Speeding up Logos

David McKay
David McKay Member Posts: 58
edited November 21 in English Forum

I am enjoying using Logos 8. I think it is a little faster than Logos 7 was. When I select a guide or tool from the top menu, they do take ages to get to the first thing I look for, but after that the program seems to work more quickly on further things I select.

How can i best speed things up? How much is the sluggishness due to Logos itself? How much is due to my slow internet speed, and how much due to my five year old Windows 8 ASUS i7 2.4gHz computer [with 8 gigs memory and 1.5 terabytes hard disk drive?]

Will it be faster when our internet speed is upgraded [supposedly it may double in speed from about 10 thousand whatsanames to about 25 thousand whatsanames in a year or so]

Thanks for your help.

This is a great forum. I appreciate your fast answers, my friends!

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Comments

  • GaoLu
    GaoLu Member Posts: 3,487 ✭✭✭

    SSD

  • Ian Kirk
    Ian Kirk Member Posts: 25

    The age of the computer definitely is part. I feel your pain. I do have a SSD + 8 gig memory, and mine computer is even older. There are 2 things to try, that did help me. The first is the compiler. In the command/go box/bar, type:

    set use ngen to yes

    The next time you run Logos (and every update after), Logos will optimize itself for your computer. When I did this with 7, I could tell a difference. As it's now my default setting, it just does it, so I have nothing to compae.

    As you upgraded, run the rebuild index in the command box. Logos 8 uses a multiple-file index, which does operate faster, but 7 and prior use the huge index.

    Those two things will help some. We're just behind on computers :)

  • Bill Anderson
    Bill Anderson Member Posts: 505 ✭✭

    The issue with speed is likely due to the age of your computer. If you read the forums here, people will say that the single greatest thing you can do to increase the speed of Logos is install an SSD, if your computer supports it. (You don't say whether your computer is a desktop or laptop. Most desktop computers will accommodate an SSD but many laptops these days are not upgradable and won't accommodate one.)

    When you are thinking about upgrades to an existing computer you have to weigh the cost of the upgrade against the age of the system. Sometimes it pays to purchase a more modern system. We can help you identify the specifications for a new system if that's what you decide to do.

  • Earl Tipton
    Earl Tipton Member Posts: 7

    David, my experience with Logos 7 and 8 is that the HDD is the single most important influence on response time. A year ago I updated a desktop machine and obtained fantastic results. In that case, motherboard and memory were upgraded, in addition to the installation of an SSD. Two weeks ago I upgraded my laptop's drive from a 1TB HDD to a 1TB SSD.  Logos 8 opens in 17 seconds instead of 50. In the passage guide when I type a reference and hit enter, there is an immediate response; formerly it took over a minute for any response at all . It still takes 20-30 seconds to finish searching my library to complete the passage guide, but this is much better than a month ago. In summary, my two experiences show that an upgrade to an SSD yields immediate and obvious benefits.

  • Norman Low
    Norman Low Member Posts: 23 ✭✭

    I have an even slower system with an i3-4170 running Logos 7. After reading the rave reviews of SSDs, I installed an HP EX920 M.2 PCIe 3.1x4 NVME drive. Since the computer was older, I had to buy an adapter board in order to connect it to the PCIe slot. I was not able to boot from the SSD, but was able to install Logos onto it. The results were phenomenal with amazingly fast response to searches. This was definitely one of the best upgrades I have made.

  • David McKay
    David McKay Member Posts: 58

    Thanks for answers on this question, folk. How much space does Logos take up? Someone explained to me how to find out how much space is taken up on my computer! but Ive forgotten and cant find that post now. 

    Is 256 SSD  enough, with say a 1Tb hard drive, or would I need more in the SSD?

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,643

    Someone explained to me how to find out how much space is taken up on my computer!

    • Right-click on the Logos icon
    • Right-click "Logos Bible Software"
    • Click Properties
    • Click "Open File Location" from the Shortcut tab
    • Select everything in that folder
    • Right-click and click Properties
    • Number of files and size is reported in the General tab

  • David McKay
    David McKay Member Posts: 58

    I bought a new Dell computer today. It is an i7 16 RAM 256 SSD and 1Tb standard HD. My current computer was over 5 years old.

    I'm installing Logos 8 now. Despite the computer currently downloading gigabytes of stuff, and our internet connection not being anything flash, when I open the passage guide or other guides, they come up instantly. It is working many, many times faster than before, even while downloading stuff. Wow!

    Thanks again for the advice.

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,643

    It is working many, many times faster than before, even while downloading stuff. Wow!

    Enjoy[:)]

  • David McKay
    David McKay Member Posts: 58

    I bought a new laptop, hoping to make things work faster. Mine was 5 years old. I was told a flash drive would speed things up. This one has 256 gigs SSD, and a 1 terabyte conventional hard disk, 16 megs of RAM and a 4 GIG graphics card, but I don't know if that's relevant.



    Logos Bible Software on old computer: 57 secs to load.



    New computer: 15 seconds.



    Load Theology guide, select "trinity," then "trinity in the Old Testament." Old computer: 1 minute 30. Takes a long time before anything happens, after you type "theology."



    New computer: almost instant. About 5 secs

  • George Somsel
    George Somsel Member Posts: 10,153 ✭✭✭

    I have a very similar laptop to the one you describe here in addition to my desktop so -I was curious regarding what the difference between your old computer and the one you describe in your latest  post.  A fairly simple calculation based on booting up Logos each day and leaving it on for the enitre day would result in 4¼ hours additional time for the entire year.  For an entire year this doesn't seem to be objectively too much.  I realize that when we're sitting there waiting for the computer to execute it seems interminable, but it really doesn't seem to be much.  I think I'll wait for something more compelling before I upgrade my computer.  I think we're getting too impatient.

    george
    gfsomsel

    יְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן

  • Michael
    Michael Member Posts: 305 ✭✭✭

    I have a very similar laptop to the one you describe here in addition to my desktop so -I was curious regarding what the difference between your old computer and the one you describe in your latest  post.  A fairly simple calculation based on booting up Logos each day and leaving it on for the enitre day would result in 4¼ hours additional time for the entire year.  For an entire year this doesn't seem to be objectively too much.  I realize that when we're sitting there waiting for the computer to execute it seems interminable, but it really doesn't seem to be much.  I think I'll wait for something more compelling before I upgrade my computer.  I think we're getting too impatient.

    The benefit of an SSD isn't just the loading time, it also affects the overall snappiness of your computer for all programs.  Considering how inexpensive SSD's are these days, I'd say the benefits are definitely worth it if your computer's hard drive can be upgraded.

  • David McKay
    David McKay Member Posts: 58

    Everything is faster with my new laptop. Waiting less time  for the program to start is a bonus, but I especially appreciate the searches taking about five seconds, instead of over a minute and a half. 

    However, my new laptop has an unwelcome feature: I get a “blue screen of death” every day or so, and haven’t been able to solve this yet. 

    Nice to hear from you George

    David McKay

  • Michael
    Michael Member Posts: 305 ✭✭✭

    Everything is faster with my new laptop. Waiting less time  for the program to start is a bonus, but I especially appreciate the searches taking about five seconds, instead of over a minute and a half. 

    However, my new laptop has an unwelcome feature: I get a “blue screen of death” every day or so, and haven’t been able to solve this yet. 

    Nice to hear from you George

    David McKay

    That's not normal for a brand new computer.  You should have that looked at.  You can try "refreshing" your install of WIndows 10 which requires reinstalling every thing.  Or you can exchange it for a new machine.  Blue screens should be rare not everyday occurrences.

  • Dave Thawley
    Dave Thawley Member Posts: 621

    Michael said:

    Everything is faster with my new laptop. Waiting less time  for the program to start is a bonus, but I especially appreciate the searches taking about five seconds, instead of over a minute and a half. 

    However, my new laptop has an unwelcome feature: I get a “blue screen of death” every day or so, and haven’t been able to solve this yet. 

    Nice to hear from you George

    David McKay

    That's not normal for a brand new computer.  You should have that looked at.  You can try "refreshing" your install of WIndows 10 which requires reinstalling every thing.  Or you can exchange it for a new machine.  Blue screens should be rare not everyday occurrences.

    I agree with this. Blue screening is quite rare nowadays and shouldn't happen  with a new computer. I would get in touch with dells customer services. I think the market for computers is packed at the moment so customer services seem to be more responsive than they used to be :-) 

  • Dave Thawley
    Dave Thawley Member Posts: 621

    Just thinking about speed. I'm not sure if you open every single area of a guide when you use them but if you do you can speed things up a lot by closing all the sections down (right click on diddy arrow and then "close all" or something like that. you can then open up the sections that you need (and then close them again after) and everything seems to run a great deal faster

  • Scott David
    Scott David Member Posts: 201

    Ian Kirk said:

    set use ngen to yes

    Wow... this really gave Logos a boost -- thanks for this great tip!

  • Scott David
    Scott David Member Posts: 201

    ... my experience with Logos 7 and 8 is that the HDD is the single most important influence on response time...

    I used to run Logos with 20-30 resources open with no problem at all (probably before Logos 7)... now, even having 12 resources open is almost unbearable.

    My computer is quite fast with anything else I do... I'm running:
    - Intel Core i5 (6th Gen) 6200U / 2.3 GHz Max Turbo Speed 2.8 GHz 64-bit Hyper-Threading
    - 8 GB DDR4 SDRAM 2133 MHz
    - 3D 4K GRAPHICS CARD
    - 7200RPM SATA 1TB

    After evaluating and clocking... I have to agree with you Earl, HDD is the single most important aspect. Normally Logos is taking up only 450MB to 750MB of RAM... but there is a massive spike in HDD Read Access when clicking resource tabs. I have plenty of RAM to spare, but it seems that Logos isn't loading everything into RAM when loading a workspace, and even then -- once a resource is accessed and loaded from HDD to RAM, it seems to be dropped back to HDD when not accessed for a little while.

    I'm trying to decide between the following 4 options:
    1) Increase my RAM
    2) Use sideloaded prefetch with the fastest SD 32GB card I can find
    3) Use sideloaded SD and move all Logos' resources from HDD to SD
    4) Get a SSD to replace my HDD

    I believe that each option is better (1 being the worst, 4 being the best) -- BUT, I really don't want to change out my HDD unless I absolutely must. So I'm leaning toward option 3.

    I'm really hoping that I might be able to get some wise feedback here on the forum. I'm determined to increase Logos' speed. I've been using it since mid 90's -- and it's gotten slower over the years (the Logos improvements and features have grown faster than the technology). Now it's just become somewhat miserable to run. I hear many folks saying that their Logos is running faster than ever with the newer releases... so it makes me think I have some sort of strange bottle neck in my current install.

    I have an awful lot of resources -- but that shouldn't slow down Logos if I'm not opening them?

    Thanks so much ahead of time for any wisdom!

  • Kevin A
    Kevin A Member Posts: 1,041 ✭✭

    I'm trying to decide between the following 4 options:
    1) Increase my RAM
    2) Use sideloaded prefetch with the fastest SD 32GB card I can find
    3) Use sideloaded SD and move all Logos' resources from HDD to SD
    4) Get a SSD to replace my HDD

    1 wont make little if any difference, 8GB is sufficient for Windows + Office + Browser + Logos running at the same time.

    2 and 3 will very likely be slower, but ymmv, depends on sd card controller and your usage. You could try this with a small capacity card for limited resources.

    4 will bring good performance gains.

    You could remove then caddy your current HDD and use it via usb, or if your laptop has a cdrom, you can get a caddy to put the SSD in there that slot instead of the cdrom.

  • Lane McKay
    Lane McKay Member Posts: 148

    Hello,

    I took the plunge this year and installed a Western Digital  WD Blue SSD 500GB.

    When I start my computer up first thing, it takes about a minute and a half to come up. But, if I close 

    Logos and restart, it loads in about 15 seconds.

    To do the searches as Dave mentioned earlier, about 5 seconds to bring up Trinity in the Old

    Testament.

    I'm very happy with the results.

    Windows 10 Desktop HP Pavilion 570 AMD A12-9800 8GB memory.

    Lane

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,779

    I'm trying to decide between the following 4 options:
    1) Increase my RAM
    2) Use sideloaded prefetch with the fastest SD 32GB card I can find
    3) Use sideloaded SD and move all Logos' resources from HDD to SD
    4) Get a SSD to replace my HDD

    I believe that each option is better (1 being the worst, 4 being the best) -- BUT, I really don't want to change out my HDD unless I absolutely must. So I'm leaning toward option 3.

    Do not consider options 2 and 3 as they will not benefit performance. Load speed (in Windows) is improved by the command Set Use Ngen to Yes (which requires a restart, and is then permanently enabled). SD cards are not recommended/supported by Faithlife, and could be slower than your 7200 RPM HDD.

    Option 4 is the best by far (and I use one with 8 GB DDR4 memory).

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Bradley Grainger (Logos)
    Bradley Grainger (Logos) Administrator, Logos Employee Posts: 11,969

    1) Increase my RAM
    2) Use sideloaded prefetch with the fastest SD 32GB card I can find
    3) Use sideloaded SD and move all Logos' resources from HDD to SD
    4) Get a SSD to replace my HDD

    (4) is the best option for improving Logos' overall performance.

    We don't support (and strongly recommend against) options (2) and (3); our experience shows that users report a much higher rate of crashes and instability when running Logos from a SD card.

    (1) would help improve indexing and searching speeds once you've upgraded from a HDD to SSD.

  • Scott David
    Scott David Member Posts: 201

    Kevin said:

    2 and 3 will very likely be slower, but ymmv, depends on sd card controller and your usage. You could try this with a small capacity card for limited resources.

    Thanks so much Kevin. I have USB 3.0 (wish I had 3.1) -- and was thinking of the newer SSD ThumbDrives... unfortunately, they're all 3.1 so it's uncertain what the actual Access Time and Read Rate will really be on my computer... but on the 3.1 machines, they're seeing over 4MBps read times consistently. Really tough to know what I'll get though... I'm sure it'll be faster than my 7200rpm SATA (80-160MBps)... but may not be noticeably different. Any thoughts on this theory (plugging a SSD into usb 3.0 and going with option 3) ??

  • Scott David
    Scott David Member Posts: 201

     I took the plunge this year and installed a Western Digital  WD Blue SSD 500GB... Windows 10 Desktop HP Pavilion 570 AMD A12-9800 8GB memory. 

    [:(] Uggghhh.... Thanks so much Lane... this is my fear... I'm going to be cloning my entire drive and going to SSD. [:O]

  • Scott David
    Scott David Member Posts: 201

    Do not consider options 2 and 3 as they will not benefit performance. Load speed (in Windows) is improved by the command Set Use Ngen to Yes (which requires a restart, and is then permanently enabled). SD cards are not recommended/supported by Faithlife, and could be slower than your 7200 RPM HDD. Option 4 is the best by far (and I use one with 8 GB DDR4 memory).

    Hey Dave. Thanks for your input! I was going to use Symbolic Linking (redirect the entire Logos Roaming Direcotry)... you think that might slow the processes down?

    I did the Use Ngen... it did help -- maybe about a 25% increase. Perhaps it's telling Logos to commit more resources to RAM instead of Hot Swapping with the HDD?? Will enabling this option perhaps make Logos faster over time (will it observe and learn)... or is it pretty much one and done?

    I should have been a little clearer in my original post... I'd never use a standard SD or Thumbdrive for something that has regular Read/Write... I would do SSD (most likely a Solid State Thumbdrive). 

  • Scott David
    Scott David Member Posts: 201

    (4) is the best option for improving Logos' overall performance.

    We don't support (and strongly recommend against) options (2) and (3); our experience shows that users report a much higher rate of crashes and instability when running Logos from a SD card.

    (1) would help improve indexing and searching speeds once you've upgraded from a HDD to SSD.

    Thanks so much Bradley... I misspoke about the SD; I would use it for prefetch... but not for storage of heavy read / write... for option 3), I was thinking of a Solid State Thumbdrive. Does this affect your opinion at all?

  • Bradley Grainger (Logos)
    Bradley Grainger (Logos) Administrator, Logos Employee Posts: 11,969

    for option 3), I was thinking of a Solid State Thumbdrive. Does this affect your opinion at all?

    We don't support any external drives as storage locations for Logos files: https://support.logos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007506971-Logos-Minimum-System-Requirements

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,779

    I did the Use Ngen... it did help -- maybe about a 25% increase. Perhaps it's telling Logos to commit more resources to RAM instead of Hot Swapping with the HDD?? Will enabling this option perhaps make Logos faster over time (will it observe and learn)... or is it pretty much one and done?

    From MS "The Native Image Generator (Ngen.exe) is a tool that improves the performance of managed applications. Ngen.exe creates native images, which are files containing compiled processor-specific machine code, and installs them into the native image cache on the local computer. The runtime can use native images from the cache instead of using the just-in-time (JIT) compiler to compile the original assembly."

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Bootjack
    Bootjack Member Posts: 746 ✭✭

    Ian Kirk said:

    set use ngen to yes

    Wow... this really gave Logos a boost -- thanks for this great tip!

    I find it strange only two have mentioned this and not a comeback on it. My question is, what does this setting do and if it actually speeds things up, why? 

    MSI Katana GF76 Intel Core i7-12700H, RTX3060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Windows 11 Home