Canon "ScanGear CS" software...

[Randy Howard]

I have a Canon 9950F, and I've been fighting this software. In
particular, I get out of memory errors when attempting to scan
multiple 4800dpi crops out of 6x6 format film. nevermind 48-bit
output at that resolution, it refuses to even try, seeming to
only work if I crop it down substantially less than full frame,
or scan 35mm slides instead. But using the normal color mode,
if I try to do more than 2 at a time, I get memory failures.

Now, the resulting files (as tiff) are about 310MB apiece, and I
have 4GB of RAM in the system, and watching the process list,
the memory consumption (real or VM) of the program never comes
anywhere close to using up even a possible 2GB process size
limit, so I don't see any reason why this is happening.

Also, the scans take a LONG time, like 15-20 minutes each. So,
being able to batch up 4 or 6 at a time in the strip holders and
letting it run would be a major improvement.

I haven't been able to find anything about tuning the software,
or allocating more memory space through tweaking. Anyone with
recommendations (or alternative software to use instead) would
be nice...

 

[bmoag]

The eternal battle: manufacturer's specs vs. real world performance.
The amount of data you are trying to pour through your computer is massive.
In addition to memory you need a fast and up to date CPU. You need to have a
VERY LARGE swap file, preferably on a physically different hard drive, if
you are using Windows as all the scan data originally goes there at some
point in the process no matter how much RAM you have.
And, alas, massive amounts of RAM, actually beyond 1 gb, can actually be
destabilizing in many (probably most)motherboard/bios combinations. Worse,
particularly with dual DDR, filling more than the main two sockets can lead
to all kinds of stability issues. This is an inescapable issue downplayed by
manufacturers and computer fanzines.
For one thing turn off ALL background processes and programs, in particular
anti-virus programs and everything else you can discover that is turn
offable.
If that does not help see if a different scan program, e.g. Vuescan, works
better than the Canon software (I do not know if Vuescan is compatible with
this particular scanner).