RAM requirement of new Character Builder?

[Jools]

How much RAM does the new online CB need? My laptops got half a gig and it could run the old offline one without any problems. I've been trying out the new one with print to pdf utilities (cute pdf and PDFilter) and it literally takes an hour for a level one (!) character to finish saving. Anyone else facing the same problem? Just how much RAM does this thing take? What with it being a web page I was just assuming it would be less .

 

[Almacov]

Well, my computer has 4 gigs under the hood and it still runs like... well, it more writhes on the floor and prays it won't come to a complete crashing halt on the next click.
I can get somewhere with it, but it's slow and I have to be lucky.

I'm not sure how much of it is a RAM issue. It may be a factor, but I think there's a fair bit more at play.

 

[Jools]

Mine works pretty well on half a gig, I can't really complain. It does however seem to be using up ALL of my system resources. As a result, a print to pdf (using cute pdf or whatever) seems to have so few resources left available for it that it literally takes AN HOUR, instead of the 2 minutes it should take. Making the software all but useless as I don't have a printer.

 

[pclaw8]

Note: I am not a current subscriber to DDI, so I don't know for sure.

Here's my 2 cents on this, to use a web based tool, your ram should not be an issue. The speed problems come from internet bandwidth. Now printing to pdf is based on processor speed and ram. With only 512 in ram (and probably a mediocre processor) it is inevitably going to take quite a long time to print to pdf.

One thing you can do to try to speed it up is control-alt-delete task manager, processes, end all non critical tasks. This will free up ram and processor cycles. Hope this helps.

Sent from my Samsung GalaxyS

 

[Jools]

Thanks for the suggestions. It does appear as though its a burden on system resources from my end though. Print to pdf just takes a couple of minutes on the old CB or any other app. When I use it on the new one my system freezes up in that way they do when all the system resources are being used and I can't do anything else with the machine other than watch the megabytes of the pdf image go up in the print window painfully slowly. I've got it down to 15 minutes now, but thats still a mighty long time.

Edit: OK, I've figured it out now after reading some other threads. When you use print to pdf this new CB creates a huge 512mb image for conversion. My poor pc doesn't have the RAM to handle that! And no export/save option on this version either. Eesh.

 

[Oldtimer]

OK, I've figured it out now after reading some other threads. When you use print to pdf this new CB creates a huge 512mb image for conversion. My poor pc doesn't have the RAM to handle that! And no export/save option on this version either. Eesh.

It doesn't need RAM for that. It only needs space in the swapfile. You'll need to manually increase the size of the swapfile. With only 512MB of RAM to cache that, it will thrash the hard drive like mad, but you should be able to get your PDF eventually.