Caching the ML?

mwh27 · 7th March 2005, 03:18

Hey, I have a large enough library so that when I click diffrent "Local Media" selections, such as "MP3 Audio" and/or
"Flac" that it can take up to 20 seconds to get all the results. I am wondering is there a hack somewhere in windows and/or winamp to cache the ML `main.dat` in memory?

shaneh · 7th March 2005, 05:21

AFAIK it is cached in memory already. It is the processing required to extract and build the grouped artist and album names from the flat list that takes time.

Perhaps a view where the splitter with artist and album isnt displayed could be quicker? (ie a simple view).

Otherwise theres not much you can do, its already cached in memory, its the CPU requried to process the list that is the bottleneck.

But yes, I suppose you could have a memory cached "pre-processed" list that would be quicker, but it would be purged whenever you did a search though. AFAIK there is no way to do that, as it would be pretty pointless anyway.

peaceofcake · 7th March 2005, 20:55

itunes does it.

shaneh · 8th March 2005, 00:34

and so does winamp.

It just keeps a different database format which does different things, and is less efficient at composing those grouped lists. Perhaps the iTunes database doesnt let you do searches such as "rating>3AND artist NOT etc", maybe it does, maybe it uses more memory, I dont know. But Im sure there are tradeoffs.

Wolfgang · 8th March 2005, 10:06

I am gay

Wolfgang · 8th March 2005, 10:16

Sometimes, I find it difficult to express myself. The internet is the best for such things.

Hamsters rule!!!!!

7th March 2005, 03:18	#1
mwh27 Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 1	Caching the ML? Hey, I have a large enough library so that when I click diffrent "Local Media" selections, such as "MP3 Audio" and/or "Flac" that it can take up to 20 seconds to get all the results. I am wondering is there a hack somewhere in windows and/or winamp to cache the ML `main.dat` in memory?

7th March 2005, 05:21	#2
shaneh Major Dude Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 1,193	AFAIK it is cached in memory already. It is the processing required to extract and build the grouped artist and album names from the flat list that takes time. Perhaps a view where the splitter with artist and album isnt displayed could be quicker? (ie a simple view). Otherwise theres not much you can do, its already cached in memory, its the CPU requried to process the list that is the bottleneck. But yes, I suppose you could have a memory cached "pre-processed" list that would be quicker, but it would be purged whenever you did a search though. AFAIK there is no way to do that, as it would be pretty pointless anyway. Music Plugins

8th March 2005, 00:34	#4
shaneh Major Dude Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 1,193	and so does winamp. It just keeps a different database format which does different things, and is less efficient at composing those grouped lists. Perhaps the iTunes database doesnt let you do searches such as "rating>3AND artist NOT etc", maybe it does, maybe it uses more memory, I dont know. But Im sure there are tradeoffs. Music Plugins

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7th March 2005, 20:55	#3
peaceofcake Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 333	itunes does it.

8th March 2005, 10:06	#5
Wolfgang Forum King Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 3,069	I am gay

8th March 2005, 10:16	#6
Wolfgang Forum King Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 3,069	Sometimes, I find it difficult to express myself. The internet is the best for such things. Hamsters rule!!!!!