Temp speed improvements

[mac pakka]

Hey guys

I have a 2.66GHz 2GB iMac. I'm relatively happy with the speed, i'm quite sensible in that i close all other programs when using iPhoto and iMovie however now i'm using Aperture 3 and it's almost unusable. I restart the computer each time before i use it and i only use Aperture for editing but it's a nightmare.

Anyway, my question is is there anyway of temporarily boosting the speed?? Maybe unplugging external hard drives (inc Time Machine)? Maybe something with screensavers. Anything, i'm pretty desperate.....

 

[mac pakka]

Ok, a side question here, and note i'm not very familiar with these things, would there be a large benefit in replacing the 2GB memory with 4GB? 8GB is out of my price range.

 

[DudeMartin]

When you turn on Aperture 3, put on Activity Manager and check if the "Free: ____" is less than 30mb or so. If when you turn on the Aperture the amount of available memory is like 30mb - I would suggest you add 2 more gigs of RAM.

 

[alust2013]

Ok, a side question here, and note i'm not very familiar with these things, would there be a large benefit in replacing the 2GB memory with 4GB? 8GB is out of my price range.

That would definitely help. 2GB is a bit cramped for much more than very basic use anymore. 4GB would give you a huge speed improvement.

 

[Young Spade]

Well in this situation, it seems like you have a slight lack of RAM.
Just to throw some more information out there, having things plugged in like HDDs, CDs, Time Machine, etc. doesn't do anything in terms of speed to the system.

Now, in this case you only have 2 gigs of RAM. Now that's enough for say, your every day applications like a web browser, watching movies, and running standard application. However since you're doing editing you're going to need more RAM.

I personally user Aperture myself on an old Blackbook. 2.2ghz with 4 gigs of RAM. Now when I use Aperture I only have to wait maybe a few seconds if I'm doing editing, other than that I can have that open (and edit) while having multiple web broswers, Miro (like iTunes) a torrent client, and other programs all at the same time.

Adding 2 gigs of ram (and more if you can afford it) would definitely help you here.