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Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

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sgtevmckay

Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by sgtevmckay »

The answer is possibly!?!!

If you are like me and have loaded numerous skins for testing, or have started a lot of skins you no longer use. All these skins are recorded to the Rainmeter.ini. As this record builds Rainmeter has to work harder to load and function through the ini to find what you are using, and to maintain placement of skins you have used.

I just checked my Rainmeter.ini file and found that I had over 32,000 lines of entry. I cut this down to what I am using.
The result:
My load time was decreased by approximately 60%, and the resource load has gone from 2.3% (Nominal) at 12MB to 0.9% (nominal) at 9MB (I still get a load when the RSS is updating). This is a major improvement, for someone like myself that is Running Vista Ultimate 32 with an Intel T3200 and 4Gb of 6400 RAM.

The draw backs:
If you do this Rainmeter will not remember the last location or placement of a skin that you previously used. The first reload of a skin may take some time, so that the rainmeter.ini file can re-index the skin.
This may take awhile, as you will want to carefully go through each collection of code, and be aware of what you are deleting.

Worse case scenario:
you wipe a part of the ini you wanted to keep, or erased the entire file, well then you will have to rebuild your desktop skin placements.

I can not guarantee results like mine, as every system is different, but this just may answer some of the questions surrounding system resource load and load times.
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redblack
Posts: 24
Joined: June 21st, 2009, 5:08 am
Location: Australia

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by redblack »

I was wondering about this . . . . thanks for the info!!
sgtevmckay

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by sgtevmckay »

No problem.

I will continue to look for further solutions.

:welcome: to the forum :D
jnorthup
Posts: 1
Joined: July 31st, 2009, 3:19 pm

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by jnorthup »

Here's a quick way I found to purge your list of unused skins. I recommend using a file difference editor like Beyond Compare from Scooter Software (a model of what shareware should be). Their link is here:
http://www.scootersoftware.com

While Rainmeter is running...
  • Go to C:\Program files\Rainmeter (or other install directory)
    Drag "Rainmeter.ini" onto the same folder to create a copy
    Verify that you have a file named "Copy of Rainmeter.ini"!
    Now delete the original "Rainmeter.ini"
    Close Rainmeter
    Upon exit, Rainmeter will create a new "Rainmeter.ini" using only the active skins, but it will be missing the following line:
Active=# <- '#' corresponds to WHICH VARIANT of the skin was open
  • Parse through "Copy of Rainmeter.ini" and copy the missing lines, then paste them back into "Rainmeter.ini". The difference editor will be handier for this task. It MUST be done for Rainmeter to activate the skin upon restart.
You are now ready to start Rainmeter using the purged list of skins.

Keep "Copy of Rainmeter.ini" around if you like as a backup in case you decide to reactivate one of the older skins.
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jsmorley
Developer
Posts: 22628
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:02 pm
Location: Fort Hunt, Virginia, USA

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by jsmorley »

jnorthup wrote:Here's a quick way I found to purge your list of unused skins. I recommend using a file difference editor like Beyond Compare from Scooter Software (a model of what shareware should be). Their link is here:
http://www.scootersoftware.com

While Rainmeter is running...
  • Go to C:\Program files\Rainmeter (or other install directory)
    Drag "Rainmeter.ini" onto the same folder to create a copy
    Verify that you have a file named "Copy of Rainmeter.ini"!
    Now delete the original "Rainmeter.ini"
    Close Rainmeter
    Upon exit, Rainmeter will create a new "Rainmeter.ini" using only the active skins, but it will be missing the following line:
Active=# <- '#' corresponds to WHICH VARIANT of the skin was open
  • Parse through "Copy of Rainmeter.ini" and copy the missing lines, then paste them back into "Rainmeter.ini". The difference editor will be handier for this task. It MUST be done for Rainmeter to activate the skin upon restart.
You are now ready to start Rainmeter using the purged list of skins.

Keep "Copy of Rainmeter.ini" around if you like as a backup in case you decide to reactivate one of the older skins.
Oooo... I like this concept. I see a little application in my future that will allow you to point to any Rainmeter.ini or .thm (RainThemes saved setup) and have it automatically remove any skins marked as "Active=0". I have done this manually in the past as my Rainmeter.ini bloats up from testing skins, as it makes things load a lot faster. Time to code a little helper application to do the work for you. Thanks for the idea.
xclbr
Posts: 2
Joined: January 28th, 2010, 4:31 pm

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by xclbr »

I tried this one and I understand the concept but I got confused after Beyond Compare showed the differences between the two files. Because its not just the Active=# that is missing. There are lots of missing lines and I don't know if I should paste them also into the Rainmeter.ini
Example;:
Rainmeter.ini<--------------------------->Copy of Rainmeter.ini
Image

Above, if I copy the "Active=0" to the left, then it will disable the sidebar right? Coz in the right panel its the Music that is disabled (active=0). I think somethings wrong with my Rainmeter.ini coz theres a lot of missing lines.

I also attached my "Rain.ini" and "Copy of Rain.ini" so you can see it for yourself. Please advice.. thanks!
Ini files.rar
xclbr
Posts: 2
Joined: January 28th, 2010, 4:31 pm

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by xclbr »

Hello again. I think I fixed it already. I just edited the Rainmeter.ini and then delete the sections that im not using. Thus, making its file size around 5kb instead of 12kb.
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Digi
Posts: 46
Joined: December 24th, 2009, 10:35 pm

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by Digi »

thats a great idea for us noob coder to clean rainmeter.ini file...i hope a little app come to life as i need to clean my ini file after alot of skin loading and testing... :thumbsu:
[url=http://www.rainmeter.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=85][center][b]H.E.R.O[/b][/center][/url]
[url=http://www.rainmeter.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=1525][center][b]V.I.S.O.R[/b][/center][/url]
[url=http://www.rainmeter.net/forum/index.php][center][b]Rainmeter Help[/b][/center][/url]
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jsmorley
Developer
Posts: 22628
Joined: April 19th, 2009, 11:02 pm
Location: Fort Hunt, Virginia, USA

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by jsmorley »

Digi wrote:thats a great idea for us noob coder to clean rainmeter.ini file...i hope a little app come to life as i need to clean my ini file after alot of skin loading and testing... :thumbsu:
This has been around for a while. Save your setup as a theme, then use this to clean the theme of extra stuff and reload it.
ThemeClean.zip
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Digi
Posts: 46
Joined: December 24th, 2009, 10:35 pm

Re: Can I make Rainmeter load faster and use less Resources?

Post by Digi »

jsmorley wrote: This has been around for a while. Save your setup as a theme, then use this to clean the theme of extra stuff and reload it.
ThemeClean.zip

:thanks: alot mate....should i select all the files on the right hand side or choose the one are not on my current theme and delete them...sorry for being a noob
[url=http://www.rainmeter.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=85][center][b]H.E.R.O[/b][/center][/url]
[url=http://www.rainmeter.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=1525][center][b]V.I.S.O.R[/b][/center][/url]
[url=http://www.rainmeter.net/forum/index.php][center][b]Rainmeter Help[/b][/center][/url]