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How Much Memory To Give Pshop
- Thread starter lindaw
- Start date
I have a Windows XP machine, Pentium 4, 2.5 Gig processor, with 550MB of RAM. I also have two hard drives, one is 30 Gig, the other is 90 Gig. I have one entire drive dedicated to Photoshop, with PS using 60% of that.
At the bottom line, PS needs at least 40% of system resources when running, and at least 128MB of RAM.
At the bottom line, PS needs at least 40% of system resources when running, and at least 128MB of RAM.
Hiya Linda, howzitgawn?
I have Mac OSX 10.2.8 with 512Mb installed. Usually I have 60>80% assigned to Photoshop. It is also important to have a good chunk of HD space for the scratch disk, typically the minimum suggested is 3x the max PSD file size you are liable to use. If possible, create a dedicated partition for this. If you have the space make it 1Gb and keep it clear of other files.
It also helps to defrag the HD. This is less of an issue with OSX but I like to keep the disks tidy anyway.
I'm just so dam' houseproud!
Al.
I have Mac OSX 10.2.8 with 512Mb installed. Usually I have 60>80% assigned to Photoshop. It is also important to have a good chunk of HD space for the scratch disk, typically the minimum suggested is 3x the max PSD file size you are liable to use. If possible, create a dedicated partition for this. If you have the space make it 1Gb and keep it clear of other files.
It also helps to defrag the HD. This is less of an issue with OSX but I like to keep the disks tidy anyway.
I'm just so dam' houseproud!
Al.
Hi Linda,
I'm running a Mac and OS 10.3.1 (although I also have OS9 still) with 1.5 GB RAM. I've two internal hard drives 80 and 120 GBs which are partitioned to have dedicated scratch disks on each as one of the HDs is bootable in OS9 and the other OS X. Each primary scratch disk is 10GB and is assigned to the hard drive which doesn't contain the currently active system folder. I also have secondary and tertiary scratch disks assigned to partitions which aren't dedicated scratch but always mostly empty. For RAM assignment I allocate 75% in the Photoshop preferences. This seems to be considered an optimal maximum as suggested by Chris Cox and other members of the Adobe development team when they chimed in on the question on the Adobe Photoshop for Mac forums. You can go higher but then have to be aware of the possibility of 'starving' the system if you have other apps running and thereby causing system instability.
I'm running a Mac and OS 10.3.1 (although I also have OS9 still) with 1.5 GB RAM. I've two internal hard drives 80 and 120 GBs which are partitioned to have dedicated scratch disks on each as one of the HDs is bootable in OS9 and the other OS X. Each primary scratch disk is 10GB and is assigned to the hard drive which doesn't contain the currently active system folder. I also have secondary and tertiary scratch disks assigned to partitions which aren't dedicated scratch but always mostly empty. For RAM assignment I allocate 75% in the Photoshop preferences. This seems to be considered an optimal maximum as suggested by Chris Cox and other members of the Adobe development team when they chimed in on the question on the Adobe Photoshop for Mac forums. You can go higher but then have to be aware of the possibility of 'starving' the system if you have other apps running and thereby causing system instability.
AppleCider
Power User
- Messages
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Welles, that's a great setup! I too am running OS X (Panther) with the same amount of RAM you have and a similar hard drive setup. Thanks for the suggestions!
C
Chester
Guest
My advice; leave 50% the default value.
Only change the setting when the 'efiency' goes below 100% for one particular document
click on the little triangle in the status bar and select effiency.
Only change the setting when the 'efiency' goes below 100% for one particular document
click on the little triangle in the status bar and select effiency.
Thanks for the info!! My graphics machine only has my graphic software and coding software installed. Don't use it for anything else. I have two 40 gig hdrives with pshop installed on one and the other is use for pshop and illustrator scratch files. I have noticed running pshop and illustrator together that illustrator almost seems to hang like it isn't getting enough system resources but I don't see any place to set the memory amount so I lowered pshop to 30% and of course pshop works but really hates me right now!! Well I guess we can't have it all....so I will up pshop to 50% and illustrator will have to get over it. Thanks again for the info!!! :} :}
Chester has a good tip, you can use the options in the Status Bar at the bottom of the Photoshop window. You can choose Effeciency, or you can choose Scratch Sizes.
The Scratch Sizes are basically the memory which Photoshop uses to perform tasks and temporarily store information. You can see this option by clicking on the right-pointed triangle in the status bar and selecting Scratch Sizes from the pop-up menu. If you don't see it, go to Window > Show Status Bar.
Once Photoshop uses up the computer's Ramdom Acces Memory, it begins to write to the hard disks as a form of virtual memory. Information from the hard disks cannot be accessed as quickly as from RAM so once this happens, things begin to slow down considerably (your computer will be making much more noise each time you perform a command).
If the Scratch Size number on the left is larger than the one on the right, Photoshop is writing to your hard disks. If you choose the Efficiency display, you'll see a percentage of how well Photoshop's memory resources are running. Since the example right is using almost double the amount of memory available, the program is only running at 65% of its best performance.
It is generally recommended to have 3 to 5 times the size of your common image size allocated in RAM to Photoshop. You might rather keep it a bit above or below this, depending on how much RAM is in your computer. If you're working on a 5 MB image, that means you better have at least 25 MB (megabytes) of memory available to Photoshop.
The Scratch Sizes are basically the memory which Photoshop uses to perform tasks and temporarily store information. You can see this option by clicking on the right-pointed triangle in the status bar and selecting Scratch Sizes from the pop-up menu. If you don't see it, go to Window > Show Status Bar.
Once Photoshop uses up the computer's Ramdom Acces Memory, it begins to write to the hard disks as a form of virtual memory. Information from the hard disks cannot be accessed as quickly as from RAM so once this happens, things begin to slow down considerably (your computer will be making much more noise each time you perform a command).
If the Scratch Size number on the left is larger than the one on the right, Photoshop is writing to your hard disks. If you choose the Efficiency display, you'll see a percentage of how well Photoshop's memory resources are running. Since the example right is using almost double the amount of memory available, the program is only running at 65% of its best performance.
It is generally recommended to have 3 to 5 times the size of your common image size allocated in RAM to Photoshop. You might rather keep it a bit above or below this, depending on how much RAM is in your computer. If you're working on a 5 MB image, that means you better have at least 25 MB (megabytes) of memory available to Photoshop.