Memory for 1,000 point POI file?

I have a file that has 1470 entries, the csv version is 144kb
and the gpx is 882kb, of course once they are loaded onto a GPS they are a lot smaller

Thanks for the quick reply. What I really want to know is the amount of memory that would be taken up in the GPS. I haven't made one that size yet but I am always looking ahead. "Curious like a cat!

...I get 116,215 points of interest occupying 18.3 megabytes. It would of course be MUCH less without the alerts.

Typically, you can get 10,000 to 15,000 Custom POI locations per megabyte of space.

My current set has 37,037 POI's, and uses 5.74 megs including sound (mp3's), and .bmp icons for the .gpi file.

O.K. Thanks to all for the replies! Got a long way to go.

Use an SD card if you're that worried. Mine is a 512 meg, and only 1% used...

Motorcycle mama and juggernaut have given examples which fit with my experience.

However, one must think about the detail of the POI file itself.

There are bare bones, 3 column .csv POI files which give only lat, lon, and name.

If the developer decides to add a fourth column of comments, the size increases.

The more information about each POI the more space it will take. If the developer of the file puts it information about the address, amenities, various phone numbers, email address, and hours of operation, space requirement will increase even more.

Then, there is the issue of sounds. Some units will use .mp3 files; most will use .wav files 9assuming sox.exe is in the same folder as POILoader), .wav files are larger than .mp3 files, so that must be taken into account.

I suspect there are other entries that can be in a POI file that I have failed to mention.

My guess is that the size is correlated with the average number of characters in each line of the POI file.

Maybe Jim Bures could help us all out by running some tests with a file of his choice. Hopefully, he could start with a file that has lots of info in the comments column and load that file only using POILoader and make note of the size of the resultant poi.gpi file. JIM - note that every time POILoader is run it will write over any poi.gpi file, but you can rename each to poiversion1.gpi etc. Then, remove the comments column and load a 3 column version of the file and note its size.

If you install a 2gig SD card you will have more room than you will ever need. And if you change GPSs you can move the card to the new one.

I use a 4GB SD card and have over 675,000 poi's....I'm loaded up with music, pictures, and other stuff...no problems at all!!!

Just for kicks, I fired up EPE and ran a test. Using a GPX file I had with only five entries, I deleted four of those entries for this test (leaving one entry). Then I added bogus information to fill up fields that were empty, then saved the result as three files: a GPX file and then a pair of CSV files. The results below are for a single entry. Note that these are not hard and fast figures, especially since the amount of information in a GPX description field can vary widely. However, this test should provide an idea of how much space is taken on average per entry.

3-column CSV - 47 bytes
4-column CSV - 466 bytes
GPX - 2449 bytes (2.39KB)

Converting these to GPI files gives the following results. These results do not include custom icons or sound files.

3-column CSV - 166 bytes (353% larger)
4-column CSV - 589 bytes (126% larger)
GPX - 718 bytes (70.7% smaller)

I'm a bit surprised at the results because they were unexpected. But I wonder if I should be surprised. It seems to me that Garmin has POI Loader geared to work best with GPX files.

A guesstimate can be made by multiplying the GPI file results I got by 1,000.