Irfanview memory leak?

I have a fairly current (downloaded/installed sometime in 2004) version
of Irfanview, running on Windows 98 on a computer with 512 meg of memory.

I've noticed that, even after a clean start of Windows, and with no
other apps running, if I open enough jpgs with Irfanview (Irfanview is
my default viewer, so double-clicking an image file launches the
program), odd behavior will begin. The Windows explorer preview
function (showing a small version of the image in explorer if I single
click on it) stops working, and eventually, irfanview will launch but
just show a black window.

Here are what I guess are the relevant facts:

- Win98, 512 meg of ram
- Irfanview configured to show images so large images fit within the
desktop (that is, the largest dimension of the image fits on the
monitor; I can see the rest of my desktop behind the image)
- The image files I'm working on are 1984x1488 pixels, with a file size
of around 650k.
- I typically have no more than three instances of Irfanview running
concurrently, usually with no other applications open

A full Windows restart, or sometimes just a "Windows log-off default"
from the Start menu, will solve the problems. But I'd like to know if
there's an easier way to avoid Irfanview chewing through my memory like
it seems to be doing.

TommyC wrote in news:m-52997C.09304020072004@syrcnyrdrs-03-
ge0.nyroc.rr.com:


A full Windows restart, or sometimes just a "Windows log-off default"
from the Start menu, will solve the problems. But I'd like to know if
there's an easier way to avoid Irfanview chewing through my memory like
it seems to be doing.

I've found this with Irfanview when I use the thumbnail funtion to browse a
LOT of pictures - it can crash my puter, so although I/V is my default
viewer I don't do this any more.

The Paintshop Pro browser does not suffer from this, so I have to take the
trouble to open PSP to browse a lot of graphics.

If you don't use such a graphics prog I don't know what you can do, except
maybe seek another graphics viewer that will do the job - I know viewers
are about, but have no experience of any others

mike

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 13:30:56 GMT, TommyC wrote:

I have a fairly current (downloaded/installed sometime in 2004) version
of Irfanview, running on Windows 98 on a computer with 512 meg of memory.

I've noticed that, even after a clean start of Windows, and with no
other apps running, if I open enough jpgs with Irfanview (Irfanview is
my default viewer, so double-clicking an image file launches the
program), odd behavior will begin. The Windows explorer preview
function (showing a small version of the image in explorer if I single
click on it) stops working, and eventually, irfanview will launch but
just show a black window.

Here are what I guess are the relevant facts:

- Win98, 512 meg of ram
- Irfanview configured to show images so large images fit within the
desktop (that is, the largest dimension of the image fits on the
monitor; I can see the rest of my desktop behind the image)
- The image files I'm working on are 1984x1488 pixels, with a file size
of around 650k.
- I typically have no more than three instances of Irfanview running
concurrently, usually with no other applications open

A full Windows restart, or sometimes just a "Windows log-off default"
from the Start menu, will solve the problems. But I'd like to know if
there's an easier way to avoid Irfanview chewing through my memory like
it seems to be doing.


Xnview http://www.xnview.com has the capability to open
more than one instance or more than one window, I choose the
window method as it won't chew up resources as much.

Perhaps Irfanview has that same functionality?

How big is your screen? 800x600? 1024x768?

How many colors are involved?

The file memory size shouldn't be a problem, rather the
dimension size I would think is at fault.or at least
contributes. Graphics driver been updated?

--
Sincerely, | (©) (©)
| ------ooo--(_)--ooo------
Andrew H. Carter | /// \\\
d(-_-)b |

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 13:30:56 GMT, TommyC wrote:

I've noticed that, even after a clean start of Windows, and with no
other apps running, if I open enough jpgs with Irfanview (Irfanview is
my default viewer, so double-clicking an image file launches the
program), odd behavior will begin. The Windows explorer preview
function (showing a small version of the image in explorer if I single
click on it) stops working, and eventually, irfanview will launch but
just show a black window.

Misbehaving image browsers seems to be a common problem with large image
collections. I am managing 24,000 images, and my experiences after heavy
thumbnail browsing include:

Paint Shop Pro 7 will freeze on exit and refuse to shut down. It then won't
allow other apps to launch.

CompuPic 5 & 6 freeze on launch, even after a clean install. Can't be used
at all. It was damn fast and my favorite for several years, but had to
trash it.

ACDSee Classic (not the regular version) is the most robust, but I suspect
it of screwing up my drive's FAT tables when I create or move folders.
Other than that, I like it a lot.

ArcSoft PhotoBase 4 seems to be robust, but doesn't support TIFF or GIF
files, and probably others.

I don't use Photoshop Elements for thumbnail browsing, because it's
incredibly slow. It does at least run (if you live long enough for it to
launch).

I don't use IrfanView because the fairly recent version I tested destroys
multi-page TIFF files on File Save. Ouch.

Not a good record for mature software products!

TommyC wrote:
I have a fairly current (downloaded/installed sometime in 2004) version
of Irfanview, running on Windows 98 on a computer with 512 meg of memory.

I've noticed that, even after a clean start of Windows, and with no
other apps running, if I open enough jpgs with Irfanview (Irfanview is
my default viewer, so double-clicking an image file launches the
program), odd behavior will begin. The Windows explorer preview
function (showing a small version of the image in explorer if I single
click on it) stops working, and eventually, irfanview will launch but
just show a black window.

Here are what I guess are the relevant facts:

- Win98, 512 meg of ram
- Irfanview configured to show images so large images fit within the
desktop (that is, the largest dimension of the image fits on the
monitor; I can see the rest of my desktop behind the image)
- The image files I'm working on are 1984x1488 pixels, with a file size
of around 650k.
- I typically have no more than three instances of Irfanview running
concurrently, usually with no other applications open

A full Windows restart, or sometimes just a "Windows log-off default"
from the Start menu, will solve the problems. But I'd like to know if
there's an easier way to avoid Irfanview chewing through my memory like
it seems to be doing.

First, make sure you have the latest version (3.91). Second, Win98 has
a LOUSY memory manager. You might try downloading one of the programs
that recovers ram for you and see if it will work. Failing that, send
an email to the programmer of Irfanview. He is quite responsive to user
problems.

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 21:45:12 +0000 (UTC), mike ring
wrote:

"Andrew H. Carter (Applied ROT 17 Left, for Email do 17 Right)"
wrote in news:vsqqf051mpa8g69md7niac3ji6tami8c39@
4ax.com:

Xnview http://www.xnview.com has the capability to open
more than one instance or more than one window, I choose the
window method as it won't chew up resources as much.

Perhaps Irfanview has that same functionality?


It has, and is fine, but if you use thumbnails to browse, and there are too
many images (annd hundreds or thousands are not uncommon) it will crash
after opening guess 100 - 150 /guess

mike

One thing to possibly do to lessen the possiblity of
crashing is to divide and conquer: Suppose you may have
1000 images with a good portion in various alphabetical
Initials: 100 starting with "A" 200 starting with "H" and so
on, what I do is use Picture Sorter to move all the matching
files (through masks it can do other file extensions as
well). Files beginning with numbers will be moved to a
directory ./#/, "A" will go to /A/, "H" to /H/ and so on.

As for crashing after displying thumbs, that might be
explained if the thumbs are too big try a smaller size. I
have Xnview set to not display thumbs for files greater than
5000KB and displayed at 100x100.

There are numerous "Picture Sorters", but the one I use is
by Brian R. Anderson with DaFox's Picture Sorter in the
title bar. It's rather elusive in case you can't find it, I
can either post it somewhere (My Yahoo Briefcase, or a
newsgroup) or email it.

Rarred it is 33KB, uncompressed it is 1 file of 53KB.

--
Sincerely, | (©) (©)
| ------ooo--(_)--ooo------
Andrew H. Carter | /// \\\
d(-_-)b |

In message ,
TommyC wrote:

Any recommendations on the ram
recovery/memory manager software for Win98?

None. Just limit vcache to 70% of RAM or 512MB, whichever is smaller,
and set a healthy minimum size for the swapfile so it doesn't have to
resize.

RAM-freeing softwares reduce file cache unnecessarily, and can cause
unnecessary disk swapping.
--


John P Sheehy

TommyC wrote:

I have a fairly current (downloaded/installed sometime in 2004) version
of Irfanview, running on Windows 98 on a computer with 512 meg of memory.


I don't know but if you have 512 MB of memory you should highly consider
upgrading to XP.

Greg

--
Destroy your safe and happy lives
Before it is too late
The battles we fought were long and hard
Just not to be consumed by rock'n'roll

wrote:
In message ,
"Gaz" wrote:


You could try FreeRam Xp Pro 1.40 works with 98, suppose to 'defrag' memory
(though it's moot)


Ram-freeing programs are generally snake-oil. They seem to help certain
things, but there are usually other means of getting better performance.

Fragmented RAM is not all that slow, so that's a bunch of nonsense as
well. I wrote a benchmark a few years back that tested severely
fragmented memory speed and it was still 55% the speed of contiguous
access.
Speed is not the only concern. If ram becomes fragmented to the point
where no ram is available of the requested size, then paging will occur.
Paging on Windows is so slow that most users conclude the machine has
locked up.

Ron Hunter wrote in
:


I've found this with Irfanview when I use the thumbnail funtion to
browse a LOT of pictures - it can crash my puter, so although I/V is
my default viewer I don't do this any more.

What do you consider a lot? I regularly go through 470 pictures I
took on a recent vacation and have not seen any problem, but then I
have WinXP.


The clipart on the microsoft office CD proved more than enough, but PSP
handled it ok (not that it was worth the effort)

mike