Krobar
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posted on 2-16-2004 at 10:45 AM
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Disable Caching?
I run my EJukebox using a diskless system so it runs out of a ramdrive. To conserve space I was hoping someone could tell me a setting that could
disable caching?
If this cant be done how much spare space does EJ need? (Its more than 20meg) Does anyone know if EJ will load the entire database into RAM if enough
free physical memory is available?
Sorry to ask so many techy questions but I will help other with diskless EJ once I have perfected it myself.
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junk
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posted on 2-16-2004 at 11:57 AM
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Diskless, meaning that you run everything from a CD-Rom drive, and no hard drive? Or am i lost here?
Well, anyway, if you do not open the album list, eJ should not demand as much memory as it would with the album list open. I don't know how much
down you can cram it, as all digital jukeboxes seem to need a minimum of 20 meg RAM or more....
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Demnos
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posted on 2-16-2004 at 12:41 PM
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Krobar,
I am also not sure what you mean with "caching" exactly. Do you mean the Swapfile? (Control Panel->System->Advanced->Performance
Options->Virtual Memory).
The "caching" itself should be disabled in the options of the RAMDISK (does it show up in Control Panel so you can modify its options?)
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Krobar
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posted on 2-17-2004 at 08:18 AM
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By diskless I mean no drives at all, I boot off a PXE network boot rom.
Denmos,
Yes I can disable Virtual memory and EJ seems to work OK but needs a huge amount of free disk space on the ramdrive (Its temp files balloon during
use). I have to run EJ off a network drive because it will not load with 30mb free disk space and so wont fit on the ramdrive and this is very slow.
Bottom line is I can fit EJ andd its 200mb DB file on a ramdrive with 90mb ram available but EJ wont load unless you have quite alot of free space
and/or virtual mem, I believe this is because it likes to create large cache files but these arent needed since in this case its running out of ram
anyway. I need to disable EJs caching or run EJ off a network but ensuring that it caches the whole database in local ram.
I have 384Mb ram to configure, 85mb is needed by windows (Drive is compressed and hence 170mb takes 85mb ram). This leaves 300Mb that can be
configured for Virtual memory, free space on the ramdrive or left as uncompressed ram. Trouble is I dont know what ratio works with EJ or if I need
more ram. 
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Krobar
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posted on 2-28-2004 at 12:24 AM
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Sucess!
I can now run EJ diskless OK. Performance is pretty good on my 8000 track database using an 800mhz P3 but having more control over EJs caching would
probably allow me to increase performance. Audiosoft, please please could you add this feature to the next release?
Everyone whos interested please read my post in the Your Ejukebox in action section.
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Fishy
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posted on 2-28-2004 at 04:12 AM
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I like the idea of increased user control in the software. In my mind it's always a good idea.
But, in this case, It sounds like audiosoft have to write the ej core all over again because of this? Please bear in mind that vm isn't used for
the same reasons nowadays that it was in the win9x days. Back then it was because people in general didn't have enough memory. >32mb was the
norm..
Nowadays people often got 1 gb< and Xp uses Vm for other proposes. Like making caching and the software in general faster... Even if you got x
amounts of ram, Xp and applications will demand some VM.. This seems to me more like an OS problem than ej's problem?
Some of these articles might provide more information about this ---> http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&na=88&View=en-us&qu=virtual+memory+xp
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Fishy
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Krobar
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posted on 3-3-2004 at 06:41 PM
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EJ doesnt need VM as long as you have enough ram spare. It needs about 170mb ram when using my 190mb database. It also needs around 50mb space for
temp files and such
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junk
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posted on 3-4-2004 at 10:01 AM
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A 190 MB database??? That's the biggest i've ever come across, except when i suffered from an overgrown database. I have 20 000 mp3's
now, and a database (.asn file) of about 60-70 mb. Take a look at this thread:
http://www.audiosoft.net/forums/viewthread.php?tid=304
(The interesting part begins at post #10)
And the solution to my problem:
http://www.audiosoft.net/forums/viewthread.php?tid=332
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Fishy
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posted on 3-4-2004 at 02:40 PM
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Hmm.. the overgrown asn file seem to occure when ej crashes and doesn't compress the database. I have however not experienced any problems with
this in 3.7. After a crash a fast restart of ej and a normal quit seems to take care of things.
But, as Junk says, that database sounds too big if you don't have 60-70000 mp3's or so. I have 17144 Mp3's and my database is 64.7 mb.
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Fishy
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Krobar
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 posted on 3-4-2004 at 06:22 PM
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My database is now 43mb (I have 7500 mp3s) and way way faster. Diskless EJ is definitely worth it. 
The rebuild was suprisingly fast too, 12minutes over a 100mbit network. The final part (The Case) arrives on monday, I'll post pictures then.
Big thanks guys. 
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Fishy
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posted on 3-4-2004 at 06:53 PM
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Nice that it worked out for you.
Audiosoft: I don't want to nag, but it might be a good idea to make the http://www.audiosoft.net/forums/viewthread.php?tid=332 sticky?
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Fishy
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junk
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posted on 3-5-2004 at 08:10 AM
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I agree. I haven't used the rebuild ever since i discovered this. But i don't want to be doing this all the time, it is akward having to
delete and copy files every time i want to get rid of some files that were automatically added to eJ's database when i just wanted to take a
quick listen to a mp3 in my download dir, for instance, since eJ still doesn't skip to the next song when it encounters broken links in the
database, it just stops. There! I think i've summoned up my the most annoying issues with eJ. If these are fixed;
1. Either make the rebuild function work 100% for us with id3tag images in the mp3's, or
2. Add a "clear database" which does the same as my operation
3. Make eJ skip when it encounters missing files
4. Make a "do not automatically add played files to database"
then i would be quite happy for a long time! 
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Demnos
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posted on 3-5-2004 at 10:25 AM
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| Quote: |
My database is now 43mb (I have 7500 mp3s) and way way faster. Diskless EJ is definitely worth it.
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Very interesting. I wonder if it would make sense for us (non-diskless users) to also make a large RAMDISK and copy all eJukebox files to that before
starting the program from that RAMDISK. I think I will give it a try to see if this would speed up eJukebox?!!?!
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Krobar
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posted on 3-5-2004 at 07:01 PM
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Denmos,
Probably would help but you would not want to use a dos ramdisk since it is 16bit and slow. My system running 16bit dos ramdisk with 16bit compression
is only a tad faster than my Seagate Barracuda. There are Windows ramdisks though that give full 32bit performance and would be perfect for what you
suggest (These ramdisks are unfortunately unsuitable for diskless systems). I was thinking of running windows off a compressed ramdisk and EJ off a
32bit ramdisk but will not have time to try that for a while.
This is an example of a rather awesome (But quite pricey) ramdisk:
http://www.superspeed.com/ramdiskplus.html
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cbsoundman
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posted on 3-8-2004 at 10:02 PM
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I do like the technology behind RAM disks. I think you are going to see a lot more of these since there are no moving parts, increasing its
reliability as well as making access times a lot faster.
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junk
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posted on 3-9-2004 at 09:29 AM
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Aha... we used to do this a lot in the old Amiga days. We mounted what we called RAD: drives, creating a drive from RAM, where you selected the amount
of KB or MB you wanted to allocate for this. It was very sweet. Yet took up too much memory from the system resources, since i only had 512 KB of RAM
at the time. But i am thinking of getting a gigabyte of RAM now anyway, so then this solution does sound interesting.
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Fishy
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posted on 3-9-2004 at 03:40 PM
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ah those were the days...
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Fishy
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cbsoundman
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posted on 3-10-2004 at 06:11 PM
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I still have a C64 somewhere in my basement...I wonder if a museum wants it?
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Fishy
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posted on 3-10-2004 at 08:20 PM
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And I will become a rich man when I sell my A1200/030 to a technical museum in about 50 years It feels good to have that kind of economical ensurement *lol*  This is getting very off topic..
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Fishy
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Krobar
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posted on 3-10-2004 at 10:46 PM
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Just to let you all know. EJ doesnt need any virtual memory providing you have enough ram spare.
I completed my jukebox today and it is running with no virtual memory and uses 256mb ram compressed to 512Mb as a ramdisk which leaves 256mb spare for
standard ram duties. Performance is very good.
Ive posted a picture and a few other details in the "Show you EJ in action forum".
Ive still got a Spectrum with an external tape drive, wonder if I can make EJ run on that.
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