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 06/23/2004 02:05:05 PM · #1
Well, things are slowing up on the pc with all this ps'ing. I only have an onboard graphics card (not sure of size) but wanted to upgrade to a decent graphics card (not wanting to go overboard though). Any suggestions/ideas?

Thanks (as always) in advance.
Andi

editid four speiling (agane)

Message edited by author 2004-06-23 14:05:40.
 06/23/2004 02:14:46 PM · #2
If you are on a budget, this card is nice, I'm happy with it.

video card
 06/23/2004 02:34:21 PM · #3
Originally posted by caba:
If you are on a budget, this card is nice, I'm happy with it.

video card


Thanks Frank, looks fine but I may go a little higher if its worth it?? (£80/$145 tops)
 06/23/2004 02:53:17 PM · #4
Or if you are an nVidia fan heres a refurb Asylum 5700 Ultra, for 129 bucks. I dropped 210 for mine.

Asylum nVidia 5700 ultra

I love the Asylum nVidia cards I'm running (2) 5200 Ultras in a couple of my gaming machines and a 5700 Ultra for my primary photo rig. If you do a big desktop 2048x1536 you can run a 85hz refresh rate.

Fast very fast.
 06/23/2004 02:54:10 PM · #5
Not sure that a graphics card will help a whole lot with photoshop (it may slightly)

How much memory do you have in your system ?

How fast is your processor ?

I find 1Gb of RAM really helped move photoshop along, particularly for larger images, 16 bit editing or several layers/ history levels.

What kind of slow down are you seeing ? A lot of disk activity ? (RAM)
Long processing times for filters/ effects ? (processor speed & RAM)

06/23/2004 02:58:40 PM · #6
A decent graphics card will help to a degree, but as Gordon says, it's mostly about chip and memory. However, those onboard graphics cards are incredibly crap, and DO make the system drag a surprisingly large amount. ATI Rage cards - they're the worst of them all!

I'd go for a medium range graphics card. £80 will probably buy you one reasonable for the job.
 06/23/2004 03:16:13 PM · #7
Thanks guys, if I remember rightly the pc came with 128mb and I slipped in an extra 256. The pc is only a 1.33gHZ I think I've got the paging set to 512mb?

Its only 1yr old and probably won't upgrade proper for a year (lenses to buy)

Maybe an £80 card and swop out the 128 for another 256?
 06/23/2004 03:26:52 PM · #8
upped the paging to 1128 (max) and things already seem faster, maybe I need to tweek the settings some more?
 06/23/2004 03:28:14 PM · #9
Do you have a Mac or a pc? And, if pc, what os are you running? And, does paging = virtual memory?

I would set that (the virtual memory) higher, myself... Last I knew ps uses scratch disk space more than memory, but for filters, the extra memory helps.

I think that your processor should work fine (I am running an 866 mghtz!), and I think that the upgrade in the graphics card will help some, as everyone has said, but maybe a boost in ram would help some. And, a few tweeks to your system, like the increase in virtual memory...

-Danielle

BTW, do you have 2 hard drives? From what I have read, having the scratch disk space for ps on a different physical drive helps as well.

Originally posted by Ecce Signum:
Thanks guys, if I remember rightly the pc came with 128mb and I slipped in an extra 256. The pc is only a 1.33gHZ I think I've got the paging set to 512mb?

Its only 1yr old and probably won't upgrade proper for a year (lenses to buy)

Maybe an £80 card and swop out the 128 for another 256?

06/23/2004 03:30:50 PM · #10
my experience between ATI and nVida is that ATI delivers much sharper 2D graphics than nVida does....

If you are not a game freak Radeon 9200 will be more than enough and delivers sharp and clear 2D graphics. (That is if your monitor is good:)
 06/23/2004 03:36:07 PM · #11
The other thing, When ever someone says my system is slowing to me means it ran faster at one point in time.

Number One cause for slowing of a PC is fragmentation of the disk. I see it every day (I work for a very large corporation with a large user base). A fresh install of Windows XP nets a severly fragmented drive, so we start out in bad shape.

If you do not defragment your machine regularly (at least once of month) try doing that before doing any upgrades. You might be suprised.

I defragment mine every other week, we (photogs) are especilly prone to fragmentation as we put masses of picture files on our hard disk then go in and delete a bunch of them and continually repeat the process.

With a defragmented hard disk your swap file becomes smaller and less useful.

In the windows world:
Click Start button
Choose My Computer
Right click on Local Disk C: choose properties.
(from the general tab I will run Disk Cleanup before defragging)
From the Tools tab click Defragement Now...
(if you want to see how bad it is click Analyze (red is bad))
Click Defragment (If you never done this it will take quite a while to finish)


06/23/2004 03:40:04 PM · #12
I think that you will find people for and against either side of this debate (ATI vs nVidia, I prefer nVidia), and from what I read in computer mags, they run neck and neck quite often, so I would not take this into account as much. Someone said something about the monitor, though. That is a good point, if the monitor is not good, a better graphics card may not help, except maybe the increased memory. Just something to think about.

-Danielle

Originally posted by Nazgul:
my experience between ATI and nVida is that ATI delivers much sharper 2D graphics than nVida does....

If you are not a game freak Radeon 9200 will be more than enough and delivers sharp and clear 2D graphics. (That is if your monitor is good:)

06/23/2004 03:40:42 PM · #13
Danielle, its a PC running XP pro. Yes, I believe paging is virtual memory but ready to be corrected. I have already boosted paging to 1128 and it seems to have improved things somewhat. Just the 1 hard drive but partitioned (would installing ps7 in its own partition help?)

Naz, thanks for that, other than the odd go on pingu no, am not a gamer and as for my monitor 2 of my challenges were ruined cos its s***e! sorry dark. Its a little better now I've messed around with the calibration.
 06/23/2004 03:45:21 PM · #14
Originally posted by Ecce Signum:
Just the 1 hard drive but partitioned (would installing ps7 in its own partition help?)


Not really, from what I have read. It really helps if it is a seperate physical drive. Don't feel bad, I only have one too!
The comment about defraging is an excellent idea. awpollard was right on when he says that this will slow photogs down! And, if you don't do it on a regular basis, you will have to probably do it more than once, or maybe even reload the system (in extreme cases), to completely defrag it (I know this from personal experience!)

-Danielle

BTW-XP Pro is a memory hog all on its own (that is what I have loaded), so extra ram would probably help!



Message edited by author 2004-06-23 15:46:43.
 06/23/2004 03:46:19 PM · #15
I would suspect that, using photoshop and with a rebel (and assuming the typical largest file size) that if your RAM in the system is less than half a gig, that upping the physical RAM would give you the biggest bang per buck.

If it is paging to disk it will be dog slow - fast graphics card or not. Ideally you want it to run out of memory. When my system starts paging, photoshop gets roughly 10x slower.
 06/23/2004 04:00:17 PM · #16
Originally posted by Gordon:
I would suspect that, using photoshop and with a rebel (and assuming the typical largest file size) that if your RAM in the system is less than half a gig, that upping the physical RAM would give you the biggest bang per buck.

If it is paging to disk it will be dog slow - fast graphics card or not. Ideally you want it to run out of memory. When my system starts paging, photoshop gets roughly 10x slower.


How do I run it out of memory? (it seems to do that all by itself lol) Its only 7% defragmented which isn't bad (but running it anyway).

The other thing, When ever someone says my system is slowing to me means it ran faster at one point in time.

All pc's 'appear' slower after time but this happens after extended use in 1 session not over a long period of time. I was thinking of upgrading my aDSL to 1 meg from 576k but have heard that I won't see that much difference (I don't upload that much stuff). Maybe I'll put the upgrade money aside for a new pc (might even build one myself this time - a dpcpc)
 06/23/2004 05:21:59 PM · #17
Originally posted by Ecce Signum:
Originally posted by Gordon:
Ideally you want it to run out of memory.

How do I run it out of memory? (it seems to do that all by itself lol) Its only 7% defragmented which isn't bad (but running it anyway).

I think Gordon meant you don't want it to run out of memory. All swap does is allows you pretend you have more memory than you do, at a severe cost in speed. The only time you ever want to use swap is when a program uses way more memory than it should and you don't want your machine to practically freeze. It's a safety mechanism - not a viable memory option.

Originally posted by Ecce Signum:
All pc's 'appear' slower after time

Windows PCs really are slower over time, mainly due to the amount of programs/etc that are added, both in terms of references Windows needs to keep, and storage.

Originally posted by Ecce Signum:
but this happens after extended use in 1 session not over a long period of time. ... Maybe I'll put the upgrade money aside for a new pc (might even build one myself this time - a dpcpc)

Sounds like it could be memory issues. If you're running WinXP try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and seeing what Task Manager shows you under Performance. I think you said you had 384MB, so if the main Memory Usage chart shows more than 384MB when reasonably loaded, you need more!

EDIT: Fixed quote.

EDIT2: Going back to your original point - if you have a really crappy onboard graphics board, it will make a difference buying an even cheap separate board.

Message edited by author 2004-06-23 17:24:21.
 06/23/2004 06:44:22 PM · #18
Originally posted by PaulMdx:

I think Gordon meant you don't want it to run out of memory.


Actually no, I meant you want to run it out of [second level system] memory, not some sort of tertiary virtual memory.

But the end result is the same - you want to avoid swapping to virtual memory if at all possible.

You should look in photoshop to see how much memory it is using. You can reduce the overhead in photoshop by reducing the number of history/ undo states saved, and you can also use the 'purge' command to clear out undo histories, particularly on large files to optimise this. Photoshop will report how much memory and swap memory an image is using, which along with the Task Manager reports can be used to work out if it is swapping or not.

Though the simplest way is to watch for your disk activity LED. If photshop grinds to a halt and that light is flashing a lot, you need more memory to work with files that size effectively.
 06/23/2004 06:58:40 PM · #19
If your PC has an onboard graphics chip, then there's a good chance that you have no AGP port (Accellerated graphics port).

If you have none, you will need a PCI (Peripheral Components.. ?Interconnect?..) card. If you are going a PCI card, it will always be slower than an AGP.

If you buy a new card (PCI or AGP) make sure you disable the onboard graphics in your BIOS (consult motherboard manufacturer).

Also, with onboard graphics adapters, they "steal" part of your RAM/memory. This amount could be set too high. You shouldn't need much more than 32MB, and certainly no more than 64MB. (the adapter is just so slow there's no point in it having that much memory...

If you find out that you have an "Ali" based motherboard, just save up for a whole new computer. (Or load Windows 98 onto it.)
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