Ok.....Windows Vista

[groovyone]

Originally Posted by Jeff_Green

This came in today... $49 for Win 7 Home edition upgrade and $99 Win 7 Professional upgrade at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Wind...6112558&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Wind...lp_edpp_ttl_in

Same price through anyone, BestBuy and Frys included.

groovyone added 1 Minutes and 21 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Originally Posted by Cajungaltx

Muahahahaha -- my motherboard is upgradeable to 16 GB of RAM.... I AM THE MEMORY GODDESS!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!

Running a 64 bit OS, with 8GB of Ram will literally HALF the time it takes for photoshop to work on your files.

HALF TIME!!!!

8GB of RAM are useless for some things... or it makes a VERY minor difference - but tests ran show that with photoshop, it makes a significant difference in processing times.

So yeah... it matters.

I am jealous. My desktop is still a single core AMD with 2GB of RAM, but I built it 5 years ago or so.

Holding out for a new laptop.

[engstrom]

Originally Posted by Cajungaltx

Muahahahaha -- my motherboard is upgradeable to 16 GB of RAM.... I AM THE MEMORY GODDESS!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!

Running a 64 bit OS, with 8GB of Ram will literally HALF the time it takes for photoshop to work on your files.

HALF TIME!!!!

8GB of RAM are useless for some things... or it makes a VERY minor difference - but tests ran show that with photoshop, it makes a significant difference in processing times.

So yeah... it matters.

Uhhh...'k...you don't happen to have more information on those tests do you? Can 8GB vs. 4GB make a difference in Photoshop - yeah, that makes all kinds of sense to me. Will 8GB cut in half ALL of your processing - sorry, I don't see that...see, if I'm processing smallish photos and not using a lot of layers/filters I don't see my virtual address space for Photoshop get above 2 GB let alone 4 GB. And if the virtual address space doesn't get large enough to use the extra memory there's no way that I can see the extra memory helping. So, if you're saying that 8 GB will make Photoshop faster if you're processing large pics with multiple layers and lots of filters then yeah, I can buy that, but not everyone pushes PS that hard all the time.

[suzyjazz]

For what it's worth -- probably not much -- I did a clean install of Vista 64 (Professional I think) and haven't had any problems. I can't run my web site locally since it doesn't support the MS Access driver (I know, I should come up with a new database). That really irritated me since it's a freaking MS product, but you know how they are. It's been several months and I finally got over it.

[Cajungaltx]

Originally Posted by engstrom

Uhhh...'k...you don't happen to have more information on those tests do you? Can 8GB vs. 4GB make a difference in Photoshop - yeah, that makes all kinds of sense to me. Will 8GB cut in half ALL of your processing - sorry, I don't see that...see, if I'm processing smallish photos and not using a lot of layers/filters I don't see my virtual address space for Photoshop get above 2 GB let alone 4 GB. And if the virtual address space doesn't get large enough to use the extra memory there's no way that I can see the extra memory helping. So, if you're saying that 8 GB will make Photoshop faster if you're processing large pics with multiple layers and lots of filters then yeah, I can buy that, but not everyone pushes PS that hard all the time.

Unless you've changed the settings in photoshop - it's set to only use a certain amount of your memory out of the box....

Running 64 bit with 8gb isn't everyone's computer either... I just happen to get all dreamy, and wide eyed, and 'holy cow' when I walk down the aisles at Fry's Electronics and look at the cases....newegg is my favorite site... okay... maybe lower than TPF... I 'SO' want a new case... and ... have you seen the CM Storm Sniper Case? OH my!!



I want this case.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong - I shoot in raw. I edit in 16 bit (from Light room) - I work in Photoshop with 16 bit files. One image, just a simple image of a baby, with a portraiture overlay, saved as a .psd is a 35+ MB file.

When I first started using photoshop - one of the folks that helped me showed me how to increase the amount of RAM that photoshop could access.

Straight out of the box - it's set to use 70%... but when you run photoshop on a 64 bit system, it can access up to 8GB of RAM.

Go to your Performance preference in photoshop (if your using CS3 or CS4) - you can set the 'let photoshop use' slider thing to 100%. The RAM above 100% used by photoshop - can be used directly by photoshop plug-ins.

Plus - with 8gb - the RAM above 4GB is used as a cache for the scratch disk. If you have less - that data is usually written to the hard disk... but if you have more RAM... then it'll use that instead.

[engstrom]

Donna, yes, my Photoshop is set to use 100% of my available memory. I'm not arguing that more memory can be better at times, I'm just wondering where you got the "twice as fast" number and what situations it applies to.

[ka5txl]

Originally Posted by zebulus

I would still be using Windows 2000 pro if it were compatible with my processor.

I would be happy to continue using dos 6.0 but I guess like kodachrome.....

[Cajungaltx]

Originally Posted by engstrom

Donna, yes, my Photoshop is set to use 100% of my available memory. I'm not arguing that more memory can be better at times, I'm just wondering where you got the "twice as fast" number and what situations it applies to.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2354

That was one that I pulled up with a google search. I don't remember where I read it exactly - lol - I tend to surf the net a bit too much. ;-)

[engstrom]

OK, too bad the link for the Photoshop Speed test from retouchartists.com is a dead link - I'd like to see what that speed test does and whether it's indicative of my personal use of Photoshop. Also, I notice the jump between 2GB and 4GB is significant but the jump between 4GB and 8GB isn't nearly as large.

Still, as newer cameras capture more and more megapickles and as newer versions of PS add cool new features I can believe that 8GB will make a noticeable difference in the not-too-distant future.

[Cajungaltx]

Originally Posted by engstrom

OK, too bad the link for the Photoshop Speed test from retouchartists.com is a dead link - I'd like to see what that speed test does and whether it's indicative of my personal use of Photoshop. Also, I notice the jump between 2GB and 4GB is significant but the jump between 4GB and 8GB isn't nearly as large.

Still, as newer cameras capture more and more megapickles and as newer versions of PS add cool new features I can believe that 8GB will make a noticeable difference in the not-too-distant future.

Yup... the one thing you can always count on....is that everything changes! ;-)

I always think you should buy more technology than you currently need.... cause it changes so fast. Our roommate spent over 3K on a laptop, that 3 years later, he sold for $650. It was a great one for 'normal' stuff...and for photography, but the game he plays (WoW) - the onboard video card just wasn't powerful enough - and you couldn't upgrade it.

When I bought my motherboard - I specifically got more than I needed... seriously...16 GB of RAM??? Talk about overkill, lol... but who knows... if I end up needing it... I'll have the option to use it.