, while big programs
might consume 10 percent or more. Therefore, your resources will drop with each
program that you run. Ideally, once you shut a program down again, all the
resources used by it will be released back to Windows so that they are available
again for later use by other programs. Unfortunately this is not always the
case. Sometimes not all resources are being released and Windows still sees them
as being used even though they're not, which means it cannot make them available
to another application. This is commonly referred to as a resource leak.
Fraudulent
Utilities
Let's clear up one thing while we're at it. A resource leak is different from
a memory leak. The memory leak refers to physical memory, RAM, that was not
released by a program after exiting. Similar concept, but unrelated to
resources. There are a lot of utilities available on the web and in stores, both
free and pay, that claim they can fix those leaks and free up used memory. Those
programs can only do this for memory, not for resources. If you see a program
that boasts it can free up system resources, don't even bother. These resources
can only be released by Windows or by the program that occupied them to begin
with.
Monitoring
Resources
Windows comes with a handy little tool to help you monitor the use of system
resources. This tool is called Resource Meter and can be started by going to
<FONT face=Courier
color=#000099>Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Resource
Meter. If you don't see it listed, you can easily install
it by going to <FONT face=Courier
color=#000099>Start/Settings/Control Panel/Add Remove Programs/Windows
Setup/System Tools, putting a check mark into the box
next to System
Resource Meter, clicking <SPAN
class=command><FONT face=Courier
color=#000099>OK, and inserting your Windows 9x CD if
prompted.
Once you have the resource meter started, you'll see a little box with green
bars in your system tray on your task bar. When you hover your mouse over it,
you'll see a box popping up with percentage numbers for System, User, and GDI.
As explained earlier, User and GDI are the important ones. System resources
simply indicate the lower of the two.
Double-click on the resource meter tray icon and you'll get a windows with
three bar graphs. This little tool can be very helpful with monitoring your
system resources, and if you have problems, you might want to create a shortcut
to it in your StartUp folder to start it every time you boot Windows.
When you clean-install Windows and fire up Resource Meter, you'll probably
see ninety-some percent of resources available, e.g. 92% User resources and 98%
GDI resources. This is great. But the moment you start installing and running
programs, these numbers will go down.
Background
Applications
After using your PC for a while and installing gobs of programs, you'll
notice that your resources are much lower even when you just booted Windows.
They might be in the 80% range or maybe even lower. This is due to programs that
get loaded on Windows startup. Good examples for these types of programs are
virus scanners and other always-on utilities like AOL Instant Messenger, Iomega
Tools, RealPlayer and many more. To see what applications are running after you
boot Windows, just push <FONT face=Courier
color=#000099>Ctrl-Alt-Del on your keyboard and take a
close look at the resulting dialog box. Each line is a program running. There
are two applications that you'll always find there, one is Explorer, which is
Windows itself, another is Systray. But anything else is a program taking up
valuable resources. If you are worried about low system resources when you boot
Windows, check out our article on <A
href="http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/ts1.html";><FONT
color=#000000>shutting down background applications to find
out how to eliminate some of them.
Identifying Resource
Leaks
If you are running into a resource problem, you can try to identify the
culprit via a systematic approach. First, try to isolate which program might be
causing the problem by installing and running the resource meter as explained
above, then running some of your applications. When you have narrowed it down to
a few possible suspects, write them down. Then reboot Windows to start with a
clean slate and make sure resource meter is running. Note the amount of
available resources. Open only one program from your list, use it for a while,
then shut it down again. Now check the amount of resources again. Are the
numbers the same as before running the application? If so, great. However, if
the numbers are lower, maybe significantly lower than before, you have just
identified your culprit. This would be a good time to contact the program vendor
and asking if they have a patch available that corrects the problem.
How much are enough
Resources?
There is no clear line as how much is enough. As mentioned above, a clean
system might start with resources in the 90-95 percent range. A system with a
number of programs installed might boot with resources in the 70-90% range. When
running a fair number of applications simultaneously, resources might drop down
to 30-40%. This is perfectly fine and nothing to worry about. However, when you
close programs your resources should increase again as most resources will be
freed up once they are no longer in use. Please note though that they will not
return to the same percentage you had available right after starting Windows.
This is due to the fact that there are certain shared components in Windows that
do not get loaded on startup, only when they are needed, but stay loaded once
the requesting application is closed again.
Recovering
Resources
If resources drop and are not being released by the application that used
them, there isn't much you can do. The only way to recover resources is by
rebooting Windows. Also, after running Windows for a few hours or a few days,
depending on how many programs you use, eventually you'll notice a drop in
system resources. That's just the way it is, not much you can do about it.
Again, a quick reboot is the easiest way to recover those lost resources.
Hope article from Alex helps.
Theo Lockefeer.
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