Here are the results of my testing of my Jmol Tutorial-Authoring Template, which supports 1, 2, 3 or 4 Jmols per "view button".
I certainly hope not to have to ask users of a Tutorial to open their java console and orce garbage collection. So I didn't do that. Nor do I want them to have to increase their java memory, since that is rather fussy, so I am using default java memory levels. All tests are with the current versions of Java and browsers. All reports of memory used are from Jmol's reporting. All tests used the same smallish molecule, 1d66, 150 Kb PDB file uncompressed. ------------- Windows (98), Firefox (95 Mb max memory): Reloading the same small molecule (1 Jmol) started at 8 Mb and plateaued at 18 Mb. But when I changed to 2 Jmols, it climbed to 21 Mb. Then when I changed back to 1 Jmol, it climbed to 35 Mb. Back to 2 Jmols, climbed to 37 Mb, then plateaued. Now I changed to 4 Jmols, and it started at 40 Mb and (after 5 reloads) climbed to 95 Mb. Although it said 95 Mb total and 95 Mb maximum, it also said 27 Mb free (go figure). My recollection is that it continued to work, but I may have forgotten to note if it stopped displaying molecules on further reloads (sorry!). Thus, I think there is a java memory problem on Windows, but I haven't tried to repeat this in XP or Vista. -------------- OSX Leopard, Safari (95 Mb max memory): 10 reloads of 1 Jmol gradually climbed from 12 Mb to 95 Mb. After 4 more reloads with "95 Mb total", the free Mb showed 0! At this point, a reload causes Jmol to start counting up "loading Jmol applet" indefinitely, and the molecule never appears. Quitting the browser (which dismissed Java) seems to reset memory so you can start over. Too bad if we have to ask users to do that in the middle of a tutorial! Thus, I think the java memory problem is rather severe on Safari/OSX. Using a moderately large tutorial that involved some 2-jmol comparisions and several molecules could easily run out of memory. Certainly my existing, partially completed JTAT Demo tutorial already runs out of memory if you simply visit each page, even though it uses only 2 PDB files -- because it goes from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 jmols, back to 1, and then to 2 with different molecules -- after other chapters all of which use 1 jmol. ---------------- OSX Leopard, Firefox: Here, Jmol reported "64 Mb maximum"! And it ran out of memory more easily. -Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Check out the new SourceForge.net Marketplace. It's the best place to buy or sell services for just about anything Open Source. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;164216239;13503038;w?http://sf.net/marketplace _______________________________________________ Jmol-users mailing list Jmol-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jmol-users
