RAM for Post Processing

Hi Guys

I am currently having an issue where my notebook becomes slower than a tortoise in the olympic 100m sprint when I process images. (sharpening etc) I am currently on 512MB ram using pictureproject (and getting used to photoshop still).

Will it make a huge difference if I up it now to 1.5GB ram or is 1GB more than sufficient?

--
Wind Thrill Factor

1024 will certainly make a big difference compared to 512. even 768 would. but the difference gets smaller, the more RAM you're adding.

I think your notebook does have only 2 RAM slots and the maximum would be 2048MB of RAM. so, if you do already have 512 and one free slot, buy another 512 as this seems the best solution to me.

If there are two 256 modules in your notebook, you'll have to take one out.

What OS are you using?

If it's Win 98 don't bother adding more. If it's XP then 1024 will make a difference but...

the best thing you could do is scrap Picture Project and use Nikon View and Nikon Edit instead. I can run both of those perfectly happily on a Celeton 1.1 Gb with 512MB RAM if I want.

The first thing I did to my laptop was go to 1 gig of RAM. It made a HUGE difference in the speed of Photoshop.

If you plan on keeping your computer for a while, I'd say do it. RAM is pretty cheap and really helps.

Bob
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1GB will make a difference but unless you're working on raw images you really ought to be able to do all that with 512MB ram. You might want to take a look at what software is running on your machine. It's possible that you have a lot of unneccesary programs running on startup that are using up memory.

Shockwave said:

Hi Guys

I am currently having an issue where my notebook becomes slower
than a tortoise in the olympic 100m sprint when I process images.
(sharpening etc) I am currently on 512MB ram using pictureproject
(and getting used to photoshop still).

Will it make a huge difference if I up it now to 1.5GB ram or is
1GB more than sufficient?

--
Wind Thrill Factor

Click to expand...

Shockwave said:

Hi Guys

I am currently having an issue where my notebook becomes slower
than a tortoise in the olympic 100m sprint when I process images.
(sharpening etc) I am currently on 512MB ram using pictureproject
(and getting used to photoshop still).

Will it make a huge difference if I up it now to 1.5GB ram or is
1GB more than sufficient?

Click to expand...

That first jump is incredible ... in 512MB there is barely enough room for the OS ... never mind RAM hungry apps like Photoshop. For example, the history while your are working is keeping nitermediate shots and expands pretty rapidly when you do almost anything. That first jump from 512 is all given to applications.

If you tend to have several other applications running, you can really feel the difference as you get more and more RAM, because swapping happens less and less often. Those annoying pauses can almost disappear.

So ... unless you are severly budget constrained, and if you plan on keeping that laptop for quite a while, I would get as much RAM in there as you can. You'll never regret it.

--
My gallery: http://letkeman.net/Photos
Fuji Finepix F11

I recently replaced my P4 1.8ghz/512 mbyte PC with a Pentium D 3.0ghz/2 gbyte PC.

The old P4 was slow doing anything with RAW files including opening and saving. The new machine is SIGNIFICANTLY quicker.

I recently shot around 50 RAW files at a friends house and took my P4 3.0ghz/512 mbyte Dell Inspiron to batch convert them to JPEG and burn CDs. The conversion process was VERY slow and I now plan to upgrade that PC to at least 1gbyte of RAM and more likely 2gbytes.

The bottom line is if you're running Windows 2000 or XP on a reasonably fast PC (P4 or newer) that you will be able to take advantage of more RAM to improve post-processing speed. 2 gbytes is a very good amount for that purpose.

Good luck!

--
Lee Herman
http://www.lhmopars.com - AOL IM 'dart69dude'

Thanks for the feedback guys. I appreciate it. I have decided to up it the whole way and downloading the latest nikon viewer. Also going to start playing with the nikon capture package a bit more now.
--
Wind Thrill Factor

About the unnecessary software running at startup. How would I check to see what is running and then how would I stop specific programs from doing this? I know it's a bit off topic but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
--
New D50 owner =)

I use 2GB on both my laptop and workstation and it runs smoothly even with 40+ raw files open (multi-file.)

--
Recent photos taken with my Nikon D50.
http://www.thirdlifecreations.com/nikond50/index.html

Hi. There are utilities out there that can do it for you. I don't use them myself because I know how to manage this stuff directly, but here are a few that I found after a quick search on Nonags.com:

http://www.windowsstartup.com/startupinspector.php

http://www.glarysoft.com/quick-startup/

http://www.e-systems.ro/dwin_startup_manager.htm

There are lots more here on the Nonags site:
http://www.tusafe.com/nonags/pwrt32.html

Just make sure you don't disable anything important!

taurus73 said:

About the unnecessary software running at startup. How would I
check to see what is running and then how would I stop specific
programs from doing this? I know it's a bit off topic but any help
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
--
New D50 owner =)

Click to expand...

I'm not Thomas but as a software developer I have some experience in this kind of thing. There are several different places to look:

1. Control panel > Scheduled Tasks

2. C:\Documents and Settings\\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

3. Do you have a screen saver set up ? If so, disable it.
4. Do you have Windows 'wallpaper' ? If so set it to none.

5. Does your PC automatically dial your ADSL supplier the moment you switch it on ? If so delete that connection and set up a new one that is actioned only when you want it.

6. Is your Email client connecting with your Email host in the background every once in a while ? If so, configure it so that it connects only when you want it to.

7. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del > Taskmanager > Processes (this is a bit hard for non IT people but see what active processes are running: have you ever tried to install both Nikon Picture Project and Nikon View ? If so you may have both nkvmon.exe (from NV) and nkbmon.exe (from PP) running - you don't need them both (they monitor the USB ports for the insertion of a CF card). Get rid of PP and uninstall it thoroughly.

8. Does any component of MS Office launch itself the moment the PC is turned on ? If so, stop it. Does anything else automatically launch itself when the machine is turned on ?

9. Have you told any application to check for updates automatically ? If so, tell them not to.

10. Do you have a RW CD drive ? If you are not using it, close down the drive support application.

There are many ways in which RAM is wasted - these are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. It is also possible to inspect the Windows Registry. This is the most powerful way of checking and stopping 'unwanted' applications (including viruses) from running at startup - but needs considerable IT experience.

David

taurus73 said:

About the unnecessary software running at startup. How would I
check to see what is running and then how would I stop specific
programs from doing this? I know it's a bit off topic but any help
would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

--
New D50 owner =)

I went from 512mb to 1gb and the effect on Nikon Capture was like night and day. Even so, I think another 512mb on top of that would not hurt. There are other things you can do that will help - I put in a small hard disk that is devoted exclusively to the windows swap file - probably not possible on a laptop. So in summary, 1gb is sufficient but not more than!

I'd advise getting rid of PP though.

David

Shockwave said:

Hi Guys

I am currently having an issue where my notebook becomes slower
than a tortoise in the olympic 100m sprint when I process images.
(sharpening etc) I am currently on 512MB ram using pictureproject
(and getting used to photoshop still).

Click to expand...

Shockwave said:

Hi Guys

I am currently having an issue where my notebook becomes slower
than a tortoise in the olympic 100m sprint when I process images.
(sharpening etc) I am currently on 512MB ram using pictureproject
(and getting used to photoshop still).

Will it make a huge difference if I up it now to 1.5GB ram or is
1GB more than sufficient?

--
Wind Thrill Factor

Click to expand...

I only had 512 on my PC, and just yesterday had another GB put into bring it up to 1.5GB. I havn't done anything with it yet, other than ebay and what I'm doing now. I don't notice any difference here but It shoould with Nikon Capture and Photoshop Elements.
Ladd

Tornado7 said:

1024 will certainly make a big difference compared to 512. even 768
would. but the difference gets smaller, the more RAM you're adding.

I think your notebook does have only 2 RAM slots and the maximum
would be 2048MB of RAM. so, if you do already have 512 and one free
slot, buy another 512 as this seems the best solution to me.

If there are two 256 modules in your notebook, you'll have to take
one out.

Click to expand...

I had two slots, one with my 512 and the other empty. It only cost me $95 installed for an additional 1GB.
Ladd

Great info, thanks for posting it.
--
Nikon~ D50~ 50/1.8~70-300~18-70~24-120VR~60/2.8
Sony's~717~828~P200
Epson P2000.

general rule is the more RAM the better...the OS is going to chew up a lot...then your other apps and services start to eat the rest. Add a RAM hungry application for photo editing you start heavy access with the page file...and that's where your machine dies (and you hear all the 'crunching')

I would recommend 1.5GB or more for every computer.

--
I likes shootin' things with them new-fangled picture-takin' devices!
VISIT OFTEN: http://emeka.smugmug.com (comments welcomed)

I do most of my PP on my laptop, which came with 512MB. Once I started using Capture for RAW images, it became obvious my system was underpowered. I had an empty slot, so I added another 1gig stick for a total of 1.5GB. What a difference it makes, and it was pretty cheap to do.