Use of Custom Variables

[johngwms]

I find the use of custom variables essential to facilitate the generation of multiple data feeds and optional downloads for each products to name just 2.

My current use of custom variables has meant that I have needed to install a Solid State drive on my PC to get acceptable performance when editing the site. Tip: This made a significant difference to performance! Without it SellerDeck was unusable!

It would be helpful if the database structure of the site could be improved to allow the use of custom variables. Maybe the Enterprise version using SQL is better suited?

John Legg

[leehack]

John, I manage a site with over 150 custom variables that are filled out at product level and see no performance hit, site is still very fast.

[Mike Hughes]

How much memory have you got installed?

If the OS is having to page memory to the hard disk then that will slow it right down and this is also the kind of thing where a solid state drive will improve performance significantly.

I tested V10 on a new PC with 8G ram (only costs about £40 on Amazon) before and after installing a Crucial M4 solid state drive and saw little noticeable difference. Blazing fast either way.

Mike

[johngwms]

I am running Windows 7 64 but with 16GB RAM. I do run many applications concurrently but there is rarely less that 7GB free.

Some months ago I had far fewer custom variables and a hard drive. I added about 30 custom variables in one hit and I found that it would take about 20 seconds to move from one product/section file to another while editing. This was unacceptable. I have been told on numerous ocassions by Actinic support that the number of custom vartiables does have an impact on performance while editing.

I decided to install a second SSD as my 1st was almost full and moved the Actinic site from a hard disk to the SSD. The speed transformation was phenominal.

This is the evidence I have. Maybe there was another issue affecting performance?

John

[Mike Hughes]

16GB ought to be enough.

I have had performance issues like that before, but that was a few versions back (V7 - V8 IIRC). The only thing I can think tyhat causes problems like that is the preview caching. particularly with external images that haven't been blocked in preview.

Maybe more than 1 or 2 custom variables does cause an issue. I guess it would be best if Actinic could confirm whether this is a known issue.

Mike

[malbro]

I am running Windows 7 64 but with 16GB RAM. I do run many applications concurrently but there is rarely less that 7GB free.

Some months ago I had far fewer custom variables and a hard drive. I added about 30 custom variables in one hit and I found that it would take about 20 seconds to move from one product/section file to another while editing. This was unacceptable. I have been told on numerous ocassions by Actinic support that the number of custom vartiables does have an impact on performance while editing.

I decided to install a second SSD as my 1st was almost full and moved the Actinic site from a hard disk to the SSD. The speed transformation was phenominal.

This is the evidence I have. Maybe there was another issue affecting performance?

John

I concur with John, there are circumstances when adding a number of custom variables in this case 20 which where attached to every product can slow Actinic down. In my case it was a V9 web site and the variables were linked into javascript code. I did notice a significant change in speed once I reached ten variables, and by the tme I got to twenty it was unmanagable to the extent I resorted to an earlier snapshot.. Since then I have been more prudent in using custom variables.

I investigated the structure of the variables at that time and they are accessed by indirect addressing which means they take a lot of database processing to get to the contents and with an Access database that means slow.

doesnt matter how much RAM you have in 64 bit, 32 bit applications will only use 2Gb or possibly 3Gb if you change the standard settings.