Re: Memory usage for gm.exe

On Fri, 4 Feb 2011, Frans Coetzee wrote:
>
> I'm using the gm-tools to convert pdf files to tiff files in batch and
> I've noticed that in some cases the memory usage for gm.exe increases to
> approximately 1.5 gigs. Is this normal or can the memory usage be
> pre-defined to a lower number?

The problem with using GM to read multi-page PDF files is that 
Ghostscript will convert all of the PDF files to PNM format temporary 
files and then GraphicsMagick will read those files before it writes 
anything.  This approach does not scale well.

As far as limiting memory goes, you should look into the -limit option 
as well as equivalent environment variables (MAGICK_LIMIT_MEMORY ).
See "http://www.graphicsmagick.org/GraphicsMagick.html#envi"

For example

   gm convert -limit memory 500mb infile.pdf outfile.tiff

Note that when the memory is limited, disk files are used to make up 
the difference.  These disk files may require a lot of temporary disk 
space.

Bob
-- 
Bob Friesenhahn
[email protected], http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/

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