[Tihiy]

GDI Heap Extender is a technology aimed to improve Windows 98/Me system capability to load more programs and run more stable by extending available GDI resources.

Alpha 1-5 apply extender technologies now only to one type of GDI resource - DIB bitmap, which is most common heavy resource.
Beta 1-2 covers all bitmaps and thus saves more resources.
Eventually, this technology will be included into Revolutions Pack.

Beta (meaning - untested) version is aimed to ensure:
- This technology will work on all systems and all file versions.
- This technology is applicable to real systems.
- This technology does not introduce problems with performance and stability.

So, you can help me much by testing it.

What you shouldn't see:
- Crashes, BSODs and lockups.
- Graphical glitches.
- Resource leaks.

Be aware:
- Any crash would be fatal, and any error during initialization will lock up your system.

Download:
http://tihiy.ahanix.org/rpXbeta2.zip
Beta 2 installs on top of latest RP9 (RP9.1.0) and replaces existing RP9 "GDI Salvation" techologies.
Extract zip somewhere, right-click on .inf file and select "Install".

Also:
Please don't duplicate error messages. Please don't redistribute. Please read this thread.

This post has been edited by Tihiy: 27 August 2009 - 01:40 PM

[Tihiy]

here be dragons

[Fredledingue]

Just one question, sir:
Which software do you suggest to use while testing? "Bitmap" sounds like graphic softwares should run during the test, isn't it?

[Tihiy]

Well, it's recommended for problematic software.

Let's make table with problematic soft in this post then!

Opera 9.6
Uses a lot of GDI resources with web pages and itself. Opening a lot of tabs may drop resources below 40%.
Alpha 1: +500% improvement.

ImgBurn 2.4.x
Uses a lot of resources by itself. (1/3 of all system).
Alpha 1: +100% improvement.

Flash 9+
May leak GDI resources with problematic web pages.
Alpha 1: not tested.

Foxit Reader 2-3
Leaks a lot of GDI resources. Extremely unstable.
Alpha 1: not helping.

SolSuite 2008
Uses a lot of GDI resources. May consume all available resources.
Alpha 1: not helping.

[eidenk]

Cool, I'll be testing this ASAP.

I'll report promptly all the many bugs I will find of course

[eidenk]

I think you can be proud

First time I did run the loader it crashed in kernel32 but the dll was injected properly nevertheless it seems and then suddenly Opera was horribly garbled and full of graphic glitches. I thought OMG and I closed Opera. The rest of the system seemed fine so I launched Opera again and it was all fine apparently. Then I opened more than 50 tabs with a different webpage each and free GDI resources dropped from 84% to 66%, no glitches or errors, everything OK. I saved the session and rebooted to compare the GDI drop of that session without the expander. Without the expander free GDI resources dropped from 84% to 35%. Subsequent loading of the expander went without error this time and reloading the 50+ tab session resulted in the same drop (84 to 66) as the initial test. Stability of the OS does not seem affected at all. I'll leave it always on from now and report if an eventual problem shows up.

Great job dude

[EyesOfARaven]

Here are my notes while testing, copypasted from a notepad session:

 
22 firefox tabs with firefox start up no problem at 84% gdi/user and 89% system free, resources freed afterwards too

iexplore.exe caused a GPF in krnl386.exe 0001:000058ba

after loading youtube.com, ie6sp1, flash 9

rebooting after that crash, startrpx caused an illegal operation, invalid page fault in kernel32.dll at 0187:bff7ce0

attempting to start startrpx by hand (i put it in the run key) results in "FAIL! Not mov and sub but 7f00809a there"

The system then crashed, aside from cursor movement.

Removing it from the run key on next stable startup and reinstalling RP9, as this seems to unstable on my system for daily testing.

My system:

P3 1ghz
512mb ram (510-11 seen by windows due to onboard graphics I dont use)
64mb geforce 4 440 mx pci
750gb fat32 single partition ide disk on promise 133tx2 ide controller pci
windows 98 se sp3 2 me w/ multiple TSRs loaded high and a custom memory management setup (if you want I'll post autoexec and config and msdos files) 

Correction, I will be leaving it installed, after the next reboot I was able to use the system normally, iexplore caused a crash due to the DIBENG.DLL udpate from RP9 which i did NOT uninstall, a GPF at 0005:00003f2f

ddhelp then did illegal operation of an invalid page fault in GDI.EXE at 0001:000073b0

No other ill effects from that crash. I will stop using IE6 for the remainder of the testing, as the other browsers should be more stable and capable now anyway.

Edit 2: EVERYTHING is crashing due to dibeng.dll, you really should have warned us about that component specifically, as it isn't uninstalled with RP9. I will try to remove it (if I can)...

Edit 3: Correction again, DIBENG.dll crashing seems to have only happened during that bootup, this is very odd. I will still attempt to remove the update to avoid further issue.

Edit 4: Renaming dibeng.dll causes issues with explorer and apparently my color levels, I will try to expand one from a cab..

This post has been edited by EyesOfARaven: 19 July 2009 - 02:49 PM

[eidenk]

EyesOfaRaven I don't want to be a prick and we appreciate your willingness to help by testing and reporting bugs but you have a running thread that you have just opened yesterday or the day before because your system regularly crashes in all corners, notably IE...

[EyesOfARaven]

eidenk, on Jul 19 2009, 04:57 PM, said:

EyesOfaRaven I don't want to be a prick and we appreciate your willingness to help by testing and reporting bugs but you have a running thread that you have just opened yesterday or the day before because your system regularly crashes in all corners, notably IE...

Yes but those have been almost completely resolved when I removed emm386 (still crashes after a few hours of browsing), and these are completely different, starting the second I browsed to youtube.

Replacing the dibeng.dll from the cab (win98_22 I believe it was) fixed the dibeng problems.

HOLY CRAP: This alpha version fixed the lag in flash for me using flash 10 on firefox 2! Excellent!

Edit: (cept full screen, but it IS faster) same for flash 9, I just tested.

This post has been edited by EyesOfARaven: 19 July 2009 - 03:18 PM

[Tihiy]

Hey hey hey, EyesOfARaven, slow down.
Dibeng.dll crashes are possible and i'm looking for it, however from your dump i can't see a thing clearly.
It's no use replacing dibeng.dll since it's not related. You should uninstall/disable RP9 for test, however.

If you're seeing dibeng.dll problems (AFTER starting heap extender) use drwatson and attach its log to the post.

From your log it's all sorts of problems. Please tell me:
- what is happening after you run startrpx (better don't put it into run key)
- which gdi.exe version/language is
- which app causes problems for ya

Edit: oh, i've reproduced IE/youtube/flash crash. Well, show must go on...

This post has been edited by Tihiy: 19 July 2009 - 04:08 PM

[EyesOfARaven]

IE6SP1 causes problems, I believe it's when it hits flash content loading.

GDI.EXE is version 4.90.3002

After changing DIBENG.DLL back to stock, and not touching IE, and with some luck (one reboot crashed when rpxstart ran, no others have) it is working fine now.

And aye, the IE6 crash is pretty reproducable, I'm just going to avoid IE until we get a new testing version from ya, as the performance increase for the rest of the system is too nice to trade out, heh.

I'll reboot with drwatson in the start key and the patched dibeng, and see if I can get you a log. It was crashing almost everything, and I've had no issues with the DIBENG update PRE-RP10 alpha.

This post has been edited by EyesOfARaven: 19 July 2009 - 04:02 PM

[Philco]

Quote

...adding line in win.ini section [windows]

[windows]
GDIMaxHeapSize=2048
(value in KB)

I would think of values like:
<128MB of RAM: 4096 (4MB)
128-256MB of RAM: 8192 (8MB)
256-512MB of RAM: 16384 (16MB)
>512MB of RAM: 32000 (~32MB, maximum value you can set).

Quote

you can also go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/ and create the string value USERMaxHeapSize...

Pls, Tihiy result:
GDIMaxHeapSize=32000 (my RAM 768MB) on win.ini?

And reg (dencorso) tips VALUE?

Or you GDI Heap load this value on system?

[EyesOfARaven]

Those two tweaks affect the 32-bit heaps, while Tihiy's program (AFAIK) only messes with the 16-bit heaps.

Edit: I closed DrWatson, not thinking the crashes were going to happen after testing for a while, and then IE crashes the second I close it. I open DrWatson, click close on the box, and it catches the subsequent crash (same ones I mentioned earlier with dibeng). I then tried to run IE again with DrWatson running and DrWatson disappeared, I tried to run it again, no go, I tried to run IE again, and it brought up the white error box with close/ignore about horrible problems, and the system locked when I hit close.

One way to reproduce the DIBENG crash of IE is to navigate to http://www.microangelo.us/welcomet.asp and then click "enter"..

Here's the watson log for GDI.EXE crashing after IE crashed from DIBENG:
http://www.mediafire.com/?wjjwzqmm2nu

I'm posting a watson log of IE crashing due to DIBENG and then explorer crashing shortly after while trying to copy the log for IE shortly after (then the system crashed with blue screen and I rebooted).

IE Log:
http://www.mediafire.com/?jnnyjjgb4qj

Explorer Log:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tq5m5iywk4d

This post has been edited by EyesOfARaven: 19 July 2009 - 04:38 PM

[Philco]

After loading startrpx.exe
+ Firefox 2.0.22.0pre - system resources down 7% with 25 tabs
- crash IE 6.1 czech (with FlashPlayer 9.0.28.0) on start browser and page with any flash swf (GDI.EXE) and restart (freeze system and error messages....), crash explorer. How off this features on IE/Flash? Problem on FlashPlayer for IE.
Foxit 2.3 (3309) tested, not problem, not effect.

This post has been edited by Philco: 19 July 2009 - 06:00 PM

[EyesOfARaven]

Philco, on Jul 19 2009, 07:12 PM, said:

After loading startrpx.exe
+ Firefox 2.0.22.0pre - system resources down 7% with 25 tabs
- crash IE 6.1 czech (with FlashPlayer 9.0.28.0) on start browser and page with any flash swf (GDI.EXE) and restart (freeze system and error messages....), crash explorer. How off this features on IE/Flash?
Foxit 2.3 (3309) tested, not problem, not effect.

I don't think this is the sort of program you can pick and choose what it effects. I recommend if you want to continue using the alpha, you stick to your Firefox until then.

[Philco]

EyesOfARaven, on Jul 19 2009, 04:16 PM, said:

...One way to reproduce the DIBENG crash of IE is to navigate to http://www.microangelo.us/welcomet.asp and then click "enter"..
...

You try http://web.3zscv.cz/...odiny/clock.swf - error on IE: flashplayer for IE, not "click enter".
dibeng.dll (4.10.1998) and any files in my system (czech windows 98 SE) original - GDI.exe 4.10.2225 (system without RP).

This post has been edited by Philco: 19 July 2009 - 06:20 PM

[EyesOfARaven]

I played StarCraft for a few hours, all worked fine, and I started to notice REALLY wierd graphical glitches afterwards. My guess is that the program is reclaiming GDI/USER resources from explorer since it determines them to not be in use while the game is up, and then they are just magically missing cuz explorer doesn't understand that they're gone or how to put them back.

I took quite a few screenshots for you to troubleshoot with:
http://rapidshare.de...ilures.rar.html

[supem]

here are my test results

1. Spybot updater (1.62) couldn't work before GDI_HE loosing ~50% GDI resources (WATSON_sb.WLG).
With GDI Heap Extender on GDI resources increases about 5-7% and SPYBOT and its updater works loosing 26-34% GDI resources.

2. WINAMP crashes (dibeng.dll) (WATSON_wa.WLG)

http://rapidshare.de.../watson.7z.html

[EyesOfARaven]

Played a long game of SC again and didn't have any missing bitmap issues in explorer like last time. Don't know. No other problem/issues yet.

Networking went wonky for a bit afterwards, but I think it was unrelated. Release/renew and running Opera fixed it. (Yes, running Opera helped - don't ask me why, but FF and IE didn't work after the renew until AFTER I ran Opera)

Edit: spoke a bit too soon, the 98 logo is missing from the start menu now like before. I'm going to reboot - documenting the same problem isn't going to help.

On the bright side, about 10 hours of uptime with no instability (as long as I stayed away from IE, and I did, lol)

This post has been edited by EyesOfARaven: 20 July 2009 - 06:27 AM

[sp193]

Quote

QUOTE (EyesOfARaven @ Jul 19 2009, 04:16 PM) *
...One way to reproduce the DIBENG crash of IE is to navigate to http://www.microangelo.us/welcomet.asp and then click "enter"..
...

You try http://web.3zscv.cz/...odiny/clock.swf - error on IE: flashplayer for IE, not "click enter".
dibeng.dll (4.10.1998) and any files in my system (czech windows 98 SE) original - GDI.exe 4.10.2225 (system without RP).

EDIT: It crashed firefox (Which was also open viewing another page) after I closed IE after viewing the link(Strange?). Firefox caused an error in DIBENG.DLL, and that hung my computer....

This post has been edited by sp193: 21 July 2009 - 02:58 AM