Why does Logos 4 have extreme computer requirements?

Maybe you could post your computer specs so someone can help?

HerbertJRader said:

I have a computer which I still use for video editing with Avid Liquid. Logos 4 will not work on this computer. How is it possible that the requirements for Logos 4 are greater than those of a professional video editing program? It seems like something is not being done right on the programming end to require such a recent computer to run this type of program.

Any thoughts?

Logos's philosophy has long been to build their product to expect and take advantage of a high-end computer so that they can push the envelope in terms of features and still be ahead of the curve with respect to their competitors years from now. I'm sure they could be more efficient with computing power even with all the great features and speed they've got. Sometimes expecting the highest end computer one possibly could just makes programmers lazy. On the other hand, it does take more time to develop faster software that will run well on less powerful machines, and I think Logos believes that their time and energy is better spent developing more features and bringing more resources out and getting them to us sooner rather than later.

RobertGMettler said:

At the danger of making the product elitist.

 

So? What's wrong with being elitist? You should read In Defense of Elitism by William A. Henry.[;)]

There are plenty of free Bible software products available for those who don't have a machine that can handle Logos. Someone in another thread was recently recommending http://www.theword.gr. There's also ebible.com, etc. Being able to study the Bible in the original languages and do all kinds of cool things like morphology analysis charts and the like isn't for the masses.

Rosie Perera said:

Logos's philosophy has long been to build their product to expect and take advantage of a high-end computer so that they can push the envelope in terms of features and still be ahead of the curve with respect to their competitors years from now. I'm sure they could be more efficient with computing power even with all the great features and speed they've got. Sometimes expecting the highest end computer one possibly could just makes programmers lazy. On the other hand, it does take more time to develop faster software that will run well on less powerful machines, and I think Logos believes that their time and energy is better spent developing more features and bringing more resources out and getting them to us sooner rather than later.

While I do agree with you Rosie, I see Herbert's side of this issue too.  To be honest, I still don't think that L4 is very efficient.  I've heard it blamed on Microsoft's WPF, but like Herbert with video editing, I have very advanced audio editing software in my recording software that uses WPF and it doesn't experience the lags that L4 does even while it does (at least what I think is) much more on the processing end.  I love the advanced features of L4 but I also think it should be smoother and more efficient.  Let's not forget that L3 had much of the same features of L4 and it ran much more efficiently (with the possible exception of searching).  Also, let's not forget that Logos toughts this program as being powerful yet easy.  That suggests they want it to be usable by everyone.  It's not just for original language study (although that is probably my favorite thing to do with it). 

This was in no way meant to be a flame to you.  You've been helpful to me and to others on this thread and I appreciate that.  I'm just suggesting that we try to look at the other point of view too.  If L4 is to keep growing in features, it is important to get a handle on efficiency with the features it runs now.  We all now how bad the notes function performs.  It would be nice if it were cutting edge in all respects.

Elitist?

I'm running L4 on a 7 year old machine with acceptable performance.

Rosie Perera said:

Being able to study the Bible in the original languages and do all kinds of cool things like morphology analysis charts and the like isn't for the masses.

Caution sister. Logos has been advertising that with their new interface, they hope to reach the average person. Those who don't know Greek and Hebrew. Even their new Video series (still in pre-pub) is advertised even for those who don't know original languages.

i am guessing this was just a slip of passion. Terry's reply about the Church not wanting the common people to be able to read the Bible was exactly what i was thinking about when i read your post. Many died to bring us translations we common people could read. Please don't take this as an attack on you. It just seemed so uncharacteristic of what i have read in your other posts here on the forum.

Peace in Christ sister

Terry and Douglas, I'm very sorry if I offended you. I did put a winky smiley in there, but I guess that didn't quite do the trick. Anyway, I sympathize with Herbert's complaints; was just trying to be light-hearted about it and forgot to include any corroboration of his general sense of frustration. Those of you who know my posts from other threads know that I share it. I'm sorry, Herbert, about being a bit flippant with someone I didn't know yet from other interactions on the Forum.

You are right, it is an awful lot of machine to expect for Bible study, even in-depth study that the "masses" might not be interested in. I wasn't meaning to defend their decision to target higher-end machines, I was just explaining that I know that's their philosophy from having heard it directly from Bob Pritchett.

And Terry, you've got to admit that morphology analysis charts are for total Bible geeks, not for Josephine average home Bible study leader. Even I haven't delved into them yet (they are new in 4.0a and I've been too busy answering questions on the Forum) and I've taken a year of Biblical Hebrew and am a total computer geek and have a pretty fast CPU. I'm not by any means suggesting that the Word of God and resources to aid in understanding it shouldn't be available to everyone. But some of the powerful stuff that Logos can do does require more computing power than every single faithful student of the Bible will necessarily have. Maybe they should sell it as a two-tiered product with a simplified version that isn't quite as power hungry for people who have the packages that are geared towards home study. But then there would need to be an upgrade path for that to the higher-powered version as well... Ah, so complicated.

Finally, to all, yes I think the Logos programmers could do better at making the product more efficient so it wouldn't require such mongo computing resources, but I have to be careful about slamming them here in this public forum because some of them are my friends... ;-)

Rosie Perera said:

Terry and Douglas, I'm very sorry if I offended you

You did not offend me, shock me a little, but definitely not offend.

Rosie Perera said:

And Terry, you've got to admit that morphology analysis charts are for total Bible geeks, not for Josephine average home Bible study le

Absolutely. But sometimes I think we expect too little from the masses. [:D] I am no longer a pastor, God in his infinite mercy has seen fit to allow me to not participate in church leadership at all right now. Yet, I hold myself to the same standards of Study that I did when I was behind the pulpit (and before), and frankly it drives me crazy when my denomination treats it's members like children giving them a watered down lessons on the Word because they can't handle anything else.

Terry Poperszky said:

Absolutely. But sometimes I think we expect too little from the masses. I am no longer a pastor, God in his infinite mercy has seen fit to allow me to not participate in church leadership at all right now. Yet, I hold myself to the same standards of Study that I did when I was behind the pulpit (and before), and frankly it drives me crazy

....

Damian McGrath said:

 

i'm not sure why people are reacting to this. Surely studying the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek is not for the masses.

What's the problem....?

Damian, it is a visceral reaction on my part. I can imagine ti coming from the mouth of a Pharisee, but for the life of my me I can't imagine ti coming from the lips of the Lord. I do not believe that it accurately represents Rosie's heart or beliefs (Based on the reading of her posts). I personally believe that the masses have much more potential, then many give them credit for.

I think it's probably a case of you having a backstory about this particular issue, and my comments -- which were in no way intended to imply that laypeople can't be trusted with a high level of biblical learning -- pushed some button in you.

Maybe it would help you to know that:

(a) I consider myself a layperson; I have no MDiv and am not an ordained pastor and don't feel called to become one -- I preach once in a while at a lay-run congregation, but that's the only "pastoral" identity I have. Most of what I do in my life is not with a pastor's hat on at all.
(b) I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't been an extremely interested and curious member of the "masses" who had a pastor who taught us Greek and Hebrew words and did not feed us milk but solid meat, for which I am very grateful
(c) I strongly believe in the theological education of the whole people of God, that there should be no lay/clergy divide in learning or acts of service; I pursued theological education at Regent College for my own personal curiosity and spiritual growth, not to become a minister. Regent stands for that very principle perhaps above almost any other characteristic that sets its training apart from other seminaries (they used to call themselves the "un-seminary" in their marketing materials for that reason). At Regent there are lay people training alongside those who are planning to go into the ministry -- because Regent strongly believes that all work is approved by God and is "full-time Christian service." In fact it grants far more of the non-MDiv degrees and diplomas than it does MDivs. And a large perecentage of its graduates go back to their "secular" work for which they trained in undergrad, or into Christian environmental conservation or business or the arts or parenting or whatever. Not all become pastors or missionaries by a long shot.

So anyway, I was not saying anything that should have shocked you, because I totally agree with where you're coming from. I was being a bit of a smart-ass about the computing power requirements of Logos, that's all. And again I'm sorry if that was inappropriate or took you off guard or sounded like it was coming from a Pharisee. I was JOKING about the elitism comment. I did put a smiley.

Nevertheless, I do still think that there will be plenty of prospective users who look at Logos and say "yawn -- I don't want all that grammar/syntax/tense/voice/mood stuff; I don't know what it means." It doesn't mean they aren't capable of learning what it means. I'm sure if there's a desire, there is usually a capacity to learn -- for anybody. I would never be in favor of keeping information away from people who want to learn. (Drawing the parallel between what I had said and the laity being kept from reading the Word of God was unfair since I said nothing about keeping people away.) It is simply the case that a large percentage of people of faith don't care to learn all that Greek and Hebrew grammar stuff. They have other priorities. It does take time, and much of it is explained already by commentators who have already done the work of understanding the original languages, so most people won't want to learn how to do that themselves. It's an observation, not a value judgement against them. Just because I chose not to become a rocket scientist or a botanist doesn't mean I couldn't have if I'd wanted to. I just chose to leave that to other people who really were interested in those things. That doesn't mean that there isn't still TONS of good stuff in Logos that will be of value to people who don't have any interest in the original biblical languages. There's lots of meaty stuff there in English -- enough to fulfill the curiosity of the eagerest of souls. And you're right that Logos markets to average users and wants to encourage more of them to find out more about the Greek and Hebrew words underlying the text, which they definitely can without being Greek geeks. And I think that's totally cool!  But I will never accept the notion that everyone is equal when it comes to skills and talents and abilities and interests. The idea that people with a "big fat resume" or an "elite" education are to be scorned is something that has been popularized recently by certain politicians who shall remain nameless, but I think it's nonsense. Everyone should have equal access to that education, but not everyone will want to take advantage of it, and some who scorn it will be the lesser for doing so. Those who choose a different but equally noble path as laborers in the vineyard are not the lesser for not having the fancy education; the only losers are those who scorn such education because it is "elitist."

I'm sorry to hear your denomination treats its members like children. Maybe you should consider switching to mine.[;)]  -- Again, big fat smiley! OK? Are we still friends?

Peter McClellan said:

I would love to hear your guys' opinion on this issue of quality verses price among all of the serious Bible Programs.

Since this is the Logos Bible Software Forums, I don't think you're going to get an unbiased answer here, unfortunately. There are blogs that review and compare the various programs, and some of those blogs are even written by people who participate heavily here, but I doubt they are going to feel at liberty to speak openly about the pros and cons of Logos vs. its competitors here on the Logos forum. If I were you I'd do a Google search on Logos + the names of a couple of the other products you're wanting to compare it with and also throw in such search terms and "review" or "comparison" and see what you come up with. I'm afraid I can't be much help to you anyway since I haven't used any other Bible software besides Logos since I switched to it in 1992 from whatever DOS program was the going thing back then (I don't think it exists anymore, though it might have morphed into the current BibleWorks) and haven't looked back. The only other things I can compare it to are some websites (biblegateway.com, etc.) which I tried out for a while for quick lookup of a verse here or there when I felt it took too long to launch Logos just for that purpose. But now that I keep Logos running on my desktop all the time, and I do much more with it than just using it as a glorified concordance, that's a moot point.

I've been struggling with my computer's resources ever since I downloaded V4.  I have an adequate computer at work, but my computer at home is a six year old HP and it just didn't cut it. Also, I downloaded to a WD External hard drive and it seemed to work out pretty well.

Today, however, I finally broke down and bought a new Laptop.  I took the Logos spec sheet with me because I was determined to get a computer that would maximize the program.  I was quite happy to find an HP laptop on sale at Office Depot that met all Logos'  recommended specs.  I hadn't bought a computer in a long time and I was surprised how much the prices had fallen since my last purchase.

My download is almost complete and I'm very anxious to see how it works with the specs they recommend.

Jim

PS   I'll try to post back after I've had time to evaluate it.

Peter McClellan said:

I dont typically get on this forum and participate but I wanted to ask you guys a question?  I dont have any of Logos' Major Programs like Scholars, or Silver,or Gold.  I do have some commentaries though that work off of Logos' Interface.  I'm shopping for a comprehensive Bible Program that will be able to handle both Original Languages and regular commentary study.  I'm a Pastor and I believe that Study and Preparation are extremely important, however I've been very troubled with the options available.  If I may ask you guys a question, do you think that Logos' Software is worth the price in comparison to say BibleWorks?  I know that you don't get any commentaries with Bibleworks but its highly acclaimed and sooo much cheaper.  When I was examining the Scholars Edition I was amazed at the lack of good commentaries and yet the high price.  Also, the searching seemed fairly slow on my 1.3 gig Single Core CULV intel processor on my laptop.  I have also used BibleSoft Pro Edition and it gave you a lot more resources for the money, its just that the Original languages were not as solid as BibleWorks and Logos.  I've also heard really good things about Accordance which works off of Apple but can be used on a PC with an Emulator.  I would love to hear your guys' opinion on this issue of quality verses price among all of the serious Bible Programs.  Thanks for your time everybody.  

 

 

Hi Peter,

I use both Logos and BibleWorks.  You can too.

If you want commentaries to purchase and search, you'll need Logos.  I do not happen to use commentaries at all in preparing Bible studies, but Logos has works like Bullinger's Figures of Speech that I make use of regularly.  For my original language work BibleWorks has always trumped Logos, although Logos is now offering databases that you can syntax search.  I have more flexibility in BibleWorks for the morphological searches though.  BibleWorks also allows you to create and tag your own Bibles, if you are into that (I am) and also has the facilities to add on user created works, of which there is an extensive availability of free public domain works that you do not need a PBB utility to make or use.  BibleWorks is more "open".

If I were you, I'd use both.  You can link to Logos from within BibleWorks.  BibleWorks is programmed in such a way that is will be more responsive on your hardware - or any hardware for that matter.

If you already have Logos then get BibleWorks.  You can order it and I believe they give you a couple of months to test drive it and if you do not like it you can get all of your money refunded.  You can't lose by trying it out.  Having both of these packages at your disposal is great - between the two you can do pretty much anything.

I have not used Accordance, but if I bought a Mac, I'd buy it.  If I were using your laptop I'd forget about running emulation.  BibleWorks will run real nice on that hardware.

I hope that this helps you out.

Mike