Is your JDeveloper Slow? - It shouldn't be!
One of the interesting aspects of the theory of relativity says that sometime time can be viewed differently by two people (the twin paradox). From time to time we get this post on OTN where someone is complaining that JDeveloper is slow on their machine. But what do you mean slow, can you give more specific information about what is slow and how much time it takes. Sometimes it is just a matter of opinion "things might look slow to you but fast to me", but sometimes there is something wrong and you can fix it.
So here are some tips I gathered over time on improving performance - and feel free to add your own in the comments.
1. Get a better machine
If you try to run the studio edition of JDeveloper on a 256MB machine - you are going to have a lot of time to drink coffee. I know Bill Gates once said that all you'll need are 640kb - but things change. (also see points 6 and 8)
2. Are you running on battery power?
If you are you might be running into a nasty Swing bug that effects JDeveloper. See this: http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=5095398
The workaround is to add an entry into your jdev.conf file [jdev-root]jdevbin
AddVMOption -Dsun.java2d.ddoffscreen=false
3. Is your code insight slow?
Many people are not aware that you can actually set the delay time for the code insight in JDeveloper. It is set to 1second by default and to many people this seems slow.
So go into tools->preferences->code editor->code insight and set it to something smaller.
4. Having delays switching back to JDeveloper from other applications?
Windows probably swap JDeveloper out of your memory. Gerard Davison's KeepResident extension can eliminate this.
See: http://www.orablogs.com/gdavison/archives/001659.html
5. JDeveloper have picks of consuming 100% CPU
We had some people who had this problem when they installed the memory monitor extension to JDeveloper. Removing this extension solved this problem.
6. Do you really need all those features?
Check if you are really using all the features that JDeveloper offers. If you are just doing Java/XML coding without all the visual editors - try the Java edition of JDeveloper. Less features but much lighter. Even if you do need to use the J2EE or Studio option - you might want to go into tools->preferences->extensions and disable extensions that you don't need.
7. JDeveloper gets resource hungry after several J2EE apps tests?
Try stopping the embedded OC4J (Run->Terminate from the menu). This will clean up some memory and it will start again on your next run.
8Eliminate DirectDraw
Another Java option set-up that solved the issue for some is:
AddVMOption -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true
That's it for now - let me know if you have any other tips and I'll try and add tips as I get them.
========== For those who are too lazy to read the comments ===
Brian Duff Said:
8) You can also tweak JDeveloper to use less memory by altering the maximum memory VM parameter. JDev is optimized for 1GB by default, and will use as much memory as it can (up to 512MB) for caching. If you have less than 1GB, this makes the product swap a lot. See here for details on tweaking this.
9) Anti Viruses - some of them have been known to slow JDeveloper.
Chris Muir writes on this with a bit more details.
10) Sandra Muller have a couple of tips on the JHeadstart blog.
