«

I'm looking for a new Video Card.
I currently have a P4 1.5, 768MB RAM, 32MB AGP.
I'm canning with my epson 3200 with medium format B&W to TIFF files.
My files are from 90MB to over 300MB.
I think that by replacing my video card with one that has 128MB will
speed file management up (i.e. Photoshop).
I don't play games and I don't want to spend more than $100.

Any ideas or comments?

Your card is fine as is. Unless you're a gamer, you only needs enough
memory on the card for 4 bytes per display pixel, plus a little for
overhead. At 1600 x 1200 that would be about 7-8 MB. Fast cards with lots
of memory are only needed when you are dealing with motion and generating
tens of frames per second. Your imagery is basically static.

What you do need for files that large is more RAM, if your system will take
it. With only 768 MB of RAM, there is probably about 500MB available for
images in Photoshop after Windoze and Photoshop take up their own space.
That's not much for 300MB files. As you edit the photos, that memory is
rapidly used up, particularly if you create layers.

My computer is a little faster (1.7 Ghz), but is limited to 1 GB max, which
I have. I find it slows down considerably with files larger than about 150
MB. Assuming that you have a 512 MB memory module and a 256 MB memory
module, you could probably replace the 256 with another 512 for under $100.
That would up your available memory (after Windoze and PS) by 50% or so.

If you only have a single physical disk drive your speed could probably also
benefit by adding another drive. Adobe recommends that the image scratch
disk be on a separate drive from Windoze's paging file for maximum speed. I
personally don't see much difference, but probably because I rarely handle
files over 50 MB or so.

Don


"David R" <> wrote in message
news: om...
> I'm looking for a new Video Card.
> I currently have a P4 1.5, 768MB RAM, 32MB AGP.
> I'm canning with my epson 3200 with medium format B&W to TIFF files.
> My files are from 90MB to over 300MB.
> I think that by replacing my video card with one that has 128MB will
> speed file management up (i.e. Photoshop).
> I don't play games and I don't want to spend more than $100.
>
> Any ideas or comments?

You may consider Matrox P650 card. matrox is a benchmark in desktop
applications and has one of the sharpest image outputs out there. P650 has a
10 bit gamma adjustable dac and can display 1 bilion colors. Also has dual
monitor output, and is one of the best dual setups. It is Photoshop aware
and will display master overlay on one screen while keeping all palletes and
tools on other screen.

"Don" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Your card is fine as is. Unless you're a gamer, you only needs enough
> memory on the card for 4 bytes per display pixel, plus a little for
> overhead. At 1600 x 1200 that would be about 7-8 MB. Fast cards with
lots
> of memory are only needed when you are dealing with motion and generating
> tens of frames per second. Your imagery is basically static.
>
> What you do need for files that large is more RAM, if your system will
take
> it. With only 768 MB of RAM, there is probably about 500MB available for
> images in Photoshop after Windoze and Photoshop take up their own space.
> That's not much for 300MB files. As you edit the photos, that memory is
> rapidly used up, particularly if you create layers.
>
> My computer is a little faster (1.7 Ghz), but is limited to 1 GB max,
which
> I have. I find it slows down considerably with files larger than about
150
> MB. Assuming that you have a 512 MB memory module and a 256 MB memory
> module, you could probably replace the 256 with another 512 for under
$100.
> That would up your available memory (after Windoze and PS) by 50% or so.
>
> If you only have a single physical disk drive your speed could probably
also
> benefit by adding another drive. Adobe recommends that the image scratch
> disk be on a separate drive from Windoze's paging file for maximum speed.
I
> personally don't see much difference, but probably because I rarely handle
> files over 50 MB or so.
>
> Don
>
>
> "David R" <> wrote in message
> news: om...
> > I'm looking for a new Video Card.
> > I currently have a P4 1.5, 768MB RAM, 32MB AGP.
> > I'm canning with my epson 3200 with medium format B&W to TIFF files.
> > My files are from 90MB to over 300MB.
> > I think that by replacing my video card with one that has 128MB will
> > speed file management up (i.e. Photoshop).
> > I don't play games and I don't want to spend more than $100.
> >
> > Any ideas or comments?
>
>

David R <> wrote:
>I'm looking for a new Video Card.
>I currently have a P4 1.5, 768MB RAM, 32MB AGP.
>I'm canning with my epson 3200 with medium format B&W to TIFF files.
>My files are from 90MB to over 300MB.
>I think that by replacing my video card with one that has 128MB will
>speed file management up (i.e. Photoshop).

You think wrong. Photoshop doesn't much care about what video card
you use. But it does care very much about how much RAM you have.

>I don't play games and I don't want to spend more than $100.
>
>Any ideas or comments?

If I recall correctly, Photoshop likes three times the image size
in available RAM. For the image, for undo, and for 'other'. If
you're editing 256MB images then what you need is a lot of RAM.

--
Ray Fischer

(David R) wrote in news:fcba1bc9.0404171800.1d8750e7
@posting.google.com:

> I think that by replacing my video card with one that has 128MB will
> speed file management up (i.e. Photoshop).

Those fancy video cards only work for 3D.

To speed up your file management you'll either need to:

1. Speed up your hard disk access by buying a fast drive or using RAID
2. More RAM!
3. Faster processor to decode the images
4. Defrag your hard drive

--
Lucas Tam ()
Please delete "REMOVE" from the e-mail address when replying.
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/coolspot18/

Thanks for all the responces. I may now have to consider buying a
whole new computer. Although my computer will go up to 2GB of RAM, it
uses expensive RAMBUS. It would cost me over $700 to bring it up to
2GB.

Lucas Tam <> wrote in message news:<Xns94CFD583FD02nntprogerscom@140.99.99.130>. ..
> (David R) wrote in news:fcba1bc9.0404171800.1d8750e7
> @posting.google.com:
>
> > I think that by replacing my video card with one that has 128MB will
> > speed file management up (i.e. Photoshop).
>
> Those fancy video cards only work for 3D.
>
> To speed up your file management you'll either need to:
>
> 1. Speed up your hard disk access by buying a fast drive or using RAID
> 2. More RAM!
> 3. Faster processor to decode the images
> 4. Defrag your hard drive

In message <>,
"Don" <> wrote:

>If you only have a single physical disk drive your speed could probably also
>benefit by adding another drive. Adobe recommends that the image scratch
>disk be on a separate drive from Windoze's paging file for maximum speed. I
>personally don't see much difference, but probably because I rarely handle
>files over 50 MB or so.

You're not going to get any direct paging from Photoshop; it marks all
its memory as part of the "working set" and Windows does not swap any of
the pages to the pagefile. If you set Photoshop to use most of your
memory, however, it may force other things to page to disk to get the
RAM. If Photoshop is not causing indirect disk paging, and nothing else
is either, then it doesn't matter where the pagefile is in that
particular instance, especially if you have a large minimum size set for
it (if the minimum is too small, the file may need to be resized, even
if no actual swapping is going on).
--

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
John P Sheehy <>
><<> <>>< <>>< ><<> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>><

In message <ammgc.162807$Ig.41413@pd7tw2no>,
"Snowman" <> wrote:

>You may consider Matrox P650 card. matrox is a benchmark in desktop
>applications and has one of the sharpest image outputs out there. P650 has a
>10 bit gamma adjustable dac and can display 1 bilion colors. Also has dual
>monitor output, and is one of the best dual setups. It is Photoshop aware
>and will display master overlay on one screen while keeping all palletes and
>tools on other screen.


Does photoshop use the extra 2 bits per channel for display, or is it
just used for color calibration?
--

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
John P Sheehy <>
><<> <>>< <>>< ><<> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>><