"Sight" Survey  (SS98)

What are System Resources? 

(or... What is that percentage number in the lower-left corner of Sight Survey?)

System Resources consist of two components: User Resources, and GDI (Graphic Device Interface) Resources. 

The User component manages input from the keyboard, mouse, and other input devices and output to the user interface (windows, icons, menus, and so on).  It also manages interaction with the sound driver, timer, and communications ports.  Windows 98 uses an asynchronous input model for all input to the system and applications.  As the various input devices generate interrupts, the interrupt handler converts these interrupts to messages and sends the messages to a raw input thread area, which in turn passes each message to the appropriate message queue.  Although each Win32-based thread can have its own message queue, all Win16-based applications share a common one.

User Resources are limited to a fixed 64 KB. You cannot increase this.

The Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is the graphical system that manages what appears on the screen.  It also provides graphics support for printers and other output devices.  It draws graphic primitives, manipulates bitmaps, and interacts with device-independent graphics drivers, including those for display and printer output device drivers.

GDI Resources are limited to a fixed 64 KB. You cannot increase this.

Why these 64 KB limits?  They are used to ensure backward compatibility for 16-bit programs originally written for DOS and Windows 3.x.  This backward compatibility is one of the main reasons Windows 95/98/ME would be chosen by a user instead of Windows NT (which has much poorer and less reliable backward compatibility for 16-bit programs).  Note that the 64 KB limitation on User and GDI Resources does not exist in Windows NT/2000/XP (which, however, may not be able to run some of the particular programs causing the “resources drain” in Windows 95/98/ME).

System Resources have nothing to do with the amount of RAM memory contained in your computer.  

Q:  My Resources drop as low as 50-60% much of the time. What’s wrong? Should I worry?

Having only 50-60% Resources available is not a problem at all.  You can easily have Resources drop to 10-15% without a problem. However, when Resources get in the 20% range, it is a good idea to save your job, close "Sight" Survey, and then re-start "Sight" Survey to continue your work.  Closing the program allows Windows to refresh and recover system resources.  Note: While you will recover a significant amount of resource memory, your system resources will probably not return to the original value.  This is caused by Windows consuming small bits of memory as overhead as programs are launched and windows are opened.

Q:  How can I increase my System Resources?

Since there is no physical way to increase System Resource memory, all you can do is reduce the number of items that can reduce it.  Some things you can try:  Don't run other programs while running "Sight" Survey; Reduce the number of fonts you load into Windows at startup; Don't use the internet while running "Sight" Survey; and Turn off any unnecessary memory-resident programs, such as media-players, instant messengers, etc. before starting "Sight" Survey.  Finally, since Windows 2000/NT/XP handle System Resources in a vastly improved way, you might want to consider upgrading your operating system.

© 2008 by Carlson Software, Inc.   Last modified November 18, 2008