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PhotoShop 7 video card

Have just upgraded my entire system to facilitate my work in PhotoShop 7. My computer 'guru' has expressed his concern that I do not have enough video accelerator for my system. Is there anyone with cyber-savvy that can help claify if I have, or have not, short changed my system on the video capacity.

Motherboard: MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU ATA133
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1800+
RAM: 512mb PC2700 DDRAM
AGP card: ATI Xpert 2000; 32mb RAM; 128 bit
Hard Drive: Maxtor Diamondmax D740X Ultra ATA133 80GB 7200rpm
Monitor: NEC AccuSync 120 21" @ 1024x768 in 32-bit True Color

Be glad to provide any additional specs.

Thanks

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

weed

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Arch030397

ASKER

Thank you, Master... those were my thoughts exactly. 32mb of memory on the video card??? Gimme a break. I started doing graphics with a PC/286 with only 1MB RAM & 40MB hard drive. This video card and monitor permits me to work in TRUE COLOR, whereas with my previous system, I was limited to 16-bit color.

Arch030397

ASKER

chabtoon

In fact, the most important thing with Photoshop is your RAM... and you have plenty. You can change the amount of RAM that you want Photoshop to use in your preferences (Edit/preferences/memory and image cache). And like weed said, if your using your computer as a tool and not a gamestation, youre graphic card is fine!

Arch030397

ASKER

Thanks for the additional input, "Chab," but tell me, WHY would anyone want to use less than a 100% of their RAM in PhotoShop? The only reason that I can imagine is that if you were working back and forth between PhotoShop and Illustrator, and would assign75% RAM to PhotoShop & 25% to Illustrator.

I design & illustrate book covers and LOVE using many PS LAYERS, which really "beef up" the working file size. I was restricted when working with 256MB RAM. It's smooth sailing now.