CS2 or 32Bit OS?

[Jim Victory]

I'm having a problem with my computer freezing while working in CS2 with 120MB Tiff files.

I have a Dual Core system with 4GB Ram running XP Pro 32Bit OS. I'm aware that a 32Bit OS only uses 2GB of Ram and I'm wondering if that is where my bottleneck is rather than the CS2 vs CS4.

Would I see some relief going with a 64Bit OS and utilizing all of my 4GB of Ram or would the difference between CS2 and CS4 solve the problem?

[ldelacruz]

What is your processor speed? How big is your page file? Do you restart regularly?

[KdLaneJr]

If you have the 3gb boot switch set, you shouldn't be having this problem. What are your scratch disk settings?

[Jim Victory]

I have a Intel 6600 Dual-Core CPU and I restart regularly.

I tried the mod on the ini.boot file and didn't see any benefit. In fact my system was more unstable.

I have the scratch set to my secondary drive and the program to my primary drive. CS2 memory max is 1760MG and use set to 75% or 1320MG with 6 levels of cache.

[Rson]

If you have the SP on XP you do not need the boot switch

CS2 is probably better than CS4, it isn't as efficient as CS3.

I doubt you will see a difference between 3.5 and 4gb of ram. Now if you bump it to 8 and run CS4 x64 you might see some difference.

Do you have scratch disks? With your setup that might be your best bet. Also have you gone into edit>preferences> performance and set the ram usage?

[ldelacruz]

I guess your hard drives have enough free space and your swap file or paging file is on a different drive other than the OS? You can always download a trial version of CS4 to test it.

[Jim Victory]

Originally Posted by Rson

If you have the SP on XP you do not need the boot switch

CS2 is probably better than CS4, it isn't as efficient as CS3.

I doubt you will see a difference between 3.5 and 4gb of ram. Now if you bump it to 8 and run CS4 x64 you might see some difference.

Do you have scratch disks? With your setup that might be your best bet. Also have you gone into edit>preferences> performance and set the ram usage?

I have two scratch discs, primary and secondary, and I raised the usage to 75%. I just tried the 3GB switch again @userva2800 and it bumped my max memory from 1760MG to 2449MB in CS2 with 75% I've allocated 1837MB to CS2.

I'm running XP Pro SP3 32Bit app. and it doesn't show the added memory over 2.75MB Ram. If I don't run the 3GB switch It doesn't allocate enough memory to CS2.

Jim Victory added 3 Minutes and 34 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Originally Posted by ldelacruz

I guess your hard drives have enough free space and your swap file or paging file is on a different drive other than the OS? You can always download a trial version of CS4 to test it.

I keep my HD data below 50% usage by transfering data to external HDs. I do have my swap files on another HD from my OS.

Is it possible CS2 just can't handle the large files efficiently and that CS4 would do a better job of it?

[Rson]

Where you at? I am in Keller and can test it for you.


When I ran XP Pro, I didn't need the switch. BUT if PS only reads 2449 set it to 100% since you actually have 4 gb. Have you run an efficiency test? monitored PS for Efficiency?

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/401/kb401088.html

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/320/320005.html

[ldelacruz]

Originally Posted by Jim Victory

I have two scratch discs, primary and secondary, and I raised the usage to 75%. I just tried the 3GB switch again @userva2800 and it bumped my max memory from 1760MG to 2449MB in CS2 with 75% I've allocated 1837MB to CS2.

I'm running XP Pro SP3 32Bit app. and it doesn't show the added memory over 2.75MB Ram. If I don't run the 3GB switch It doesn't allocate enough memory to CS2.

Jim Victory added 3 Minutes and 34 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below



I keep my HD data below 50% usage by transfering data to external HDs. I do have my swap files on another HD from my OS.

Is it possible CS2 just can't handle the large files efficiently and that CS4 would do a better job of it?

How did you get the 120mb TIFF file? Is it a photo with layers?

I have CS4 with XP Pro SP3, 4 gigs installed but reads 3 gigs. I have a slow processor 1.66ghz so it should put it to the test.

[Jim Victory]

Originally Posted by Rson

Where you at? I am in Keller and can test it for you.


When I ran XP Pro, I didn't need the switch. BUT if PS only reads 2449 set it to 100% since you actually have 4 gb. Have you run an efficiency test? monitored PS for Efficiency?

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/401/kb401088.html

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/320/320005.html

I'm in Duncanville.

Jim Victory added 1 Minutes and 55 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Originally Posted by ldelacruz

How did you get the 120mb TIFF file? Is it a photo with layers?

I have CS4 with XP Pro SP3, 4 gigs installed but reads 3 gigs. I have a slow processor 1.66ghz so it should put it to the test.

When I convert a 1DsMKIII file to 16bit Tiff in DPP the results are a 120MB Tiff file. I use DPP for my raw conversions and PS for processing.

Jim Victory added 27 Minutes and 34 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

BTW I want to thank you Lonnie, Ken, and Rich for your help. I have increased my virtual memory allocation, and turned on the 3GB switch. I'm going to try it out and adjust my usage % until it is stable.

[KdLaneJr]

Jim, My current desktop is "long in the tooth". AMD 64 4000+ processor with 3gb of ram. It slows down when I push large files around and I attribute that to being a couple generations behind photoshop on the build. I am running CS4 and swapped out video cards earlier this year so I could take advantage of open GL. I've been witness to the installation of windows 7 RC on a core 2 duo system with 8gb of ram. IIRC, the processor was a 8600? Not my system, so no point in remembering it. Anyway, the OS loaded so fast, we were both blown away. The system also went out to the net to get drivers for all components. This was the 64-bit version. When CS4-64 was loaded on it, it performed great. The catch is.., you can't load 32-bit plug-ins into 64-bit photoshop. This by itself is not a deal breaker. NOTE: When you install CS4 64-bit, it also installs a 32-bit version. You load your 32-bit plug-ins into the 32-bit version and all is well on the 64-bit system.

Virtual memory allocation of your windows system used to have a recommendation to be set to three times your installed memory. Now that systems have so much more memory available, I set my virtual memory at 2048mb. I don't see a reason to allocate 9gb of space. In the past, I have even turned off virtual memory, but windows doesn't seem to like that with the newer versions. I don't let Windows change the size of the page file. Min size 2048 and max size 2048. Picking a finite size for your page file keeps your system from slowing down while windows moves files around to increase your page file size.

CS4 takes some getting used to. The desktop interface has changed significantly, but it also brings some new features to the table that make the transition well worth it.

[jeffkohn]

I'm running XP Pro SP3 32Bit app. and it doesn't show the added memory over 2.75MB Ram. If I don't run the 3GB switch It doesn't allocate enough memory to CS2.

Personally I think using the 3GB switch is a bad idea in 32-bit OS, because it can starve the rest of the system for memory. If your system can only use 2.75GB of RAM under 32-bit, moving to a 64-bit OS should improve performance noticeably. Whether it would solve your Photoshop crashes is hard to say for certain; when PS gets low on memory it shouldn't crash, it should just start running much more slowly as it's forced to use the scratch disk more. The crashes could be a sign of some other incompatibility in your system (video card driver, for instance).

[Jim Victory]

Thanks everyone for your advise! I read the the links you provided Rich and adjusted a few things and it hasn't crashed on me since. Seems to be running a little faster in CS2 with the larger files.

Jeff I agree with you on the upgrade and I had planned on going to a 64bit platform soon. I was waiting to see how W7 was going to look rather than go with XP64. My MB will support a Quad-Core setup and a max 8GB of Ram so I may make those changes too when I move to a 64bit OS and CS4.

BTW I'm presently running two Geforce 8600 GTS video cards in SLI.

[Rson]

FYI PS doesn't harness the power of video cards for processing until CS4; even then it is limited to "visual effects" like flicking and not processing.

RAM and Scratch Disks are your best bet for speed.