Slow start in Windows

[The waiter]

I suggested this great app to my colleague. He is actually happy but when he needs from time to time to use it, the first start is enough slow under Windows. I use Linux and I have it almost instantly on my desktop. I checked it at my office in 2 core CPU with Win, and yes he is right. It is slow. Is here some possibility to improve first start speed? I know about only solution now. Switch to Linux from Windows:)

[Tvangeste]

I use GoldenDict in portable mode, and both the Goldendict and all its dictionaries are installed on a fast SSD drive. This speeds up the cold start significantly for me.

[ikm]

Slow starts are usually the case when there are a *lot* of files within the specified dictionary paths. A common problem is when one puts all dictionary resources in the same folder as the dictionary itself. GD has to go through all of them when it starts.

[The waiter]

Under Linux I have one folder "GD dicts" and under them more subfolders with dictionaries. I have no problem with the speed. So, what do you recommend under Windows? More paths to different dictionary folders?

[ikm]

I recommend either zipping all dsl resources or putting them into a <dictname>.dsl.files/ subdirectory.

[The waiter]

I have all dicts zipped by dictzip. Its still slow. I will play with portable version and let you know

[ikm]

I'm not talking about the dictionaries themselves, but about their resources - additional files like .wav, .jpg etc referenced from within them.

[Tvangeste]

Here's my situation: I have about 120 dictionaries installed. Some are big, some are medium-size. Indexes take about 600Mb. On a regular HDD drive, it takes about 15-20 seconds for the GoldenDict to start-up for the first time (cold start). Restarts are very fast, fully closing and the starting Goldendict again takes less than a second.

This shows that the hard disk is a bottleneck. Starting from the SDD disks is much, much faster though.

[The waiter]

Hmm, I have cca 10 dictionaries but without any wav or jpeg. I have just Stardict or dsl.dz structures. As I said in Windows it takes more time (cca 10 secs at first run after boot) but under Linux it is just 1 sec. Maybe it is related to GTK or QT4 libraries which are better impelemented in Linux and ported in Windows. But you are developers, you should know...

[Tvangeste]

The waiter, hmm, something is not right in your case. For just 10 dictionaries, the startup should be pretty fast, even on Windows.

Please check that your dictionary path setting is correct and doesn't include folders with deep nested sub-folders or something like that (for example, folders with huge about of various files).

Ideally, all 10 dictionaries should be placed in a single folder, and that folder should be set in the dictionary path settings, without recursion into sub-folders. This should be the fastest way.