MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-USING DIRECTOR Use Manual page 438

Monitoring memory use
The Memory inspector displays information about how much memory is available to Director for
your movie and indicates how much memory different parts of the current movie use and the
total disk space the movie occupies. It also can purge all removable items from RAM if you are
about to perform a memory-intensive operation.
Note: The Memory inspector is not available on Macintosh.
To use the Memory inspector:
Select Window > Memory Inspector.
1
Observe the following memory use indicators:
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Total Memory
installed on your computer and any available virtual memory.
Physical Memory
Total Used
indicates how much RAM is being used for a movie.
Free Memory
Other Memory
Used by Program
of memory used by the Director application file).
Cast & Score
and the notation in the Score window. Cast members include all the artwork in the Paint
window, all the text in the Text windows, cast members that use the Matte ink in the Score,
thumbnail images in the Cast window, and any sounds, palettes, buttons, digital video movies,
or linked files that are imported into the cast and are currently loaded into memory.
Screen Buffer
animation on the Stage.
To remove all items that can be purged from RAM, including all thumbnail images in the Cast
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window, click Purge.
All cast members that have Unload (purge priority) set to a priority other than 0–Never (as
specified in the Property inspector's Member tab) are removed from memory. This procedure is
useful for gaining as much memory as possible before importing a large file. Edited cast
members are not purged.
Whenever Director runs low on memory, such as when trying to load many large cast members,
other cast members are automatically unloaded from memory, according to the following rules:
•
The first cast members to be unloaded are those that have a
type of discarding is fast but is essentially random, which means you cannot predict which of
these cast members unload at any given time. The worst-case scenario is that in order to load
the cast member for channel 1 of a particular frame, the cast member that is needed for
channel 2 of that same frame gets unloaded.
•
When there are no more cast members with a
Director starts unloading the cast members that have a
recently used. This type of unloading is slower but can be more predictable.
•
If more memory is still needed after the cast members with a
are unloaded, then the least recently used cast members with a
are unloaded.
438 Chapter 21: Managing Memory
displays the total system memory available, including the amount of RAM
shows the amount of actual RAM installed in the system.
indicates how much more memory is currently available in your system.
indicates the amount of memory used by other applications.
indicates the amount of memory used by Director (excluding the amount
indicates the amount of memory used by the cast members in the Cast window
shows how much memory Director reserves for a working area while executing
purgePriority
value of 3 left to unload,
purgePriority
purgePriorty
purgePriority
purgePriority
value of 3. This
value of 2 and were least
value of 2
value of 1