Jump to content

adding maps to oregon 300


ARGUS.360

Recommended Posts

I have an oregon 300, here is my question: I already have a garmin topo sd card of my region which works great. I now wanted to add city navigator to my gpsr. Do I add it to the oregon internal memory or do I add it to the garmin topo sd card ( or is that possible ).

Thanks for the help. I have not found a clear answer while reading other logs. :ph34r:

Edited by ARGUS.360
Link to comment

I'd add it to an sd card of its own or as much as will fit into the internal memory.

I didn't want to place it on a seperate sd card because that would be a pain but is it possible to place it on the same card I purchased from garmin.

How much of it will fit on the internal memory.

Link to comment

I'd add it to an sd card of its own or as much as will fit into the internal memory.

I didn't want to place it on a seperate sd card because that would be a pain but is it possible to place it on the same card I purchased from garmin.

How much of it will fit on the internal memory.

 

If you purchased a pre-loaded SD card from Garmin...NO, you can't add anything to it. I would have suggested getting the DVD, but then it's a real challenge to get the entire US to load due to the number of map segments for the TOPO data...that's why I bought a 400t (Colorado) and added City Navigator, and a few other maps, on an SD card.

 

If you get City Navigator NT on DVD you might be able to fit most/all of the US on internal memory (I can't remember how much memory the 300 has compared to the 400). Otherwise, get City Navigator on an SD card and swap them out.

Link to comment

I'm trying to add as much US TOPO 2008 to my new Oregon 300 as I can get. I don't plan to get any other mapping products for now so figured I'd put as much as I can on the 8 GB microSD.

 

I read in the Oregon wiki about the ~4000 map segments limit, and this includes the segment total of both the basemap and the selected US TOPO maps I send. I have no idea how many segments the basemap takes up. Right now I have selected 4009 segments from US TOPO 2008 and Mapsource is building the mapset. I told it to write to the microSD card. It says it is going to take 7 hours to do this...

 

I guess I am expecting it to fail at some point since my 4009 selected segments and the unknown basemap segments will likely exceed the capabilities. I'd cancel/kill the process but would not know how many segments to select to start over. How many segments are part of the basemap?

 

Any word on Garmin's efforts to increase this limit? Can a software update povide this?

Link to comment

In all the threads/websites discussing the Oregon map segment capacity I don't ever remember seeing an exact number of map segements that can be loaded per Oregon model unit. I do remember seeing quite some time back the number of map segments on the 400t, 400i, and 400c. Some reports state 4,000-5,000, some state ~4,000, others state ~4,200. It will also depend on which Oregon model one is referring to. CN NT has ~1 map segment / state generally, so I would speculate somewhere around 50 or less on the basemap, but that is strictly a guess.

 

There is free software available that you could open the gmapbmap.img file in and would list the map segements. GPSMapEdit may - I'm not sure if it will actually list them all. I believe GMapTool will list all the individual .img files. Are probably others that will, I'm just not familiar with them.

Link to comment

I have read that Mapsource can take a long time to compile many segments into a map but my process has been running 10 hours and says it is only 66% done. That is longer than what I have read in other threads. I selected 4009 segments from US TOPO 2008 and am using the latest release of Mapsource (6.15.6). At this rate the job is going to take around 24 hours. :D

 

Mapsource memory has grown to +500MB and my swap file has grown to about 1.1GB. I have a fairly modern dual core CPU (3 GHz) and 1 GB RAM. Oddly my CPU is only running at ~50% during this process. I'm running WinXP Pro and my PC isn't junked up with spyware or rogue memory processes. I shut down everything else I could including virus scanning and let it run all night. It was running slow even before the memory and swap footprint got so big.

 

Is this length of time normal? I could understand if my PC was a dog, but it isn't.

Link to comment

I have not seen processor speeds advertized for may years, however 1Gb of RAM was likely a standard 3 or 4 years ago. This week's BestBuy adds have one desktop with 2Gb for under $300 (upgrade to 3Gb for $50), one at 3Gb, most at 4Gb (one at $530 with upgrade to 6Gb for $50) and one at 8Gb.

A program must be written to use both processors in a dual core system. If not, the second processor just allows a second program to be running faster than if there were only one processor. To best take advantage of the abilities of the latest GPSr and software, you need a recent computer.

Link to comment

I have not seen processor speeds advertized for may years, however 1Gb of RAM was likely a standard 3 or 4 years ago. This week's BestBuy adds have one desktop with 2Gb for under $300 (upgrade to 3Gb for $50), one at 3Gb, most at 4Gb (one at $530 with upgrade to 6Gb for $50) and one at 8Gb.

A program must be written to use both processors in a dual core system. If not, the second processor just allows a second program to be running faster than if there were only one processor. To best take advantage of the abilities of the latest GPSr and software, you need a recent computer.

 

I'm running it on my work computer which is very new. Still running slowly. I only added the computer stuff for context that it wasn't an old piece of crap PC I was running it on.

Link to comment

I'd like to hear how this turns out - I've got me a 300 on order, and from what I've read they are only able to accept up to a 4gb card. I'd like to know if the 8gb card works.

 

And yea, sounds like your PC may be a little out-dated, probably a fairly low FSB (the speed that your RAM communicates with your processor) But I'd think you should be able to load most of it to the internal memory - the 400 and 300 have the same 850mb's internal. And, I do remember reading on garmin's FAQ's that you're good for about 4000 segments.

Link to comment

I'd like to hear how this turns out - I've got me a 300 on order, and from what I've read they are only able to accept up to a 4gb card. I'd like to know if the 8gb card works.

 

And yea, sounds like your PC may be a little out-dated, probably a fairly low FSB (the speed that your RAM communicates with your processor) But I'd think you should be able to load most of it to the internal memory - the 400 and 300 have the same 850mb's internal. And, I do remember reading on garmin's FAQ's that you're good for about 4000 segments.

 

My 300 booted up with the 8GB card. I saw no specs anywhere about max size, think I saw some other forum posts where othes used 8GB. But I have yet to write the map to it and have the unit read it back off so we shall see if the map compile ever completes.

 

My ~4000 map segments report as ~2500MB within Mapsource. I am not sure how big the resulting map will be when the build completes. I suspect it will be around the same size so it won't fit into internal memory.

Edited by wahoowad
Link to comment

I have an oregon 300, here is my question: I already have a garmin topo sd card of my region which works great. I now wanted to add city navigator to my gpsr. Do I add it to the oregon internal memory or do I add it to the garmin topo sd card ( or is that possible ).

Thanks for the help. I have not found a clear answer while reading other logs. :D

 

If you transfer City Nav to the preprogrammed card, the preprogrammed card will be erased.

Use a blank card, 2GB is plenty big enough.

Link to comment

When I got home I found my map build had finished, the time stamp on the file tells me it took 21 hours to build and copy the 4009 segment file to the SD card on my 300. Unit fired up and the map seems to display OK.

 

So I now have a 2.1GB gmapsupp.img file on my SD card. I also have a smaller gmapsupp.img in my unit internal memory that was just a few local segments. The smaller file is a subset of what is on the larger file. Is my gps'r trying to load both? Can I just delete the one on the internal memory?

Edited by wahoowad
Link to comment
The smaller file is a subset of what is on the larger file. Is my gps'r trying to load both? Can I just delete the one on the internal memory?

 

Yes, you can delete the one on the internal memory.

 

You are probably already aware of it, but just in case you aren't, you can rename your 2.1 Gb gmapsupp.img file to something like Topo West.img and then load all of the Eastern half of the U.S. Topo and it will be written to the memory card as gmapsupp.img, not affecting your Topo West.img file. Then go in and rename the new gmapsupp.img file to "Topo East" (note I purposely left off the .img so the file would not be recognized and exceed your map segment limit and crash). This new Topo East file you will be available for you to use just by changing the file name to Topo East.img and renaming the Topo West.img to just "Topo West" You can then use a PDA, some phones will, or your laptop to rename the files when away from home. Same type thing is possible with any other maps. With an 8 Gb card you can put a whole lot of maps on it as long as you have a way to change the file extension.

Edited by eaparks
Link to comment

The unit lets me Enable or Disable maps via menu selection. Could I have multiple maps on the device and just enable/disable to only keep one Enabled at a time? Too bad the device doesn't have any file management features so I could rename using the device and not need a laptop or whatever.

 

What would happen (what would I see) if I had more than 1 file with the .img enabled and exceeded whatever the magical number of segments are? Does it lock up? Does it just not load the extra maps?

Link to comment
The unit lets me Enable or Disable maps via menu selection. Could I have multiple maps on the device and just enable/disable to only keep one Enabled at a time? Too bad the device doesn't have any file management features so I could rename using the device and not need a laptop or whatever.

 

You could only use the Enable or Disable function if you don't exceed the map segment limit of all maps combined, that the unit is recognizing. Any maps with a .img extension will be recognized; with this in mind it might suit your needs better to have the U.S. broken up into 4 smaller groups so to not max. out your map segment limit, thus allowing you to Enable / Disable additional maps as needed.

 

Yes, it would be sooooooo nice if Garmin would incorporate a file management system for renaming files or just increase the map segment limit to some number that would not likely be exceeded.

 

I don't know first hand what the unit will do if the map segment limit is exceeded on the unit. I believe others have reported that it just won't load to the memory card. So if you loaded more maps to the internal memory exceeding the map segment limit of all maps (internal + card) my guess would be unit would not recognize any maps, but I've never tried it or seen reports from others. Maybe someone else can add some first hand information.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...