Yeah I would imagine so. What other way could they have the album art instantly accessible. HDD is too slow.
What's needed is some kind of smart caching: perhaps you start caching images which are before and after the point in the album list where you are at a given moment so those images come into view quickly as you move back and forth (at least if you don't move too far at once), and throw away memory-cached images which are further away and less recently viewed. Max out how much is cached based on available free RAM rather than available virtual memory.
"The third category, though, is actual bugs, especially in the Windows version of iTunes. The problems vary: stuttering playback, problems with gapless playback, and so on"
Yup, and add corrupted CoverFlow view despite DirectX9.0c updates, graphic driver updates, antialiasing settings in gpu, etc, etc.
I have all those issues, though stuttering playback mostly only when gapless-transitioning from one song to another. The iBook G4 works well, particularly with the new 640x480 video, which really, looks great and gives all those *ahem* downloaded DIVX/XVID's a good run for their money in terms of size and quality. Tried the "million download Lost recap/preview" thing from iTunes Store* and it played quite well even on the ol' iBook G4 933mhz 640mb RAM ATI mobility 9200.
Max out how much is cached based on available free RAM rather than available virtual memory.
The computer would still have to fetch cover art that gets thrown off of your RAM from the HDD. Which would force you to wait to see any random cover art and not allow the process to be instantaneous.
The computer would still have to fetch cover art that gets thrown off of your RAM from the HDD. Which would force you to wait to see any random cover art and not allow the process to be instantaneous.
True, it's a compromise. But given the choice between having a gee-whiz special effect perform optimally, and not having every app on my computer descend into page-swap hell (unless perhaps I upgrade to 8 gig of RAM or cut my music collection in half), I'll sacrifice some of that gee-whizziness, thank you very much.
Perhaps smaller low-res, less memory-consuming versions of cover art could be cached in RAM -- good enough for when images are flying by at high speed -- then when you slow down, the time is taken to read full-res images from your drive, with a smaller number of images cached at full res for what's in view or soon to possibly be in view in the vicinity of where you're looking at a given moment.
There's also a slow-import-speed bug for people with large libraries. I've got 7600 songs, and my import speeds fell from 20x in iTunes 6 to 5x with iTunes 7. If I launch a clean account, with no library, I get 20x. It's apparently widespread & repeatable.
There's also a slow-import-speed bug for people with large libraries. I've got 7600 songs, and my import speeds fell from 20x in iTunes 6 to 5x with iTunes 7. If I launch a clean account, with no library, I get 20x. It's apparently widespread & repeatable.
I was noticing my recent CD ripping going slowly too, but I have the "Use error correction when reading Audio CDs" option checked on, which sometimes causing slow ripping anyway, so I didn't think much of this. I wonder if about 4800 songs counts as "large" for the purpose of this bug?
Weird bug too. It's hard to imaging any relationship between library size and ripping speed, unless maybe it gets back to consumption of virtual memory and page swapping slowdowns.
it screwed up music on my PC as well, after doing all the Control Panel settings its back in track...
wow, after so many updates, iTunes 7 needed first time to touch Control Panel ... now it is getting buggy with all the new features gapless play back, art work ...
too much of anything good for nothing ... apple needs to be careful now to add new features ...
Comments
Yeah I would imagine so. What other way could they have the album art instantly accessible. HDD is too slow.
What's needed is some kind of smart caching: perhaps you start caching images which are before and after the point in the album list where you are at a given moment so those images come into view quickly as you move back and forth (at least if you don't move too far at once), and throw away memory-cached images which are further away and less recently viewed. Max out how much is cached based on available free RAM rather than available virtual memory.
Looks as though most of the bugs are on Windows.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=139
"The third category, though, is actual bugs, especially in the Windows version of iTunes. The problems vary: stuttering playback, problems with gapless playback, and so on"
Yup, and add corrupted CoverFlow view despite DirectX9.0c updates, graphic driver updates, antialiasing settings in gpu, etc, etc.
Three main issues with Windows iTunes 7.0.0.70
*The Lost Survival Guide, Million Hit Lowdown
Max out how much is cached based on available free RAM rather than available virtual memory.
The computer would still have to fetch cover art that gets thrown off of your RAM from the HDD. Which would force you to wait to see any random cover art and not allow the process to be instantaneous.
The computer would still have to fetch cover art that gets thrown off of your RAM from the HDD. Which would force you to wait to see any random cover art and not allow the process to be instantaneous.
True, it's a compromise. But given the choice between having a gee-whiz special effect perform optimally, and not having every app on my computer descend into page-swap hell (unless perhaps I upgrade to 8 gig of RAM or cut my music collection in half), I'll sacrifice some of that gee-whizziness, thank you very much.
Perhaps smaller low-res, less memory-consuming versions of cover art could be cached in RAM -- good enough for when images are flying by at high speed -- then when you slow down, the time is taken to read full-res images from your drive, with a smaller number of images cached at full res for what's in view or soon to possibly be in view in the vicinity of where you're looking at a given moment.
There's also a slow-import-speed bug for people with large libraries. I've got 7600 songs, and my import speeds fell from 20x in iTunes 6 to 5x with iTunes 7. If I launch a clean account, with no library, I get 20x. It's apparently widespread & repeatable.
I was noticing my recent CD ripping going slowly too, but I have the "Use error correction when reading Audio CDs" option checked on, which sometimes causing slow ripping anyway, so I didn't think much of this. I wonder if about 4800 songs counts as "large" for the purpose of this bug?
Weird bug too. It's hard to imaging any relationship between library size and ripping speed, unless maybe it gets back to consumption of virtual memory and page swapping slowdowns.
wow, after so many updates, iTunes 7 needed first time to touch Control Panel ... now it is getting buggy with all the new features gapless play back, art work ...
too much of anything good for nothing ... apple needs to be careful now to add new features ...