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BaseCamp and OS Discoverer - Why so slooooow!?

Former Member
Former Member over 12 years ago
Hi all,

I've just purchased a Garmin Edge 800 with the OS Discoverer maps and I'm appalled at how slow it is to use when routing in BaseCamp with this data! Does anyone else actually find this acceptable? I'm on the verge of returning the device for a refund - The software should be MUCH more responsive.

I've read around on these forums and have seen a lot of posts regarding the lack of ability to use the SD Card maps in BaseCamp, something which has subsequently been fixed and seems to have caused a lot of the negative posts to go away. But come on... the fix was to leave the maps on the card and read them down a limited bandwidth USB connection.

Having purchased this product I would expect to be able to install this map onto my Hard Disc so that BootCamp can use the maps without having to pull them down the USB every time. A check could still be performed that the device is plugged in and licenced (if there are concerns over piracy). Alternatively, BootCamp could just simply offer a configurable cache size and cache the maps locally as they are accessed (so I could set mine to 4Gb and have BootCamp eventually build up a cache of everything). If there is a cache already then for me I don't find it big enough (anything I can change in my registry / settings?)

To top it off I understand that Garmin even accept that this is not really acceptable - I assume that the warning message at the top of the screen (in the yellow bar) telling me that I am working at a limited speed is related to the fact it is reading the data from the device and not from a local disc?

A question to everyone - Does anyone have a responsive BaseCamp with the OS maps coming from the SD card / device

A question to Garmin - Is there anything I can do to improve the responsiveness of the OS data? Caching, installing, settings? I really do not see a technological limitation of why the map texture 'popping' should be so bad - the limitation appears to be an arbitrary choice in how you have chosen to access the data and leave it on the device / sd card.

Kind Regards,
James
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago
    Not familiar with the Edge - does it have a USB 2.0 interface? You should be able to copy the contents of the card to a USB flash drive and connect that to your computer instead of using the GPS itself.

    Alternately, use a virtual disk program such as imdisk and copy the card contents to it. That should give you the full speed of your hard drive and eliminate the need to plug anything into your computer.

    Caveat: I am in the US and have never used Garmin's OS maps. These things will work with Garmin's other map products that are distributed on cards though.

    -Boyd
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago
    Hi all,


    A question to everyone - Does anyone have a responsive BaseCamp with the OS maps coming from the SD card / device


    Kind Regards,
    James


    Yes I do. I have an Oregon 450 with OS LR 50 all of UK pre loaded onto an SD card and BC is quite responsive even though this old laptop is not so powerful. You could try altering the detail levels down a bit from utilities/options/display in BC and see if that helps. I did this and there was a very big speed increase and I didn't see any noticeable difference in the way the map looked, so not even sure if any difference is actually applied.

    It is slow to refresh zoomed right out as there is a lot of data there. I also copied the files to a memory stick and often load the map in using this which seems slightly faster ( but nothing significant over the 450 ) have you tried this?

    John
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago
    Sorted...

    Okay, well I've just copied the maps from the onto a secondary card and everything runs like lightning now that I can leave a second card in the PC.

    I guess I'd just assumed the maps would be locked to the SD cards serial number and would not be copiable. Not sure if this is legal or if I should have a second licence, but based on how shocking it is down the cable from the device I'm quite happy to not worry about licencing too much right now.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago
    I don't think there's a license issue. With maps purchased on SD card, a copy of the card will only work in your computer. If you try to use it in the GPS it won't work because the map is locked to the hardware ID of the original card.

    OTOH, if you purchase Garmin's maps directly via download, you can make a copy of the card and it will work fine in your GPS. But it won't work in somebody else's GPS. The pre-loaded card from Garmin will would work in somebody else's GPS.

    But in either case, there is no restriction to using copies of the map on any computers that you own. The map locking only comes into play when you put the card in a GPS.

    For some reason, Garmin has been very slow to adopt USB 2.0 on their devices. I had an Oregon 400t and it also had slow USB 1.x. I believe all the newest devices are now USB 2.0, however my impression is that they are still slower than placing the SD card into a dedicated USB card reader or internal card slot on your computer.

    -Boyd
  • 0 over 12 years ago
    I've also used the second copy on a card...

    ...and yep! Basecamp is far more useable.

    Would copying the files to a folder on a hard drive work equally well? If not, why?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago
    Hi,

    I have just bought an edge 800 with OS maps too. How did you get the maps onto the GPS? Ive just posted a thread as cannot for the life of me work it out.

    Im sure its simple and i'll look stupid.

    Cheers
  • 0 over 12 years ago
    Hi,

    I have just bought an edge 800 with OS maps too. How did you get the maps onto the GPS? Ive just posted a thread as cannot for the life of me work it out.

    Im sure its simple and i'll look stupid.

    Cheers


    Psst! You have put the microSD card into the slot under the flap haven't you? If your software is on a disc, you will have to install to a microSD card.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 12 years ago
    Would copying the files to a folder on a hard drive work equally well? If not, why?


    Maps that are provided on a card are in a different format from maps that you install on your computer from a DVD. Basecamp can display these maps while the card (or a copy of it) is inserted in the computer, but you can't just copy the files to your hard drive because Basecamp expects them to be on removable media.

    As a workaround, you could use a virtual disk program, which will create something that looks like a removable drive to Basecamp. I have tried imdisk in the past and it worked: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk
  • 0 over 12 years ago
    Ostroff01 - Thank you for the suggestion - what a fuss! Garmin have gone a bit anal on this... why put such obstacles in the way of customers? Garmin are lucky Apple don't decide to make GPS units, when they do, Garmin will suffer....
  • 0 over 12 years ago
    Garmin are lucky Apple don't decide to make GPS units, when they do, Garmin will suffer....


    Most likely Garmin is already taking a hit. I suspect there are a lot of potential Garmin customers that don't get GPS devices because their smart phone will do many of the same functions. Apple, Android, Windows Phone 7; they all have GPS capabilities.