Computer hang

[lynn2tun]

Dear Programmers of the GoldenDict,

First, Thanks to all of you for creating and donating the greatest dictionary-managing software for totally free . Благодарямлн.
I used Lingvo and Babylon before I found GoldenDict (from now on GD). Now I don't use them anymore 'cos GD supports almost all formats including BGL, DSL and DICT.
I do hope GD will also support LD2 and MOBI formats in future. I'm a word-lover and I use all kinds of English Monolingual Dictionaries from Pocket to Unabridged both in print and in CD-Rom tho' I don't fully understand unabridged definitions within my vocab range.. I prefer them using in my laptop. But, I still have a problem with GD. . I installed dictionaries in GD (approximately more than 200) and when I open the interface, GD responds too long to display and my computer tends to hang. Can someone please tell me what to do? Thanks in advance.

FYI
I'm using GD Latest Version 1.0.1-367-ga33f07 on Genuine Windows 7 Home-Premium 64-bit.
Core-i7-2670QM CPU-2.20GHz RAM-8GB

Kind Regards,

LYNN

[Tvangeste]

The biggest problem with slow loading is your hard disk. You have a lot of dictionaries, and GD needs to load its index data for all of them, that means it opens up hundreds of big and complicated files.

I also have plenty of dictionaries and was experienced the same problem. Then, I changed my hard drive to a very fast SSD drive, and the startup time improved significantly, from many seconds to well under 1 second.

Some other folks used RAM disks (meaning an emulated disk with content in computer memory), but I find that purchasing a fast SSD is much better deal, and overall the best upgrade a notebook could get for a little money.

P.S. And by hang you meant that it just starting slow, not hangs forever, right?

[lynn2tun]

TVANGESTE, Thanks for your kind advice . It's right my computer hangs for about half an hour but not forever.
For now I'm using SEAGATE SATA II 7200 RPM.

Kind Regards,
LYNN

[chulai]

I have just above 200 dictionaries in my laptop at work. It's an i5 @ 2.53Ghz with 4GB RAM. Hard drive is 5400RPM. Goldendict is quite slow on it. Sometimes it even hungs up for minutes if I switch between programs. While at home I have around 300 dictionaries in my home laptop which features an i7 @ 2.93Ghz with 8GB RAM. Hard drive is 7200RPM. GoldenDict is wicked fast. It's like running Notepad! So it all depends on the hardware you have.

[Tvangeste]

Lynn, chulai, looks like the hardware you have is more then adequate for a normal GD functioning, the issue as I mentioned, could be the hard disk.

I used to run GD from old 5400 rpm drive, and it was a bit painful, then I switched to more modern 7200rpm drive and increased RAM in my system, it worked much better, but initial startup was still rather slow. Now that I switched to SSD drive (bought a small 60gb SSD drive for just 40 bucks on sale), starting up GoldenDict does feel like starting a Notepad, very fast.

GD itself is *very* efficient during lookup, and Qt is good enough to show even huge articles.

For God's sake, I'm currently running GoldenDict on my Kindle 3 (with very weak and old APR processor, tiny amount of memory and abysmally slow "hard drive"), with 10 dictionaries, which is roughly about 10 big paper tomes. And it works just fine even there!

[lynn2tun]

Thanks to both of you, Tvangeste and Chulai!!!

Kind Regards,

LYNN