31 replies to this topic

[Bill Z]

Hi, I'm beginning to experience serious limitations in my laptops ability.

I'm working on rather large graphic, 150 pixel per inch, 8 feet by 9 feet, photoshop file.

It currently is at about 0.96 GBytes in size and it takes it a couple of minutes to load, 3 to 4 minutes to save after editting, etc.

Any suggestions on how to improve performance?

[Bill Z]

Get a Mac

not an option

and this isn't something I do regularly, but as I'm sales & marketing and we have a trade show coming up, I'm working on re-doing the graphics for our trade show booth and I'm designated Graphic Artist as we are too cheap to hire one

[Dave Burrell]

determine how much ram you have in that laptop - then if you have at least 2gb, while in photoshop go to file / edit / preferences / performance and increase the amount of memory for photoshop to use.

if you have an open slot on the laptop, fill it up with ram, at least 1gb, it'll only cost you around 40 bucks

[Oldschooler81]

I'm actually having almost the same problem Bill is (maybe someone can help us both out), in that my computer is slow constantly, probably because of the Ram - I have 224gigs.

I run Avira scans, disc C cleanup, something called Ccleaner (which clears out alot of temporary or useless files whenever you surf) and stuff like that all the time, so I know it's not that.

You can increase the "paging file size" which I've already done numerous times (it's almost at the max now) and it still lags alot, so it must just be that it's outgrown. My computer is from 2004 which is pretty dated, pre Youtube, Facebook and all that. Unfortunately I'm too broke to get a good new one though.

[mylo]

I'm actually having almost the same problem Bill is (maybe someone can help us both out), in that my computer is slow constantly, probably because of the Ram - I have 224gigs.

You have 224 gigs of RAM in your PC? Dayammmmm!

[Oldschooler81]

Yeah I know lol, that's probably as bad as listening to an 8 track tape in the 90s!

I heard the minimum requirement for XP is 256gigs. Is it best to just buy more?

[mylo]

Yeah I know lol, that's probably as bad as listening to an 8 track tape in the 90s!

I heard the minimum requirement for XP is 256gigs. Is it best to just buy more?

224 gigs of RAM is FRIGGIN HUGE!

I only have 2 gigs in my laptop

The max addressable of XP-64bit is only 128gig

Methinks you're not talking about RAM.

[Dave Burrell]

224 gigs of RAM is FRIGGIN HUGE!

I only have 2 gigs in my laptop

The max addressable of XP-64bit is only 128gig

Methinks you're not talking about RAM.

I think he means HD space

[mylo]

Photoshop is usually pretty good about large memory management. I agree, tweak it's preferences. Don't bother with pagefile. If you're swapping badly in PS, you're hurting.

Are you sure it's memory-bound, or are you thrashing CPU?

If your slow operations are Opening and Saving the file, and once open it's usable, you might be IO-bound. One trick would be to put the file on flash.

One thought; you're not loading this file from a server, are you? You have a local copy, right? Saving 1gb over CIFS will take minutes.

Even then, saving a file on a tiny-slow internal laptop drive is gonna suck, but it shouldn't suck "minutes". A gig isn't THAT big.

Yeah, make sure it's local, then try putting it on flash disk.

[nomad]

I think he means HD space

I think he means 256MB of RAM.

[folsombound]

I think he means 256MB of RAM.

Now I am a technical idiot, but if memory serves, there is a fair amount of difference between a megabyte and a gigabyte!

[Dave Burrell]

I think he means 256MB of RAM.

That'd be a tough way to run a PC these days with that low amount of ram in it

[mylo]

Windows 95 on 256megs is painful.

2gigs of RAM is what? $30-40 bucks? Upgrade, dude!

Now I am a technical idiot, but if memory serves, there is a fair amount of difference between a megabyte and a gigabyte!

lol.. memory pun intended? Yes, there's a huge difference. 1024X difference, to be precise.

[MrsTuffPaws]

That'd be a tough way to run a PC these days with that low amount of ram in it

It is, but somehow my parents manage. I know other people with ancient PCs with 512MB and less.