SDRAM UPGRADE

Upgrading your RAM will make some difference but I would suggest upgrading your video card instead.  It doesn't matter how much RAM you have if your video card can't render fast.

I would get a top of the range AMD Athlon with 256MB of mem. Working with image files (especially photos) takes a lot of processing power and memory. You may also want to make sure you get a nice fast HD in any system you buy, it will make a world of difference when Windows decides it wants to cache memory out to the HD which it doesn't really need to :)

Or you could try optimizing your system instead of throwing more RAM at the problem. Try making your virtual memory static and then running Defrag. Also when working on an image, try zooming to only the portion of the image that you are working on (I find this helps quite a bit), you may also want to try and avoid using too many layers (epsecially if you are re-colouring photographs)

Another technique I have used in the past is to split the image into smaller ones, work on the smaller parts and then rebuild the image (Great for huge photographs)


Matth

It depends on the image size and resolution.  I have 3000x2000 images with take almost 20M each.  Plan on each image that you are editing to require 3 times the amount for each picture.  I had to go to 192M of memory because of image performance problems.  In short, you'll rarely regret having the extra memory, but you are likely to regret it if you don't.

If you have win98, don't!!!, because win98 does not support memory grater that 128MB so only if you have win2k or win ME, it will make a defferance.

My suggestion - to get max RAM you sustem can support. First of all it can increse system performance. At another hand you can create disk in RAM (using Ramdrive.sys or somth equal) and set your Photo edit program (I think mostly of Photoshop) to use this disk for scratch.
Some people use this and was satisfied.

when printing prints on my DJ 970cse the printer sometimes stops and waits while the HD runs like crazy , is this a memory problem?

> win98 does not support memory grater [sic] that [sic] 128MB

This statement is false.

Windows reserves up to 128MB. or 1/8 of the total RAM, whichever is less, for "cache".  So, if 128MB is 1/8, then Windows supports at least 1024MB of RAM.

When you are printing Windows is transferring hundreds of megabytes of data to the printer driver (For huge images) so there is bound to be some delay. You could try temporarily switching off virtual memory, this would stop any kind of paging out of data to the HD.

Matth

>when printing prints on my DJ 970cse the printer sometimes stops and waits while the HD runs like crazy , is this a memory problem?
Yes, as matth says it transferring hundreds of megabytes of data. But first it have to create those hundreds of megabytes and it store them in memory (and then there are no enougth memory it start swapping).

in other words.... yes.

A.

It's too bad the printer doesn't allow for more memory.  For example, increasing my laser printer from 1M of memory to 9M made a big difference in responsiveness.

good point - I bought an 'old' lexmark optra that was being sold due to it being too slow.... - it tied the pc up, even when background printing was on.... shoved 8mb in and it was as fast, if not faster to free the pc than the new one...

A.

to increase the printer speed you can hook it up to a network CAT5 printserver but then it requires that the computer have a NIC card (network interface card) the print speed is far faster than having the printer connected to the computer.

for photo and or music editing it is recomended to have a mac and in pc's it is recomended to have as much ram as you can aford in it.

photo editing I recomend Corel  or adobe  the one that came with the scanner is a med to low end type photo editing.

Operating system  I recomend using windows NT 4. or the new 2k since it is more stable that win9x

poor dutchess1 was only wondering if it is a good idea to install another 128Mb of RAM, and gets told to upgrade to w2k (which there may not be printer drivers out yet for), or maybe a mac, just 'hook it up' to a print server that is laying about unused, get photoshop, and still get more memory... how about a quad xeon system with full litho press in the back garden?

A.
 (<g>)

saragani

i just received an e-mail from Microsoft.
WIN 98 SE will support 256MB of SDRAM and much more

I take my hat off to you, duchess1 - I've not managed to obtain anything but an automated reply out of M$!...

A.

> any improvements when using 256MB SDRAM instead of 128MB for professional photo SW ?

First, you should use some of the "system tools" utilities which come with Windows 95/98, to see how much "real" and "virtual" RAM your computer is using -- the tools draw real-time graphs, in a window.  The graph changes as you launch new applications & open files within that application.

So, if you're not using all of the RAM you have, then there is no reason to add more RAM, is there?

TrentThe Thief
i ran System Monitor for memory manager. when PhotoImpact 5.0 was opened the allocated memory jumped to over 225MB while the unused physical memory dropped to an average of 5 MB. doing multitasking  made things worse. guess i need to double RAM again. True?

 also i recently added a professional scanner to the mix. photo SW is a real memory hog.i am at 128 MB with new scanner and SW. system monitor seems to say i am using swap file . true?

Probably is swapping.  If you're down in the 5M or less range, it almost certainly is.

Are you actually using that much memory in PhotoImpact or is it automatically "taking" as much memory as it can?

What resolution of files do you have open (640x480, 1024x768, 3000x2000, etc.)?  How many?

Most systems can handle 256M, but many have limits at 384M or 512M -- check your motherboard documentation (you probably already did that before upping to 256M, but it's a good double-check).

probaly is automatically taking that much memory.

Adding 128 ram to tou computer will make a huge difference. It will speed up you computer an incredible amount. This is very true with photo editing. These programs need to use to ram for smooth and fast work. Ulimalty getting a faster processor would be a good idea but it is not a must. Other things you can do to improve you system is get a new h/d the has a fast rpm.

newbie point snatcher ?

do you reckon, jc? shall we see if they change the answer to a comment... or if they read the guidelines on

http://www.experts-exchange.com/info/expertonly.html

.....

maybe he will do what silvers5 has done on his question,. so that he can get input from more experts than if his question was dumped onto the 'locked questions' area and left.... just maybe...

A.

comments please

>> comments please
> the unused physical memory dropped to an average of 5 MB

That is a _definite_ indication that Windows is "swapping", and trying to reserve 5MB of "real" memory for "emergency" purposes.

Adding more RAM will reduce/eliminate the "swapping".

nothing to add - (axcept RAM)

A.

Yeah, adding 128 mb of RAM will help your computer.  Upgrading anything will help in almost all categories.  It's just deciding what to upgrade.

2 duchess1:
Easy way to test if 256 Mb of RAM can help you - goto store, buy RAM, but  say you need to test if memory will work good and ask fo moneyback. That's it - install RAM and try to do your usual work (may be just add some hardcore work to make shure your future need will be covered). If it will not make any differences - go back to store and say - system unstable, !%#*!%#@, I dont need it. ;-)

Hi Duchess,

Yes, definitely into the swap file. My primary tool is PhotoShop from Adobe. On my status bar I can see exactly how much RAM/SWAP I'm using for my application. I don't know if PhotoImpact has such a setting, but as long as you can see what is being used another way, that's fine.

I've been working with graphics for many years (I'm a tech writer who makes his own illustrations). Have enough memory has always been one of my pet peeves. At home I only have 96 Mb, but on my working machines, I have from 512-768Mb and sometime wish I had more.

Earlier someone mentioned fast disks. Not totally out of bounds. A quick disk for the swap file can make a difference, but not as much as regular defragging. I hope this helped!

Cheers.

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