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How much RAM for Photoshop 6.0?

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How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?

At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
 
I would say at least 256, possibly 512. Don't use PS, but memory, usually, the more the merrier. Winblows is a resouse hog in general, and PS can use up alot of memory.
Ben said:
How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?
At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I
will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Click to expand...
 
Check your mobo specs, see what it can handle and MAX it out....you'll be glad you did...especially if ram prices take their annual price increase after summer. I've seen 256 PC133 for as chaep as $50.
Genedumbass13 said:
Ben said:
How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?
At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I
will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I agree Max it out. The less you have to access your scratch disk in Photoshop the faster it will be. I run 1.5Gb of RAM on my Mac. The Mac will only allow you to apply a max of 999mb to any one program, I don't know if it's the same with a PC. However the additional RAM gives you headroom to run additional software at the same time which is a beautiful thing.

Bob
Joe Hoddinott said:
Genedumbass13 said:
Ben said:
How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?
At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I
will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Bob Anderson said:
I agree Max it out. The less you have to access your scratch disk
in Photoshop the faster it will be. I run 1.5Gb of RAM on my Mac.
The Mac will only allow you to apply a max of 999mb to any one
program, I don't know if it's the same with a PC. However the
additional RAM gives you headroom to run additional software at the
same time which is a beautiful thing.

Bob
Click to expand...
There is no such thing as "too much" of RAM for Photoshop. If you are serious about image processing, 1- 2 GB of RAM is just fine, more is even better. There is no upper limit to the amount of memory allowed used for any program on the PC as far as I know, but you do have RAM ceilings depending on the operating system (commonly 4 GB on current Windows flavours, probably to be increased when 64-bit CPUs become standard).

My next Photoshop-dedicated C should have 4 GB of RAM - at least.
 
While maxing out your machine would be nice, you may not have an unlimited buget. It also depends on whaat size files you are going to process. I would get at least 512, more if your buget allows. You can always add RAM if you find you need it.
 
I have 768 megs of RAM on my mac, photoshop will happily use most of that when working on several large images at once.

Windows tends to be more RAM-intensive than the Mac OS, so I think you would want 512 megs minimum and with RAM being so obscenely cheap these days I don't see any reason not to have a gig or more of it.

Mind you, it all depends what kind of work you do - I work with 50mb film scans, sometimes larger. If I was just working with small digicam images, I would need a lot less ram.
Ben said:
How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?
At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I
will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Click to expand...
 
Ben said:
How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?
At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I
will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Click to expand...
 
I have 256mb in this Win98SE machine and have no problems loading 20-30 images at once in PS 6.0. For kicks, I borrowed another 128mb stick and noticed no difference in performance with PS or other apps, though swapfile usage decreased marginally across the board. However, I see no inordinate swapfile usage while running PS in 256mb of RAM.

However, I'd say go ahead and install 512mb if you're starting from scratch and can afford it, as memory has never been so cheap and it's almost a shame to pass up the opportunity. If not, go with at least 256mb, as Windows runs very nicely at this level. From what I hear, Crucial (Micron) memory is unsurpassed for quality and is resonably priced, so don't skimp trying to save a few dollars on generic modules, although many work fine.
Ben said:
How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?
At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I
will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Click to expand...
 
Ben said:
How much RAM is necessary to optimize running PS 6.0 on a Pentium 4?
At what point is more RAM a waste of money; 256, 512, or more? I
will be running Windows 2000 Professional.
Click to expand...
I ran a little memory use meter program on both the 98SE and the W2000 machines. 98 and 98SE do not seem to release memory well... in other words if you load 10, 20, 30, picture files to review, 98's memory will stay full at 90+ % of useage (eventually lock up) and/or only release when you close the program and restart PS.

The W2000 system still builds up fast as you add picture files but releases better.
Who cares?

OK for making a series of contact sheets or contact sheetII, the 98 machine is prone to giving up if you give it a folder with 40 to 100 picture files... The W2000 architecture seems to breeze through the same task regardless of memory.

W2000 is definitely more stable as well as more memory independent. Less memory will do a lot more work on 2000.

Stuart
 
There are also RAM ceilings on chipsts. But anything PII or higher, you shouldn't need to worry.
Bjorn Rorslett said:
Bob Anderson said:
I agree Max it out. The less you have to access your scratch disk
in Photoshop the faster it will be. I run 1.5Gb of RAM on my Mac.
The Mac will only allow you to apply a max of 999mb to any one
program, I don't know if it's the same with a PC. However the
additional RAM gives you headroom to run additional software at the
same time which is a beautiful thing.

Bob
Click to expand...
There is no such thing as "too much" of RAM for Photoshop. If you
are serious about image processing, 1- 2 GB of RAM is just fine,
more is even better. There is no upper limit to the amount of
memory allowed used for any program on the PC as far as I know, but
you do have RAM ceilings depending on the operating system
(commonly 4 GB on current Windows flavours, probably to be
increased when 64-bit CPUs become standard).

My next Photoshop-dedicated C should have 4 GB of RAM - at least.
Click to expand...
 
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