Using Director > Director basics > Converting movies created in previous versions of Director > Monitoring memory use

 

Monitoring memory use

The Memory Inspector displays information about how much memory is available to Director for your movie and indicates how much memory different parts of the current movie use and the total disk space the movie occupies. It also can purge all removable items from RAM if you are about to perform a memory-intensive operation.

To use the Memory Inspector:

1

Choose Window > Inspectors > Memory.

2

Observe the following memory use indicators:

Total Memory displays the total system memory available, including the amount of RAM installed on your computer and any virtual memory available.

Physical memory (Windows only) shows the amount of actual RAM installed in the system.

Partition Size (Macintosh only) shows the amount of memory allocated to Director in the Get Info box, and is available only if Temporary Memory is enabled.

Total Used indicates how much RAM is being used for a movie.

Free Memory indicates how much more memory is currently available in your system.

Other Memory indicates the amount of memory taken up by other applications.

Used by Program indicates the amount of memory used by Director (excluding the amount of memory taken up by the Director application file itself).

Cast and Score indicates the amount of memory used by the cast members in the Cast window and the notation in the Score window. Cast members include all the artwork in the Paint window, all the text in the Text windows, cast members that use the Matte ink in the Score, thumbnail images in the Cast window, and any sounds, palettes, buttons, digital video movies, or linked files imported into the cast and currently loaded into memory.

Screen Buffer shows how much memory Director reserves for a working area while executing animation on the Stage.

3

To remove all purgeable items from RAM, including all thumbnail images in the Cast window, click Purge.

All cast members that have Unload (purge priority) set to a priority other than 0-Never (as specified in the Member tab of the Property Inspector) are removed from memory. This procedure is useful for gaining as much memory as possible before importing a large file. Edited cast members are not purged.