How much DRAM for optimal image editing?

[khinmarn]

How much PC Memory (DRAM) you reckon is required for optimal performance to edit images? Do consider the cost vs performance increase you derived from upgrading based on the range below.

• <=256Mb
• >256Mb, <=512Mb
• >512Mb, <=1Gb
• >1Gb

 

[khinmarn]

How much PC Memory (DRAM) you reckon is required for optimal performance to edit images? Do consider the cost vs performance increase you derived from upgrading based on the given range.

 

[Wai]

more better IMO, cos PS can set the memory usage.

I got 1GB ram and i increase it to 75%

if i remove one of the 512MB, it will be much laggy

anyway, a fast hard disk is important too, get a 15000rpm SCSI hard disk for speed and reliability

 

[Ah Pao]

I'm interpreting your question as the minimum recommended amount of memory for using PS for photo editing...because the "optimal" will be "as much as possible".

512MB will just be comfortable if you are playing around with 6MP RAW images. If you are editing smaller images, even 256MB is good enough.

 

[rueyloon]

I believe photoshop can use up to 4 gig, or is it 2 ? hmmm......

 

[togu]

Thread merged.

 

[theITguy]

Hmmm. have to know what images sizes and programme you use. If you use Microsoft Photo Editor and doing a 2MB JPEG, even 64MB will do. For affordable RAM size in Photoshop, doing tiff files of not larger than 100MB, 512MB of RAM is quite ok and you will not need anything more than 1GB unless you do often open multiple files at once. 2GB is the cheapest and overall best performance balance one can afford, about $600 for 4x sticks of 512MB. A fast harddisk is much more needed with >100MB files as cost of RAM goes up with more than 2GB currently.

 

[mpenza]

have 512 now and thinkingof upping to 1G ;p I usually open ten to twenty files (6MP files-~3MB each) at one goal.

 

[coke21]

How much PC Memory (DRAM) you reckon is required for optimal performance to edit images? Do consider the cost vs performance increase you derived from upgrading based on the range below.

• <=256Mb
• >256Mb, <=512Mb
• >512Mb, <=1Gb
• >1Gb

I'll use the max that I can. I use a mac and running on 640Mb.

 

[khinmarn]

Good to hear from all of you. I wanted to make this poll as generic as possible.

When I say optimal, its because the first level cache in most motherboard may not support memory above 1G (I may be wrong about this, but also could be dependent on chipsets). There would be diminishing returns in sticking in more memory after certain point, and better CPU would provide better performance gains.

Also, I did not want to mention Photoshop in specific, but Photoshop CS can use up to 2 GB of RAM, but it does supports files up to 4G TIFF, and unlimited file sizes for .psb. but require considerable scratch disk space.

I am a Nikon user and on PC platform, I would like to find out your views on what works for Nikon Capture software.

 

[sriram]

GIMP does run really really fast on a Sun blade workstation with 8 gigs of RAM. Very very fast. Well, maybe it's the architecture of the system itself which is soooo cool. The application is just so much more responsive when editing huge images. I don't see any sluggishness.

 

[khinmarn]

I was observing the Windows Task Manager, even 'simple' editors such as Nikon Capture would consume 512Mb RAM, also, the CPU Usage would shoot up to 100% while opening and saving RAW files.

The performance would be crawling if memory is below 512Mb.

 

[Ian]

2-4 gig per machine using the fastest RAM the m/board supports. I back it up with 10.7K ultra320 SCSI hard drives for scratch disks.

 

[Ah Pao]

I was observing the Windows Task Manager, even 'simple' editors such as Nikon Capture would consume 512Mb RAM, also, the CPU Usage would shoot up to 100% while opening and saving RAW files.

The performance would be crawling if memory is below 512Mb.

You may be looking at the wrong number. Most like that number is the VM Page file size (under the "Performance" tab). To find out the mem usage of individual apps, go look at the "Processes" tab, "Mem Usage" column.

And the CPU will always peak at 100% when processing any CPU-intensive op, e.g. opening applications. Nothing to worry about, unless it peaks at 100% for most of the time without rhyme or reason.

 

[jbma]

I think minimum should be 512 MB. 1 GB is ideal. and if possible as much as your motherboard can take.

 

[khinmarn]

the optimium would be greater than 2Gb of ram. 1 Hdd for your OS, 1 Hdd for your programs. 1 Hdd for the documents, 2Hdd raid-0 for your scratch disk and 1Hdd for your swap file.. this arrangement in my opinion has produce that most responsive workstation for PSing which is what I am using

Hmm, you probably need to have add-on cards to support such configuration otherwise the controller would be a bottleneck if the two onboard controllers are to connect to multiple drives.

Guess you would have HDD0 for OS on IDE1, HDD1 for Progs
HDD2 docs (IDE2)
SATA for RAID0 as scratch
and the SWAP back on IDE0??
Seems like you still need to have some additional controllers for the DATA drive and CD-RW, DVD writer etc.

What about CPU, guess you may be running dual XEON as well?

Good for you!

 

[Bobman]

I N C O M I N G..........!!!!!!!!

 

[Witness]

i tink comp stuff is like tt....the more the merrier....haha....as long as u dun overclog...

 

[IceCoolBeer]

For serious image editing, so call Digital Imaging. You need as much RAM as possible (1G). And a good high speed hard disk with at least 80G or more. You need a good graphic card, and a good monitor at least 21 inch. Try not to use LCD screen. You need some external storage medium to free up some data along the way, like a CD writer, DVD writer or another external hard disk. Hope that help a bit.

 

[matthew]

How much PC Memory (DRAM) you reckon is required for optimal performance to edit images?

As much as you can afford. . No such thing as too much RAM.

(Actually that's not true if you use a 'classic' mac or Win9x, but any 'modern' system....)