Re: available memory

[flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

For those beknighted souls who've never seen the X, behold (screenshot).
It indicates a memory overflow condition. It may happen when the user
tries to scroll through a large file and there is insufficient RAM
available to Xy to do that. So Xy keeps up with the scrolling by putting
some of the file above the visible scroll window and some of the file
below the visible scroll window into a temporary file (or files) which
it stores on the hardisk (not in RAM). A sort of a swap file. As you
scroll through the file, Xy moves portions of the file between the
visible scroll window in RAM and the temporary overflow file(s) on the
hardisk.

Other programs than Xy do this, too. Photoshop, for example, has a
similar function, called "scratch disk" where it parks pixels during
particularly RAM-intensive operations. Photoshop allows the user to
specify the number and location of available hardisks or partitions for
this purpose. Xy appears to store them in the current folder, whatever
it happens to be.

As a general rule, RAM memory is fast (because electrical), whereas
hardisk memory is slow (because mechanical). As I noticed by comparing
Xy3 scrolling with Xy4 scrolling, Xy3 is slightly quicker, presumably
because it reaches the overflow threshold later than Xy4 does.

As Carl kindly explained, the X indicating an overflow condition is not
troublesome enough that anyone need go to any effort to avoid it. It's
simply part of Xy memory management (as scratch disk is part of
Photoshop memory management). Xy4 evidently starts using overflow memory
sooner than Xy3 does because the Xy4 program itself is using more RAM
for additional functions which Xy3 does not have.