On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:13:39 +0200, Bernard Cordier wrote:
> My daughter uses Photoshop CS2 with a A5 Wacom pen tablet. She draws
large
> images like 6000 * 6000 px or more.
Not totally unreasonable, though memory use can escalate rapidly if she
uses layers and masks. I would try to talk her into a tiny 3K x 3K image,
followed by a resize up to her final desired dimensions.
> Her PC is a Dell Dimension 5150 with a
> 2.4 GHZ processor and 2 GO RAM, which sounds comfortable enough to me.
> However, working in that conditions turns out to be very slow. What
would be
> the necessary power to work with comfort on a very large image with
> Photoshop?
Odds are the disk light is fla****ng during this sluggishness, so the first
place to start is memory. Start by adjusting Photoshop's memory slider to
70 percent or more. I wouldn't be surprised if your unit came with four
512 MB sticks, which will all need to be replaced (sell them on eBay).
Upgrade to 4 GB. At current memory prices, four 1GB sticks is between
$150
and $210 at www.satech.com . You'll get some benefit going to 3GB, but
you
won't directly use all four gigs of memory unless you go to XP pro (and
use
the /3GB boot.ini switch, or Vista.
A faster drive will help with startup time, but it is not a replacement
for
more memory. An internal SATA drive for swap and images, or a USB2 or
firewire external will help in this regard. For even more performance, go
to RAID with multiple internal drives. Keep in mind this is mainly
starup,
not so much performance during a draw operation.
It's conceivable, but unlikely, that a faster video card will help. Maybe
someone else will chime in on that one.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com
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