SSD effect on GIMP startup times with lots of brushes?

sriesch

When GIMP is started up with lots of brushes, startup is very slow in comparison to startup with no brushes, so currently I load them only as I need them. 

Does anybody know if this is primarily due to processing time, or to file access time?  I'm idly wondering if putting GIMP and all the brushes on an SSD would provide a dramatic startup speed boost, or not.

SixDs

The assumption that your slow load time is primarily due to slow disk access times may only be partially true, Sean. As a consequence, going to an SSD, which will give faster access times, will only solve part of the problem. The other part is the time that it takes to load all those brushes into memory for immediate use (whether you actually intend to use them immediately or not). And the issue is not only brushes, but also the number of pallettes, patterns, fonts, etc. that are also being loaded, all of which can accumulate over time if not carefully managed. It is a matter of deciding which you absolutely need to load at startup, and which you do not, tucking the "sometimes" things away where you can load them when  and as needed. That's my two cents worth, anyway. (this is not just an issue with the GIMP, of course, but can become problematic with any feature-rich graphics application)

Chohole

I use Photoshop (an older version) and I have always been told that having too many brusehs loaded slows it down,  so I reset my brushes after use, and only load the basic set, and add any I need for each project.   Some brush sets can be quite large.

Graze

So how does one load up brushes only as needed in Gimp?  Ron's brush packs are huge.

sriesch

Pick a folder you want to temporarily put brushes in as needed.  Normally it will be empty or have whatever small set you want all the time.  If you plan to do a specific project using a different set of brushes, then temporarily copy one or more .abr files into that folder prior to running gimp.  To make gimp look in that folder every time it starts:

    Edit > Preferences >  Folders:
 Brushes: Click on the left white paper icon, then click on the far right folder icon and browse to your folder (for example, "C:\sean\program use only\gimp\brushes") and click on ok.
 Fonts: Click on the left white paper icon, then click on the far right folder icon and browse to your folder (for example, "C:\sean\program use only\extra fonts") and click on ok.

 

Graze

Thanks for the instructions.

Kinich

I use a simialr system to sriesch but have a brushes folder for GIMP (C:/Users/your_name/,GIMP2.8/Brushes) that has the brushes I'm currently using and a custon 'Unused Brushes' folder in the same directory not mapped into GIMP and simply move brushes between them as required, you can do this with GIMP running and just refresh the Tools/Brushes panel after any changes, as a precaution save your work before the changes not that I have ever crashed GIMP like this but you don't want to loose your work.

Takeo.Kensei

Don't know your Gimp size and Brush Folder size but basically, loading time will alway be quicker on a SSD

Now the question would be : is it that a major problem ?

There are also other ways to speed up the startup

1°/ Windows Prefetch : Its a cache system and Windows will cache programs that are most used. If your OS is already on a SSD, and you often use Gimp, that should speed it up

2°/ Have more RAM than necessarry : Windows also has an other cache system that instead of using Physicall Disk, will use Memory. You can do a quick test : startup Gimp. Measure startup time, then close it, then start it up again. Should be quicker the second time

3°/ Have a lot of RAM (already said I know) and this time use a RAMDrive utility to create a virtual drive on memory (ex 4GB) and put any program you want to accelerate there. You can also set the Pagefile and temp file there. I personnaly use this one https://sourceforge.net/projects/imdisk-toolkit/

The speed of a RAMdrive is tremendous compared to classic and SSD drives see https://www.geckoandfly.com/21507/ramdisk-virtual-disk-memory/