Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:00 pm Post subject: CS3- using 55% of available 1708 RAM? Should I increase?
Hello, these are my puter specs >
P-35 MSI Platinum MS-7345 Mobo
Windows XP Home Edition SP3 (32bit)
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.4 GHz
Corsair XMS2 2x2GB=4.0GB PC6400 DDR2 (only seeing 3.3GB with XP)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 512 Memory Size
DirectX version: 9.0c
Monitor: Viewsonic VX2035wm Series
WD 500 GB HDD / WD 74GB RAPTOR HDD
I have CS3 Photoshop. It takes a long time to load the preferences, maybe about 4 -5 minutes, is this normal?
I don’t remember it taking so long to load. I’m thinking of upgrading from XP to Win7 64 bit so I can utilize 4 more DDR2 of ram. Since Photoshop is a memory hungry program, I’m willing to help it out as much as possible.
A few people told me if I’m not having issues with the program, that XP with 4GB DDR2 ram running XP 32bit, would perform better than upgrading to Win7 (64) even with more Ram. Really?
I went into my CS3 Preferences under memory usage, and it’s set at 55% or 939MB out of the 1708 Available Ram.
Ideal range states > 939 – 1230 MB. Should I up that to at least 70%??? What is the norm to allow for the amount of available Ram I have?
I also use Pinnacle Studio 14 HD, so I have to free up many resources to even use this program while editing, so I’m thinking this system needs more memory.
I’m just not that financially able to build a new computer with a new mobo, faster i7 Intel CPU, more DDR3 Ram, but trying to ‘tweek’ what I already have for now.
In the same area, I see the cashe levels are set at 6. The history States is 20.
Thank you.
Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 3987
Location: Cheltenham, UK
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:22 pm Post subject:
Take your cache level down to one for starters (I'm going to guess you won't really need more) and I would ramp it up to around 70% for the RAM allocation, there are needs your OS has and of course more importantly plugins within Photoshop that need RAM so don't give it all to Photoshop. You should work out a happy medium. _________________ If life serves you lemons, make lemonade!
Joined: 26 Nov 2010
Posts: 368
Location: Australia
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:07 am Post subject:
When I had XP there was a time when I got so sick of it being slow to boot (and to call up Photoshop) that I backed everything up, reformatted the disks and reinstalled everything from scratch (including the operating system). This worked great for a while. Performance eventually degraded again over time, but it was great while it lasted.
I'm not sure if this is the same problem as you are having, though?
It's also worth trying to work out what else is running. I think in my case there were lots of bits and pieces that were getting loaded at startup which took up resources. I did try to remove these from the startup menu, but I have a sneaking feeling that a lot of stuff (e.g evaluation software, uninstalled software) left bits lurking around. Which would explain why the system was fast again after a rebuild.
It wouldn't hurt to try increasing the amount of usage allocated to Photoshop, would it? You can always put it back again. There is also an option where you can set a scratch disk (which they recommend as being different to the disk with the Photoshop installation). Perhaps you could try this as well.
Talking of scratch disks made me also wonder whether defragmenting your disks could help?
Sorry I don't have answers, just a few things to try which worked for me. (Not that I'd recommend blowing the system away as a first option, but as a last resort it's cheaper than a new computer). Let us know if you find a solution.
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