MAC Encarta 1995: Encarta and Memory Readme Contents (131432)

MORE INFORMATION

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Memory Issues with Microsoft Encarta '95 for the Macintosh
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This document contains information on the following topics:

1. GENERAL MEMORY ISSUES WITH ENCARTA '95:

   - How Encarta uses memory

2. ADVICE FOR COMMON CONFIGURATIONS:

   - If you have less than 8 MB of memory
   - If you have 8 MB or more of memory

3. LOW MEMORY SYMPTOMS AND SOLUTIONS:

   - When enlarging images
   - When printing topics
   - When printing images
   - When launching mini-applications

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1.  GENERAL MEMORY ISSUES WITH ENCARTA '95
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Encarta lets you explore a tremendous amount of information and media.
You can read articles, see color photos, listen to high quality audio,
or watch animations and videos. Encarta also contains several
mini-applications, such as the InterActivities, the Animation Launcher,
and the MindMaze game. All this multimedia can use a large amount of
your computer's memory (RAM). We put this document together to help
explain and solve any memory problems you may encounter while using
Encarta.

We tested Encarta on systems with many different memory configurations,
from 5 MB up to over 32 MB of memory. All parts of Encarta work on a
5 MB system, but Encarta runs best on systems with 8 MB or more of
memory.

If you have a machine with 5 MB of memory, we offer advice to help
avoid problems and make the best use of your available memory. If you
have a machine with 8 MB or more of memory, we also offer advice on
how to make Encarta take best advantage of the extra memory.


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2. ADVICE FOR COMMON CONFIGURATIONS
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Encarta is designed to work best with the most common multimedia
Macintosh computers being sold today. These machines have 6 to 8 MB
of memory, a double-speed CD-ROM drive, a 13-inch monitor, and can
display thousands of colors. However, we know there are many machines
that have only 5 MB of RAM and can display only 256 colors. There are
also many machines with 16 or 32 MB of RAM, 16-inch monitors that can
display millions of colors. The following sections show how you can
get the most from Encarta with your computer's configuration.

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2a - If you have less than 8 MB of memory
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Typical System:

    Macintosh Performa 550
    5 MB of RAM
    Built-in 14-inch monitor
    256 colors

You will need to have Virtual Memory turned on for Encarta to run
properly on this typical 5 MB system. The amount of Virtual Memory
required depends on the size of your system, which depends on whether
your system has many extensions, fonts, screen savers, etc.

Turn on Virtual Memory
----------------------

Virtual memory allows you to increase the amount of available memory by
using space on your hard disk to simulate physical memory.  Although
using virtual memory will slow down performance slightly, the extra
available memory can make applications like Encarta run more
effectively. To turn on Virtual Memory, open the Memory control panel,
choose the Virtual Memory On option, choose an amount of disk space to
use for memory (we recommend 2 to 5 MB) and then restart your computer.

The following are more tips to help you run Encarta in this
configuration:

Run Only One Application at a Time
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If other applications are running, close them before launching Encarta
'95.

Reduce the Size of the Disk Cache
---------------------------------

Open the Memory Control Panel and check the Disk Cache setting. To make
the greatest amount of memory available, set the cache to 32K.

Remove Unused Fonts and Sounds
------------------------------

Fonts and sounds consume system memory, even when not being used. Remove
those you don't need to make more memory available. Be careful when
removing fonts.  Some applications (like Encarta) may not work properly
if the correct fonts are not available. Remove only what you are
certain is not needed. Encarta requires the following fonts:  Arial,
Times, Symbol, and MS Reference.

Remove or Disable System Extensions
-----------------------------------

Third party system extensions such as screen savers, fax software,
desktop pictures, menu-modifying utilities and other system enhancements
increase the amount of memory consumed by your system.  Removing some or
all of these extensions will increase the amount of memory available to
applications. Be sure that you save anything you remove from your System
folder in a separate folder on your disk so that you can replace it later.

    NOTE: Be sure to restart your Macintosh after making any of the
    above changes to your system.

If You are Running in Millions or Thousands of Colors, Switch to 256
Colors
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To change your color setting, open the Monitors control panel, and
select 256.

Run InterActivities, Animations, and MindMaze from outside of
  Encarta. You can find these applications in the InterActivities
  folder which is in the Encarta '95 folder on your hard drive.

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2b - If you have 8 MB or more of memory
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Typical System:

    Macintosh Quadra 800
    16 MB of RAM
    16-inch monitor
    Millions of colors.

In this configuration, you may want to increase the amount of memory
made available to Encarta and the Encarta mini-applications. Here are
some tips to enhance performance on this type of configuration:

Increase the Size of the Disk Cache
-----------------------------------

In the Memory control panel, you can set aside a portion of your RAM to
store recently used information read from your CD-ROM drive or hard disk. A
larger cache can improve performance considerably because RAM is much
faster than CD-ROM drives and hard disk drives. For a system with more than
8 MB of RAM, you should set the cache size to be 256K or 512K. On systems
earlier than 7.5, if your cache is set to higher than 32K for every 1 MB of
physical RAM in your system, or set any higher than 512K, you will
experience degraded performance while running Encarta. For system 7.5, a
larger cache can improve Encarta's performance.

Increase the "Preferred Memory" for Encarta
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Only make these changes on a system with more than 8 MB of memory.  The
minimum amount of memory Encarta requires to run is 3500K.  Encarta will
run with this amount of memory, but to do this, the application
sometimes will need to purge some memory if many windows or large photos
are opened. This purged memory may have to be re-read from the disk if
it is later needed, slowing down Encarta. To set aside more memory for
Encarta to use, quit Encarta if it is running, click the Encarta '95
application icon then choose "Get Info" from the File menu. In the
section titled "Memory Requirements," change the Preferred size from
4200K to 5000K or 6000K.

Increase the "Preferred Memory" for the Encarta Projector
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If you have a large display and are running in Millions of colors mode,
the Encarta animations may be able to run. You can set aside more memory
for the Projector by increasing the "Preferred Memory" in Get Info to
4000K or 5000K if you have a very large display.

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3.  LOW MEMORY SYMPTOMS AND SOLUTIONS
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The following are examples of some typical low memory symptoms and
possible solutions to these problems:

Symptom: Error Message on Encarta Startup: "You are low on free
system memory"
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When starting Encarta, the "You are low on free system memory" error
message appears. While running Encarta afterward, I experience
problems such as sounds not playing, images not loading, or other low
memory problems.

REASON:

Some of the multimedia aspects of Encarta require "free system memory."
This is the amount of free memory left available by your system,
Encarta, and any other applications you might be running.  This "free
system memory" can be used by QuickTime and certain other multimedia
aspects of Encarta.  Encarta may require as much as 400K of free system
memory, depending on your system configuration and your use of Encarta.
You can determine the amount of free system memory available while
running Encarta by switching to the Finder, and selecting the "About
this Macintosh" item under the Apple menu. "Largest Unused Block"
tells you how much memory is free for the system's use.

SOLUTION:

Close other open applications, including the InterActivities, the
Animation Launcher, and the MindMaze game, if they are running.

Decrease the "Preferred Memory" for Encarta. To change this program
setting, Quit Encarta '95 if it is running, click the Encarta '95
application icon then choose "Get Info" from the File menu. In the
section titled "Memory Requirements," change the Preferred size from
4200K to 3500K. You should only make this change if you are sure you are
not running other applications when you get the error message.

Turn on Virtual Memory.  See instructions above in section 2a.

Refer to the section "ADVICE FOR COMMON CONFIGURATIONS" above for advice
on configuring up your system.

Refer to symptoms and solutions below for specific problems.

Symptom: Problems Enlarging Images
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When enlarging an image, I get an empty box or an error message
regarding the loading of the image.

REASON:

A single image needs up to 300K of memory to display in 256 color mode
and 900K in Thousands of colors. If the enlarged image also has sound
that plays with it, even more memory is required.

SOLUTION:

Close other open applications, including the InterActivities, the
Animation Launcher, and the MindMaze game, if they are running.

Close any list boxes you may have open (such as Related Articles,
Outline, Pinpointer).

Switch to 256 Colors if you are running in Thousands or Millions.

Restart Encarta.

Symptom: Problems Printing Topics
---------------------------------

When printing topics, pages are blank or not all of the topic is
printed.

REASON:

Printing topics requires creating a duplicate layout for the printer,
since it has different margins than the screen. Some of the longest
articles in Encarta are thousands of words long. Having two copies of
a long article in memory at the same time can use up all of the
available memory.

SOLUTION:

Close other open applications, including the InterActivities, the
Animation Launcher, and the MindMaze game, if they are running.

Close any list boxes you may have open (such as Related Articles,
Outline, Pinpointer).

Switch to 256 Colors if you are running in Thousands or Millions.

Copy the topic to your word-processing program and print it from there.

Restart Encarta and try to print again.

Install LaserWriter 8.2.2. See the Encarta Readme document section on
printing problems for instructions on how to install this from your
Encarta '95 CD.

Symptom: Problems Printing Images
---------------------------------

When printing photos, the output is garbled.

REASON:

As with printing topics, printing a photo requires creating a duplicate
copy of the image on the screen. Two versions of a large photo can
consume all of the available memory.

SOLUTION:

Close other open applications, including the InterActivities, the
Animation Launcher, and the MindMaze game, if they are running.

Close any list boxes you may have open (such as Related Articles,
Outline, Pinpointer).

Switch to 256 Colors if you are running in Thousands or Millions.

Copy the topic to a paint or word-processing program and print it from
there.

Restart Encarta and try to print again.

Install LaserWriter 8.2.2.  See the Encarta Readme document section on
printing problems for instructions on how to install this from your
Encarta '95 CD.

Symptom: Not Enough Memory to Run Mini-applications
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InterActivities, the Animation Launcher, the MindMaze, or my word
processor cannot be launched.  I get an error message that starts with
"There is not enough memory to start this program."

REASON:

While everything inside Encarta may have enough memory to run, there
may not be enough memory available to launch a mini-application.

SOLUTION:

Close other open applications.

Run mini-application outside of Encarta by quitting Encarta and other
open applications, and double clicking on a program alias within the
InterActivities folder that is in your Encarta '95 folder on your hard
drive.

Turn on Virtual Memory to make more memory available to run
applications.  This will slow Encarta's performance, you may prefer to
simply run the applications outside of Encarta as described above.

Symptom: Sounds Do Not Play
---------------------------

When I click on the play button on a sound media item, I do not hear
any sound.

REASON:

If your Sound control panel is set correctly, it is possible that you
do not have enough memory for sounds to load.

SOLUTION:

Close other open applications, including the InterActivities, the
Animation Launcher, and the MindMaze game, if they are running.

Close any list boxes you may have open (such as Related Articles,
Outline, Pinpointer).

Switch to 256 Colors if you are running in Thousands or Millions.

Restart Encarta.

Try re-installing the QuickTime and Sound Manager extensions. You can
copy these files from the System Files folder in the Installer Files
folder on your Encarta '95 CD, to your Extensions folder in your System
Folder on your hard drive.

Symptom: Fonts are Not Loading
------------------------------

I see the wrong characters in article text.

REASON:

Encarta uses a variety of fonts to display special characters within
article text.  If there is not enough memory to load one of these
fonts, the Macintosh uses "font substitution" to attempt a "best fit"
from a font that is already available in memory.

SOLUTION:

Close other open applications, including the InterActivities, the
Animation Launcher, and the MindMaze game, if they are running.

Close any list boxes you may have open (such as Related Articles,
Outline, Pinpointer).

Switch to 256 Colors if you are running in Thousands or Millions.

Restart Encarta.