Parring thrashes HD's like a mofo. When I manually repair or Par-verify a download while UE is writing on that drive too, it thrashes it even more and I can almost hear the metal chavings bounce on the platters.
Can you confirm that UE does this new trick it has up it's sleeve somewhat more intelligent? I.e. when UE is repairing/verifying a download, does it halt the autosave cue momentarily untill the HD is not so busy anymore? (in my case, I use one physical HD for temp folder and another for writing the end files to it).
Having said that, how intelligent IS that new handy dandy feature really? If I select to pause the Par2 files download by default and the Par2 check finds it needs an X amount of blocks to fix it, will it allow those blocks to be downloaded anyway (which is the way it should be I think) or does it adhere strictly to the 'Pause Par2 files download' setting?
And the last part; sometimes parts of files turn up missing when at first not reported so, leaving the file 'pending' and waiting for that last part that will never come. This also would halt the automated process of fixing that specific download. Is there a way to tell UE that after an X amount of time to consider that part MIA and just save the partial so that the repair process can commence?
Thanks for your time and thanks for making UE, I really don't understand why all the competition hasn't just died yet in the face of such leeching excellence.
(your program IS a godssend, Newspro was great, but the adding of headers that went slower as the pile increased would have been a nightmare in this HD download age)
The natural order of the new things in v2.0
the implementation is a bit better than quick par as to disk usage, since it can repair files in place without creating new files which is possible in most cases, so it saves on average half on disk writes. computations probably take around the same time unless it is written on inefficient programming language, since it is just a simple mathematical matrix operation.
par2 verification is done on fly while saving attachments, so if the file is OK (most cases) the overhead is zero, otherwise it needs to rescan the file to look for valid data blocks which is inevitable in every scenario.
it doesn't save attachments and repair (or look for valid data blocks) in the same time, so if you save to another drive than UE database is located you shouldn't see anything exceptional.
how much RAM do you have? there is a setting in properties->save/unpack which defines the amount of memory repair can use, if you have not enough RAM, it will result in thrashing, the default I think is 100MB, if you put it to too little is not good as well since blocks may be splitted so more hard drive activitity will have place (processor usage with dividing matrix to size less than block is the same I think so it is only disk which will suffer). basically check in windows task manager whether you have enough free RAM when repair takes place.
also you don't like it repairing right away you can uncheck auto repair in properties->save/unpack, then check it when you need to process sets for repair, with unchecked option it will still scan files for valid blocks when they are damaged (I think) so you'll see whether the set is repairable.
but in short there is no more disk activity than using any other program and as to disk it should work better if files are repaired in place since half of blocks of damaged files are not moved and stays in place, although with my fragmented hard drives i couldn't make reliable tests to confirm it, i got very wild readings on repetative runs, i'm changing computer right now to one with bigger hard drives.
as to being intelligent, it is not important to be too exact. there is no connection with download limited volume of par2 files as well, no need in using that option if you use the program with unpack (at least "auto add") enabled.
what you need is first queue is better to be sorted by priority (by date it will work if files are posted recovery files after data files and see my remark in the end), then to mark to download the whole set.
if you do so, it will queue for download the zero par2 file first, then data files then rest of par2 files.
then in the moment when the par2 set is verified to be complete (there are no errors in the data files) or becomes repairable it will cancel the rest of par2 files which are being downloaded or being saved. so it won't wait until par2 file is saved to start downloading the next par2 file but rather it will cancel when it has enough data.
another strategy (just thought about it now) could be to pause the rest of par2 files as long as a single par2 file from the set has been downloaded so unpack pane has already connection to the download queue and unpause them when all input files have been downloaded, in principle i could add it as well later, then it would work when queue is sorted by date and par2 files are posted first (but usually i think they are posted in the end), as i have more user feedback the small adjustments are possible, it is already large chunk of core code and there is full control so many things can be added easily if there are requests.
par2 verification is done on fly while saving attachments, so if the file is OK (most cases) the overhead is zero, otherwise it needs to rescan the file to look for valid data blocks which is inevitable in every scenario.
it doesn't save attachments and repair (or look for valid data blocks) in the same time, so if you save to another drive than UE database is located you shouldn't see anything exceptional.
how much RAM do you have? there is a setting in properties->save/unpack which defines the amount of memory repair can use, if you have not enough RAM, it will result in thrashing, the default I think is 100MB, if you put it to too little is not good as well since blocks may be splitted so more hard drive activitity will have place (processor usage with dividing matrix to size less than block is the same I think so it is only disk which will suffer). basically check in windows task manager whether you have enough free RAM when repair takes place.
also you don't like it repairing right away you can uncheck auto repair in properties->save/unpack, then check it when you need to process sets for repair, with unchecked option it will still scan files for valid blocks when they are damaged (I think) so you'll see whether the set is repairable.
but in short there is no more disk activity than using any other program and as to disk it should work better if files are repaired in place since half of blocks of damaged files are not moved and stays in place, although with my fragmented hard drives i couldn't make reliable tests to confirm it, i got very wild readings on repetative runs, i'm changing computer right now to one with bigger hard drives.
as to being intelligent, it is not important to be too exact. there is no connection with download limited volume of par2 files as well, no need in using that option if you use the program with unpack (at least "auto add") enabled.
what you need is first queue is better to be sorted by priority (by date it will work if files are posted recovery files after data files and see my remark in the end), then to mark to download the whole set.
if you do so, it will queue for download the zero par2 file first, then data files then rest of par2 files.
then in the moment when the par2 set is verified to be complete (there are no errors in the data files) or becomes repairable it will cancel the rest of par2 files which are being downloaded or being saved. so it won't wait until par2 file is saved to start downloading the next par2 file but rather it will cancel when it has enough data.
another strategy (just thought about it now) could be to pause the rest of par2 files as long as a single par2 file from the set has been downloaded so unpack pane has already connection to the download queue and unpause them when all input files have been downloaded, in principle i could add it as well later, then it would work when queue is sorted by date and par2 files are posted first (but usually i think they are posted in the end), as i have more user feedback the small adjustments are possible, it is already large chunk of core code and there is full control so many things can be added easily if there are requests.
This is something I would like, as I prefer to sort the queue by date, and there are many posts that have the par files first.alex wrote:another strategy (just thought about it now) could be to pause the rest of par2 files as long as a single par2 file from the set has been downloaded so unpack pane has already connection to the download queue and unpause them when all input files have been downloaded, in principle i could add it as well later, then it would work when queue is sorted by date and par2 files are posted first (but usually i think they are posted in the end), as i have more user feedback the small adjustments are possible, it is already large chunk of core code and there is full control so many things can be added easily if there are requests.
jonib
My posting was more or less incomplete, I meant to say that Parring with Quickpar thrashes my harddrives like they were really really bad hard drives and needed to be punished.
So far I haven't been able to see if UE does it at all or not, I don't really get the comments and columns of the unpack pane yet.
So far I haven't been able to see if UE does it at all or not, I don't really get the comments and columns of the unpack pane yet.
Maybe all this fuss about unpacking isn't worth it.
I've been using AutoUnpack for quite some time, it works great in conjunction with Usenet Explorer.
http://www.see-and-be.com/AutoUnpack/index.php
As for thrashing hard drives, you're downloading junk and parsing it, if you think UE and QuickPar are bad, what do you think Windows is doing to it?
OTOH, if the inbuilt unpack feature handles rar files inside zip files.. as nothing else seems to..
I've been using AutoUnpack for quite some time, it works great in conjunction with Usenet Explorer.
http://www.see-and-be.com/AutoUnpack/index.php
As for thrashing hard drives, you're downloading junk and parsing it, if you think UE and QuickPar are bad, what do you think Windows is doing to it?
OTOH, if the inbuilt unpack feature handles rar files inside zip files.. as nothing else seems to..
I used to use it also, but I must say the feature in UE works a lot better.Cerebus wrote:Maybe all this fuss about unpacking isn't worth it.
I've been using AutoUnpack for quite some time, it works great in conjunction with Usenet Explorer.
Also, it has been some time since any development on AutoUnpack has been done, and I still did get the nasty unstoppable service-bug quit a lot.
No, the par&rar function in UE outperforms AutoUnpack in almost every way.
I hardly ever have to look at "intermediate" par and rar-files anymore
Dutch? Visit the Dutch UE/Newspro forum at: http://www.binaries4all.nl
Nederlandse UE handleiding op http://www.binaries4all.nl/ue
English UE tutorial online at http://www.binaries4all.com/ue/
Handy links at: http://jpfx.zapto.org/
Nederlandse UE handleiding op http://www.binaries4all.nl/ue
English UE tutorial online at http://www.binaries4all.com/ue/
Handy links at: http://jpfx.zapto.org/
For a while I have been looking for an Unpack type program, that would automatically test and repair and sometimes unrar, but almost all of them wanted to unrar always so they ware no good, I belive I found some that did have optional unrar but they always had other problem making them useless for me.
And using Quickpar and winrar wasn't the end of the world, just a hassle, when downloading several things att the same time, as you need to wait for the par files to start downloading before running Quickpar, and if I need to repair several downloads I would have to repair them one at the time or they would take forever.
And now with the unpack feature integrated in UE almost everything gets done automatically, and I can decide what is done automatically, like unrar and joining of split files. I absolutely love it, great work Alex.
Before UEs unpack feature I used to download to a temporary directory, and when the downloads ware tested and repaired I moved them to a more permanent place, why? because sometime I missed to test a download and much later when I wanted to use/watch it there ware errors, and if I didn't download enough par files the files ware useless, now that UE does the work for me I can put the stuff ware they belong directly.
jonib
And using Quickpar and winrar wasn't the end of the world, just a hassle, when downloading several things att the same time, as you need to wait for the par files to start downloading before running Quickpar, and if I need to repair several downloads I would have to repair them one at the time or they would take forever.
And now with the unpack feature integrated in UE almost everything gets done automatically, and I can decide what is done automatically, like unrar and joining of split files. I absolutely love it, great work Alex.
Before UEs unpack feature I used to download to a temporary directory, and when the downloads ware tested and repaired I moved them to a more permanent place, why? because sometime I missed to test a download and much later when I wanted to use/watch it there ware errors, and if I didn't download enough par files the files ware useless, now that UE does the work for me I can put the stuff ware they belong directly.
jonib
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MilesAhead
- Posts: 26
- Joined: Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:52 pm
going along oblivious with 1997
Until a few days ago I was minding my own business using 1997 unaware 2.0 was out. I downloaded and installed and I really liked the fact that I didn't have to do anything for the automatic unrar to work.
Also I notice on my dual core machine I actually get a tad more throughput with Giganews. Not a whole bunch but it's nice to have this update that does all the stuff for you without sacrificing performance.
So far everything I've experienced with the new version has been positive!
Also I notice on my dual core machine I actually get a tad more throughput with Giganews. Not a whole bunch but it's nice to have this update that does all the stuff for you without sacrificing performance.
So far everything I've experienced with the new version has been positive!
Yes, I find the new version extremely positive in all respects. It is really looking great......
Now, Alex; Could you see if you have time to look at the 'automatic add collection to the 'watch' filter' E.G. When I select a collection for download/save and it is not complete, go ahead and download any matching collection files automatically?
Everything needed should be in place code wise, just need an implementation of it somehow.
Thanks Alex, I really appreciate your work on UE...
Hal
Now, Alex;
Could you see if you have time to look at the 'automatic add collection to the 'watch' filter' E.G. When I select a collection for download/save and it is not complete, go ahead and download any matching collection files automatically?Everything needed should be in place code wise, just need an implementation of it somehow.
Thanks Alex, I really appreciate your work on UE...
Hal