OD runs fast then sloooow :(

help!

Published on December 22, 2005 By Nick Lawrence In ObjectDock

I have OD 1.2 Build 521 and it starts out running real fast and perfectly but for no apparent reason, after a few mins becomes sluggish and lags. Its not the icons or the destination of the shortcuts, because it happens even with the default icons and shortcuts. Whats weird though is that everytime I change resolutions, (I currently use 1280x1024) it will start to run perfectly again and then slow down after a few minutes. Even if I change from one resolution to another and then back to the original, it will start smooth and slow up. I dont think there is any specific task that slows it down because my computer can be completely idle and it will just change from fast to slow during that time. I am running XP with SP2. What can I do?

Comments

RottGutt

on Dec 26, 2005

I don't have a solution for you, but just wanted to let you know you are not alone. It does the same thing on my system. Specs are:

Pentium 4 3.2 GHz
1 Gig PC3200
ATI x800 w/256 megs RAM

If it doesn't run flawless on this system, then there is definitely something not right with it.

Chris TH

on Jan 02, 2006

What happens if you go to 'Dock Properties->Advanced' and check 'Temporarily Disable Docklets'?

Disclaimer: I only have the 'plus' version so I don't know if this setting is available in the freeware one.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

raks0r

on Jan 03, 2006

same problem here.

celeron d 2.8 ghz
512 mb
windows 2000

disabling docklets doesn't help.

Nick Lawrence

on Jan 04, 2006

Tried disabling docklets, nothing....any other ideas?

ethsza

on Jan 13, 2006

The same on my PC's.
Is it possible that there's a relation between the magnifying effect and the size of the objectdock folder?
My one is 727 MB with 5948 files (icons) in 326 folders. This is wehre I keep all my .ico and .png icons.

Chris TH

on Jan 15, 2006

Is it possible that there's a relation between the magnifying effect and the size of the objectdock folder?

I wouldn't think so

The magnifying is done on-the-fly by the program.

Tried disabling docklets, nothing....any other ideas?

You need to determine when & where the slowdown is occurring.

I dont think there is any specific task that slows it down because my computer can be completely idle and it will just change from fast to slow during that time.

I assume you checked this using Task Manager? You may need to track down some more advanced analysis tools to find out what's getting bogged down i.e CPU, DISK I/O, Memory etc.

I don't have any top-shelf recommendations other than looking here http://www.sysinternals.com/ and try to systematically examine the various sub-systems on your computer so at least narrow down what's going on.

Corky_O

on Jan 15, 2006

To test whether ObjectDock is actually creating the slow down, you might try the following:

Create a non-tabbed dock theme with the following only:

- Internet browser link

- E-mail program link

- My Computer link

- Control Panel link

- My Documents link

- Recycle Bin link

Make sure all the images are stored in the "..\Program Files\Stardock\ObjectDock" folder (or a subfolder inside of this folder).

Disable magnification and set the z-order to "Always on bottom".

This will set ObjectDock to a low resource application, and you should not see anything greater than say 15 - 20 MB of process memory used.

If the process memory is above say 30 MB, then something else is going on.

Lantec

on Jan 15, 2006

You may also want to check on flyout menus and folder menus that are on the dock. If they have an excessive amount of files in the flyouts or folders (menu view) it can cause OD to have to read all that data. You would experience the same kind of delays you do in Wondows Explorer when you try to open a very large directory (Like my windowblinds directory)

Chris TH

on Jan 15, 2006

I have OD 1.2 Build 521

That could be a typo, but the latest version is 1.20 build 522u ...

ethsza

on Jan 18, 2006

My OD+ is a lot smoother since I quit using windowblinds.
This is happening on a win2k notebook, 1,5 Ghz Mobile Pentium, 512 RAM, latest win patchlevel, latest OD+.

Haven't tried on my XP yet.

thomassen

on Jan 24, 2006

I noticed that with my tabbed dock, when I first start OD it is very responsive and I can click through the dock without any lag. However, when I haven't used it for a while and then click through the tabs there's a ever so slight lag. (300-500ms) But once I have clicked through them once they respond instantly again. I suspect that it has been paged due to inactivity and it gets moved back to the memory again once I use it. However, it only uses like 8mb, that's with tabbed dock (10 tabs with quite a few shortcuts) and 3 normal docks. Not sure if this is the same you lot are experiencing.
btw, is there any way of making sure that a programs memory doesn't get paged? (without turning of the pagefile all together.)

JMB1984

on Jan 27, 2006

Hi everyone,

Something for you to try out...

I hid a secret flag in your "Settings.ini" file which you can find in your "C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USERNAME_HERE\Local Settings\Application Data\Stardock\ObjectDockPlus" folder. Shut down ObjectDock, then in the [Settings] area of the ini, look for:

OptimizeForSpeed=0

and change it to:

OptimizeForSpeed=1

Make the change, load back up ObjectDock, and instead of doing all sorts of little optimizations to try and desperatly save memory like normal such as massive paging, it will run at top speed. This of course will eat much more ram, but the hit shouldn't be horrible considering how much some of us have nowadays. It wasn't made an option at this point mainly because it has never been tested throughly, so feedback on whether or not it was helpful of if it's memory usage just spiraled out of control would be very helpful. Overall though, I'd say you should definitely notice an increase in performance.

Thanks Everyone, please let me know how it goes!

-Jeff Bargmann
ObjectDock Developer

thomassen

on Jan 29, 2006

Thanks for the setting tip. OD respond very fast now all the time even when it has not been used for a while.
However, it does not address the laggin issue that occurs on the rest of the system. I noticed I got similar lag when having several DesktopX objects covering the screen. It appears that the more layered windows is on the screen, the more lag it is. So I'm not sure this is caused directly by ObjectDock.

thomassen

on Feb 05, 2006

I've used this setting for a few days now and it seem to be stable. It does use quite a bit more memory, but I can live with that. No point of having it go to waste. It's there for a reason, ey? The speed increase is very pleasing though. It's instant reaction without any lag.

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