Faster directory listing possible?

[paul1981]

I've got my old 3.9 bb2 installation running again. It's on a 8GB microdrive that has multiple partitions.
One of the partitions contains a LOT of folders with WHDLoad games, each folder has a game in it. When I open this partition in workbench it takes a few minutes before the listing shows. In the meantime I can't do anything else.
This partition is either in FFS of SFS, I don't quite remember, but it takes so long. Is there a way to speed up the directory listing?
I remember from older installations there was a .fastdir file that contained the listing? Never seen that on 3.9 though.

Peter K's icon.library helps here: http://m68k.aminet.net/package/util/libs/IconLib_46.4

If you're not bothered about keeping the drawer icons for each game (2500 for example all in one drawer), you could always delete all the .info files for the game drawers which will make directory listings in file managers much quicker. Of course though, you will loose the ability to snapshot the drawer icon positions from within Workbench. This is okay for most people as they use a game launcher.

Check your disk buffers as well on your games partition...100 minimum, I use 300.

Even FBlit & FText helps though. The truth is, even after all the drawers have been read and the disk access has finished, it can still take AGES to sort and display the icons...so a SCSI setup won't make much of a difference...it's Workbench that's slow in sorting and displaying the drawer contents (does it still use chip ram or something? as I don't see much of a difference in fast machines compared to slower ones).

[paul1981]

I don't entirely agree with this.

If he opens his window with thousands of icons then Workbench will completely thrash the memory list and there will be thousands of memory fragments and the Amiga will be permanently slower from that point on.  If he opens and closes that window multiple times and then runs random software he is in for a crash.  Its like Workbench doesn't use memory pools at all and just bashes the OS with zillionz of malloc()/free().

I very strongly suggest that djkoelkast download TLSFmem from Aminet and install it near the top of the startup-sequence.  This will dramatically reduce the memory fragmentation and dramatically increase the speed of the Amiga and dramatically lengthen the uptime.

TLSFmem is the best utility for Amiga ever.  It greatly improves the speed of any program that performs a lot of memory allocations.

I've always used Thomas Richter's PoolMem, and infact the whole MMU package of his. Here's PoolMem as a seperate download:

http://aminet.net/package/util/sys/PoolMem

I can honestly say I've never knowingly had a memory fragmentation problem, or any apparent slowdown due to memory fragmentation. Then again though, I've always used PoolMem!
There's a program within the download called "MemoryMess" and "FragMeter". I've ran MemoryMess for a while whilst doing other stuff and it doesn't seem to affect my system in any way... Do I have some sort of super Amiga? :roflmao:
Maybe the slowdown from memory fragmentation isn't noticable on faster Amiga's? I seem to recall 68000 Amiga's feeling "snappier" after a fresh boot, but I can't say I've noticed it on my 030 or 060.

[paul1981]

Of course I used to use PoolMem too!  From the day it first came out I was using PoolMem and it was awesome!

But then TLSFmem came out which is 10x better than PoolMem.

I ran software that is very hard on the Amiga's memory system.  It creates megabajilion of memory fragments.  And TLSFmem was massively better than PoolMem.  It uses a new better algorithm.

You can always comment out PoolMem with a ; and then add in TLSFmem in place of it in your startup-sequence to see what I mean.  If u don't like it you can always switch back.

Yep, I tried TLSFmem a couple of years ago, and I have a newish version on my hard drive which I downloaded earlier this year. I did try it, but I couldn't tell whether it was any better than PoolMem or not. But if everyone on here says it is, then I'll have to take your word for it. The whole world can't be wrong. I may install it for good yet... LOL.

Thanks Chaos...

[paul1981]

So like I say, ur not getting married to TLSFmem, or if u r then u can still cheat on the side with PoolMem when u get the urge.

And the best part is... neither TLSFmem or PoolMem will remember a damn thing!
WIN WIN!! :laugh1: