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Font Memory Issue

P

Parody

Well-known member
So a question: is the memory usage dependent on the number of fonts installed or the number Realm Works can use?

I ask because I got the warning, but the majority of my fonts are Type 1 or OTF with Type 1 outlines, which Realm Works can't use anyway.

(Yes, I already checked "Don't show this again". :)
 
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What about those of us that do some desktop publishing and sometimes use a lot of fonts?

Any chance we can get Realm Works to limit the number of fonts it loads? A handful each of serif and san serif fonts should be more then enough. Just allow the user to select the ones they want Realm Works to load...
 
Viking2054 said:
What about those of us that do some desktop publishing and sometimes use a lot of fonts?

Any chance we can get Realm Works to limit the number of fonts it loads? A handful each of serif and san serif fonts should be more then enough. Just allow the user to select the ones they want Realm Works to load...
Click to expand...

The Realm Works desktop client is built on a third-party framework (DevExpress). This framework simply loads all the fonts on the user's computer, so we don't have easy control over which fonts are or aren't loaded. We only discovered the font issue a few days ago, so we have only done a cursory investigation into our options at this point, but there was no readily apparent way for us to restrict which fonts are used. If anyone out there knows of a solution for this, we'd be happy to hear about it!

If you use lots of fonts for other purposes, then you'll absolutely want to keep them all. Some users will find that there are numerous fonts they never intentionally installed and have no use for, in which case they can be readily removed. Every user's situation will be different, and it's simply a trade-off between having the fonts versus having more/larger smart images actively loaded concurrently. Each user must make their own assessment, and it's important that users are made aware of this trade-off. That's why we present the warning, if necessary, and leave it to the user to determine how best to proceed. :)
 
I don't know DevExpress, but one thing you could try (if it lets you) is disabling font previews in the font selection combo boxes. The hope is that they then delay loading each font until it's actually used and just rely on the list of names provided by the system for selecting fonts. If most of us are using the defaults then Realm Works would only need the Tahoma variants, cutting potentially hundreds of loaded fonts down to four.

Edit: Actually two; Tahoma doesn't come with italics.
 
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Maybe a better approach would be to check in task manager and see how much memory is being used by Realm Works. I got the warning, but the actual consumed memory was 131mb or so, which did not seem especially large. I suspect that the message is generated by count of fonts, not by use of resources.

Top
 
Topdecker said:
Maybe a better approach would be to check in task manager and see how much memory is being used by Realm Works. I got the warning, but the actual consumed memory was 131mb or so, which did not seem especially large. I suspect that the message is generated by count of fonts, not by use of resources.

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Click to expand...

Unfortunately its a bit more complicated than that. Task Manager doesn't show the complete picture of resource utilization. You can get a more complete view of things using a tool called "ProcessExplorer" if you're interested. On my system, Realm Works shows as using 133 MB in task manager, but Process Explorer reports the total virtual memory size as 1.3 GB.

Realm Works is a 32 bit application, so it cannot go above 2 GB of virtual memory. That is the ceiling being hit when the out of memory errors occur. We trigger the warning based on the virtual memory size, which is more directly related to the error occurring. It is not based on a simple count of the number of fonts. I think we trigger it above 1.2 GB, but I could be wrong on the exact number.

Hopefully I have not totally misled on any of the technical details. If so, Rob or David will need to correct me.
 
Joe summed things up nicely.

To specifically answer the question from @Avi, Realm Works looks at the total memory utilization, wherein all the fonts can make a huge difference from one user to the next. Some fonts are much larger than others, so that's also a point of consideration. And the actual memory used by a particular font once loaded for use is typically larger than the size of that font on disk. However, the relative sizes of the fonts on disk seem to generally map to their memory footprint (i.e. larger fonts on disk use more memory once loaded).

Hope this helps! :)
 
Expanding on the info provided in the 217 release notes:

If you're looking to remove fonts from your system, think about which programs you've installed that might have also installed fonts, like office and design programs. Try using their installers or their entry in the Programs and Features Control Panel to selectively remove unwanted fonts rather than just deleting them from the Fonts folder. That way the programs "know" they're gone and you shouldn't run into problems like the one described.

However, if you've been adding fonts yourself and/or you don't know which fonts came from where, switch the Fonts folder into Details view and sort by "Designer/foundry". Any fonts whose foundry is "Microsoft Corporation" should be left alone. (On my Windows 10 install I believe a couple of these came with Office, but most are system fonts and shouldn't be removed.)

Note that this isn't comprehensive; some of the most commonly used fonts that come with the system are from other foundries. Arial, Courier New, and Times New Roman, for example, are from Monotype. It does, however, give you a visible baseline for which fonts you shouldn't be stubborn about removing!

Microsoft does provide lists of fonts that come with various products, but unfortunately these haven't been updated for more recent releases like Windows 10 or later versions of Office. Wikipedia has a list of typefaces included with Windows that does include Windows 10, but I haven't checked it personally.
 
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I'm still sort of impressed by the user who found a way to delete Tahoma. Windows doesn't like it when you try and mess with the system fonts.

Still not as bad as the Eve installer deleting C:\boot.ini a few years back.
 
Booting off a boot disc/drive would work; the recovery console would probably work. I don't really want to find out, though. :)
 
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I was lucky in that I had a recovery disc available, IIRC this was 2007. But a lot of people had to do full reinstalls of Windows. It goes to show that you should never name something the same as a vital system file even if it will be in a separate directory.
 
Imho, removing Fonts from the system is not a very viable option. I have two reasons this is not good (at least for me); 1: Windows won't let me (may be policy rules), 2: I need a lot of fonts for my professional and private work.
One option would be to load only the necessary fonts into the RW runtime, but by using 3rd party librarys like DevExpress you might not be able to control that, but that sounds weird to me as a .NET developer.
Have you explored the various UI improvements that DevExpress offers? The UI could (in the far future when you have time) benefit from some upgrades to a more modern UI :)

Is there any work on moving RW to 64-bit?
 
It's a workaround. Not one I plan on using either, since I need the fonts I have installed for various projects, but for some folks it may be an option. It is unusual that you would be prevented from changing fonts, but if it's not your machine then you may well have policies set.

Poking around the Internet brings up a couple of posts pointing towards .NET applications (which use GDI+) on Windows 10 using a lot more memory when working with fonts than on Windows 7. No idea if it's true, though (FWIW) I am on Windows 10 now.
 
craghammer said:
Imho, removing Fonts from the system is not a very viable option. I have two reasons this is not good (at least for me); 1: Windows won't let me (may be policy rules), 2: I need a lot of fonts for my professional and private work.
One option would be to load only the necessary fonts into the RW runtime, but by using 3rd party librarys like DevExpress you might not be able to control that, but that sounds weird to me as a .NET developer.
Have you explored the various UI improvements that DevExpress offers? The UI could (in the far future when you have time) benefit from some upgrades to a more modern UI :)

Is there any work on moving RW to 64-bit?
Click to expand...

It's NOT presented as something that users SHOULD do. It's merely presented as an option. We're informing users of what's going on with their system and the implications it has on their experience using Realm Works. It's entirely up to the user regarding what they choose, and some users won't be able to do anything about it, even if they want to. But lots of casual computer users will be completely unaware of all the silly fonts that are cluttering up their system, and they may appreciate being able to reclaim a lot of that essentially wasted memory. :)

As I indicated up-thread, we haven't done a thorough investigation regarding the font loading within DevExpress, but there is no readily apparent solution we've found. I'm pretty sure it would be possible, but then it's a question of how much work is involved and whether we should be spending our time on that instead of the many other features users are clamoring for. If you know of a quick solution with DevExpress, please let us know.

Your suggestion of revamping the UI to take advantage of recent improvements to DevExpress has one major drawback. Reworking the UI will entail LOTS of work that will result in no forward progress on new capabilities while that is going on. Given how loudly many users have been clamoring for a laundry list of new features, that would probably go over poorly with a lot of users. It's a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't situation.

Migrating RW to 64-bit is something we've looked into, but we haven't actively pursued it yet. It will entail a fair bit of work to accomplish due to a few key factors. Ultimately, a 64-bit solution looks to be the best solution overall. However, we've been focused on getting the Content Market into place, so work on stuff like that has not yet been undertaken.
 
rob said:
It's NOT presented as something that users SHOULD do. It's merely presented as an option. We're informing users of what's going on with their system and the implications it has on their experience using Realm Works. It's entirely up to the user regarding what they choose, and some users won't be able to do anything about it, even if they want to. But lots of casual computer users will be completely unaware of all the silly fonts that are cluttering up their system, and they may appreciate being able to reclaim a lot of that essentially wasted memory. :)

As I indicated up-thread, we haven't done a thorough investigation regarding the font loading within DevExpress, but there is no readily apparent solution we've found. I'm pretty sure it would be possible, but then it's a question of how much work is involved and whether we should be spending our time on that instead of the many other features users are clamoring for. If you know of a quick solution with DevExpress, please let us know.

Your suggestion of revamping the UI to take advantage of recent improvements to DevExpress has one major drawback. Reworking the UI will entail LOTS of work that will result in no forward progress on new capabilities while that is going on. Given how loudly many users have been clamoring for a laundry list of new features, that would probably go over poorly with a lot of users. It's a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't situation.

Migrating RW to 64-bit is something we've looked into, but we haven't actively pursued it yet. It will entail a fair bit of work to accomplish due to a few key factors. Ultimately, a 64-bit solution looks to be the best solution overall. However, we've been focused on getting the Content Market into place, so work on stuff like that has not yet been undertaken.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick answer @rob, your responses are pretty on spot :) I'll look a bit into the font-loading issue and see if I can dig something up. Luckily I have 150 .NET devs around me, maybe someone has any insight (although, no guarantee ;) )
 
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