scratch/memory question (Mark Bolton/Bill Hilton)

From: edjh

To increase the percentage of memory used by Photoshop:

Note: Don’t set the percentage to more than 75%.
That’s from the Optimizing Photoshop Performance document here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/12dde.htm

Thanks for the link, it has some good info in it.

As for 75% (I assume you’re refering to one of my earlier posts where I said I was running 86% on two systems with 1.5 and 2 GB RAM), I did say YMMV …

Here’s how I figure it … if you have 256 MB RAM and use 75% for Photoshop you’re leaving 64 MB for the OS and the other programs.

If you have 2 GB RAM and use 75% for Photoshop you’re leaving 512 MB for OS etc. Using 86% on a 2 GB box still means you’re leaving 280 MB for other stuff (more RAM that the 256 MB guy has for *everything*), and on a 1.5 GB box you’re still leaving 210 MB, or about 3x more than the guy with 256 MB is leaving if he’s at 75%.

If I were crashing I’d be concerned about it, but I’m not so I’m not. When I ran a series of tests lowering the amount of RAM assigned to Photoshop my large files started swapping out quickly and the total run time increased. So a high percentage allocation is faster for certain and I don’t see any stability problems. Note I also don’t run other memory hog programs at the same time as Photoshop though.

Hmm, maybe I should try for 90% … 🙂

Bill

Bill Hilton wrote:

From: edjh

To increase the percentage of memory used by Photoshop:

Note: Don’t set the percentage to more than 75%.
That’s from the Optimizing Photoshop Performance document here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/12dde.htm

Thanks for the link, it has some good info in it.

As for 75% (I assume you’re refering to one of my earlier posts where I said I was running 86% on two systems with 1.5 and 2 GB RAM), I did say YMMV …
Here’s how I figure it … if you have 256 MB RAM and use 75% for Photoshop you’re leaving 64 MB for the OS and the other programs.
If you have 2 GB RAM and use 75% for Photoshop you’re leaving 512 MB for OS etc. Using 86% on a 2 GB box still means you’re leaving 280 MB for other stuff (more RAM that the 256 MB guy has for *everything*), and on a 1.5 GB box you’re still leaving 210 MB, or about 3x more than the guy with 256 MB is leaving if he’s at 75%.

If I were crashing I’d be concerned about it, but I’m not so I’m not. When I ran a series of tests lowering the amount of RAM assigned to Photoshop my large files started swapping out quickly and the total run time increased. So a high percentage allocation is faster for certain and I don’t see any stability problems. Note I also don’t run other memory hog programs at the same time as Photoshop though.

Hmm, maybe I should try for 90% … 🙂

Bill

I don’t really know the reason for their recommendation. —
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html

The system needs memory to run too, so if you set it too high the system will crash, simple.

Stuart

edjh wrote:

Bill Hilton wrote:

From: edjh

To increase the percentage of memory used by Photoshop:

Note: Don’t set the percentage to more than 75%.
That’s from the Optimizing Photoshop Performance document here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/12dde.htm

Thanks for the link, it has some good info in it.

As for 75% (I assume you’re refering to one of my earlier posts where I said I
was running 86% on two systems with 1.5 and 2 GB RAM), I did say YMMV …
Here’s how I figure it … if you have 256 MB RAM and use 75% for Photoshop
you’re leaving 64 MB for the OS and the other programs. If you have 2 GB RAM and use 75% for Photoshop you’re leaving 512 MB for OS
etc. Using 86% on a 2 GB box still means you’re leaving 280 MB for other stuff
(more RAM that the 256 MB guy has for *everything*), and on a 1.5 GB box you’re
still leaving 210 MB, or about 3x more than the guy with 256 MB is leaving if
he’s at 75%.

If I were crashing I’d be concerned about it, but I’m not so I’m not. When I
ran a series of tests lowering the amount of RAM assigned to Photoshop my large
files started swapping out quickly and the total run time increased. So a high
percentage allocation is faster for certain and I don’t see any stability problems. Note I also don’t run other memory hog programs at the same time as
Photoshop though.
Hmm, maybe I should try for 90% … 🙂

Bill

I don’t really know the reason for their recommendation.