Adobe Photoshop CS RAM question

[oo5yolo10]

I recently bought adobe photoshop, and I was waiting to buy more RAM till after I tried the program, and noticed it takes a while with photoshop to get the job done. Any suggestions about how much I should have? here are my specs
ibook G4
512 RAM
1.33 GHZ
basic graphics card. Thanks for your help!

 

[-hh]

I recently bought adobe photoshop, and I was waiting to buy more RAM till after I tried the program, and noticed it takes a while with photoshop to get the job done. Any suggestions about how much I should have? here are my specs
ibook G4
512 RAM
1.33 GHZ
basic graphics card. Thanks for your help!

You can check your pages in/out (look at the ratio) to see how severe your RAM shortage is, but in your case, I think its pretty much a sure thing when trying to run Photoshop CS.

Looking briefly at Crucial.com, it looks like a 512M upgrade would be around $120 and a 1G upgrade would be just under $200. I'd personally not bother with the 512MB and go straight to what's basically "Max RAM" for your laptop.

Even then, I'd not necessarily expect whiplash performance. I have 1.25GB RAM in my 12" PB 1.5GHz, and it is noticably slower than my SP 1.8GHz G5 PowerMac with 1.5GB RAM. I think that in general, to have a "powerhouse" Photoshop machine is going to require a desktop Mac - - - at least until the Universal Binaries come out. At present, running Rosetta results in roughly a 50% performance hit.

-hh

 

[rjphoto]

I recently bought adobe photoshop, and I was waiting to buy more RAM till after I tried the program, and noticed it takes a while with photoshop to get the job done. Any suggestions about how much I should have? here are my specs
ibook G4
512 RAM
1.33 GHZ
basic graphics card. Thanks for your help!

More.

Just Kidding.

Take it up to at least a GIG. More if you can afford it and it will fit. I'm not sure how much that model will hold.

I changed out 256MB for a GIG in the eMac and boy did it make a difference.

 

[p0intblank]

It all depends on the size of the files you are working with, as well applications running in the background. I have 1.5 GB of RAM installed in my PowerBook and haven't had any problems with it. 1 GB is the mininum for me, as I like to multi-task a lot.

 

[radiantm3]

It all depends on the size of the files you are working with, as well applications running in the background. I have 1.5 GB of RAM installed in my PowerBook and haven't had any problems with it. 1 GB is the mininum for me, as I like to multi-task a lot.

Exactly. More ram isn't going to make photoshop any faster (unless you are already running out of ram and accessing the HD for virtual memory). I usually don't buy ram until I run out of physical ram.

 

[superbovine]

Exactly. More ram isn't going to make photoshop any faster (unless you are already running out of ram and accessing the HD for virtual memory). I usually don't buy ram until I run out of physical ram.

your'll use swap space regardless of weather you run out of physical ram.

In contrast, Mac OS X uses a completely different memory management system. All programs can use an almost unlimited amount of memory, which is allocated to the application on an as-needed basis. Mac OS X will generously load as much of a program into RAM as they can, even parts that may not currently be in use. This may inflate the amount of actual RAM being used by the system. When RAM is needed, the system will swap or page out those pieces not needed or not currently in use. It is important to bear this in mind because a casual examination of memory usage with the top command via the Terminal application will reveal large amounts of RAM being used by applications. When needed, the system will dynamically allocate additional virtual memory so there is no need for users try to tamper with how the system handles additional memory needs. However, there is no substitute for having additional physical RAM.

 

[radiantm3]

your'll use swap space regardless of weather you run out of physical ram.

I don't know how ram works technically. My point was just that a mac will get very slow when all the physical ram is used up. And that having more ram isn't necessarily going to make photoshop perform any faster.

 

[Tigger7]

I am running Photoshop CS2 on my 12 inch iBook 1.33. I have upgraded my ram to 1 Gig and it loads very quickly and runs smooth. I think more ram is definitely the best thing you can do. A 512 stick of ram was about $50 at Newegg (Crucial brand).