How to speed up my TM

I have a large subject-based TM consisting of about 254k segments which occupies 1GB. Lately it has been slowing down, so I upgraded it again today. However the issue persists. Basically, it takes about 4-5 second to prompt a translation suggestion in the Translation LookUp window, which is later followed by the insertion of the fuzzy match (or fragment matches) in the target segment.

It is very distracting! With smaller TMs there is no such issue. I am working on Parallels but I believe I have enough space for my TM to run smoothly. What technical specifications should I look for? (requirements to run such a big TM smoothly)?

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  • Hello Paola,

    I was hoping someone with a lot of experience on MAC's would have been able to answer this as I dont use MAC at all.

    Therefore I have researched this based on the information you provided....

    Unknown said:

    Basically, it takes about 4-5 second to prompt a translation suggestion in the Translation LookUp window, which is later followed by the insertion of the fuzzy match (or fragment matches) in the target segment.

    It is very distracting! With smaller TMs there is no such issue

    As smaller TM's work fine- but there is an obvious lag when using bigger ones, I suspect this may have something to do with the amount of CPU's allocated to your virtual platform.

    The following article I found is a couple of years old- but it explains the use of memory quite well I think.

    blog.parallels.com/.../

    Has increasing the CPU&Memory made any significant difference?

     

    Lydia Simplicio | RWS Group

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  • Hello Paola,

    I was hoping someone with a lot of experience on MAC's would have been able to answer this as I dont use MAC at all.

    Therefore I have researched this based on the information you provided....

    Unknown said:

    Basically, it takes about 4-5 second to prompt a translation suggestion in the Translation LookUp window, which is later followed by the insertion of the fuzzy match (or fragment matches) in the target segment.

    It is very distracting! With smaller TMs there is no such issue

    As smaller TM's work fine- but there is an obvious lag when using bigger ones, I suspect this may have something to do with the amount of CPU's allocated to your virtual platform.

    The following article I found is a couple of years old- but it explains the use of memory quite well I think.

    blog.parallels.com/.../

    Has increasing the CPU&Memory made any significant difference?

     

    Lydia Simplicio | RWS Group

    _______
    Design your own training!

    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
    Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

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  • Hi  , thank you for your reply. I have tried to increase the RAM for Parallels from 4GB (recommended settings) to 8GB. It seems to work smoother for now, but let's see how this will go next week.

    I must add that my Macbook (MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) has two graphic cards but one is experiencing issues and I am forcing the OS to work only with the integrated graphic card. Apparently, my model has a known issue where a poor capacitor causes a kernel panic when the computer switches automatically between the integrated graphic card and the external graphic card, causing the computer to crash.

    The only workarounds possible are either replace the faulty capacitor or forcing the computer to use the integrated card, only. The latter option causes some minimal issues at a graphic level, but it does slows down the computer.
    Specifically, some applications (such as Whatsapp desktop, Skype, Parallels and even certain webpages) require the more powerful card and once they cannot get it, the computer is slowed down. Recently, besides a slow TM lookup I have been experiencing SDL Trados Studio (Not Responding) where the Studio window is greyed out and sometimes it resolves, others I have to force quit and relaunch Studio.

    At the Apple Store they told me they won't touch computers older than 4 years, so I am left on my own. I am looking for a technician skilled enough to fix the capacitor. This is the video showing the repairing I need: www.youtube.com/watch

  • Hello Paola,

    Thanks for getting back to me on this-
    I found this very informative and I am sure this information (I vaguely recollect similar issues being mentioned in the past) will help others.

    I am just wondering, but as this needs a specialist technician (and there are no guarantees the fix will last) that it might not be better in the long term to maybe invest in a PC for your revenue critical translation work, before you encounter possibly even bigger issues.

    Lydia Simplicio | RWS Group

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    Design your own training!

    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
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  • Hello ,

    after working with increased memory allocation for Parallels for a couple of days, I can attest it doesn't make any difference. If anything, the integrated graphic card is putting some weight on the cooling fan, which started being noisy.

    I am surely considering buying a new computer, I am just sorry there is no way out for this not so old machine (just 8 years) which was top of the range when it was bought.
  • Hi @Paola,

     

    I understand that translators have to be especially careful and mindful of expenditure/investment, but

    unfortunately 8 years in the IT world is a very long time and I believe most translators will update there hardware maybe every 4-5 years.

    If this is the case-

    Unknown said:
    If anything, the integrated graphic card is putting some weight on the cooling fan, which started being noisy.

    then I really think the time has come to 'retire' this machine- especially from your business critical translation work at least.

     

    If I was to suggest the ideal setup - this would be a PC (solely for your translations) with the following requirements-

    https://www.sdltrados.com/products/trados-studio/system-requirements.html

    I would also probably avoid the hi-res 4K screens completely and possibly re-invest that cost, in boosting the RAM

    Lydia Simplicio | RWS Group

    _______
    Design your own training!

    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
    Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

  • why would you avoid the hi-res 4K screens? My replacement would have been exactly a 4k Retina iMac!

    About technical specs, I am no techie here but my current Macbook as the following specs:

    With a 256 GB SSD

     

    While the cheapest 4k Retina iMac would have the following specs (which looks worse to me):

    • Core i5 (7th gen) 3.0 GHz (with turboboost to 3.5GHz)
    • 1 TB SSD HD
    • 8GB RAM