How much video memory for Photoshop?

H
Posted By
hanknj1
May 4, 2009
Views
1353
Replies
4
Status
Closed
I’m buying a Macbook Pro to do Photoshop and some digital stitching with Photomatix. How much video memory do I need? One model of the Macbook Pro has 256 megs of video memory and the others have 512 megs. I’m going to have 4 gigs of RAM in either computer but how essential is it to have that extra 256 megs of video memory? I will not be doing 3D or video work.

How to Improve Photoshop Performance

Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!

S
Steve
May 4, 2009
"hanknj1" wrote in message
I’m buying a Macbook Pro to do Photoshop and some digital stitching with Photomatix. How much video memory do I need? One model of the Macbook Pro has 256 megs of video memory and the others have 512 megs. I’m going to have
4 gigs of RAM in either computer but how essential is it to have that extra 256 megs of video memory? I will not be doing 3D or video work.

As much as you can get!
J
JD
May 5, 2009
hanknj1 wrote:
I’m buying a Macbook Pro to do Photoshop and some digital stitching with Photomatix. How much video memory do I need? One model of the Macbook Pro has 256 megs of video memory and the others have 512 megs. I’m going to have 4 gigs of RAM in either computer but how essential is it to have that extra 256 megs of video memory? I will not be doing 3D or video work.

What version of PS? CS3, CS4?

In a Windows OS environment, a 32 bit OS can only address 4 GB of RAM. You can have more RAM but there is only address space for 4 GB. That’s total address space, so other things like your video card take some of that address space. It’s a little confusing.

I don’t know if a MAC OS has this same limitation. CS4 is supposed to like more video RAM but if it’s at the expense of RAM available to the program then I’d go with the lesser video RAM. Again, I don’t know if the MAC OS has this same RAM address limitation.

Maybe you can ask in a MAC newsgroup? A 64 bit OS in Windows doesn’t have this limitation or so I’ve read. I have 4 GB RAM and 256 MB on my video card and CS3 works very quickly for me.


JD..
MR
Mike Russell
May 7, 2009
There is a lot of confusion about the memory space allocated to larger video cards, as well as the relevance of video accelerator performance to Photoshop. Speaking only of Photoshop, neither of these is a big deal, IMHO. Put your hard earned money into 4GB of RAM, and if anything is left, perhaps a RAID array. The video card would be last on my list of things to spend heavily on.

Video cards with more internal RAM are not really a liability. They do not necessarily use more system address space, and in fact it is generally the other way around: boards with more onboard RAM require less memory bandwidth and address space because textures and model data do not need to be reloaded as often. For example, the humble NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 has 4 GB of on board memory, and it works on a 32 bit system. The card’s memory is used internally by the graphics accelerator, which is a computer in its own right, with only a window of address space used for communicating with the driver.

Being *basically* a 2D app, Photoshop does not make much use of the graphics accelerator features of a video card. Odds are you will not notice any performance improvement with a better video card. That said, with certain functions that use Direct3D (warp), and especially with CS extended, more and more 3D functionality is being added. If you make heavy use of 3D rendering, or other features that use heavy graphics, you may see a big improvement with a heftier graphics card.

Mike Russell – http://www.curvemeister.com
F
Fred
May 7, 2009
I’m buying a Macbook Pro to do Photoshop and some digital stitching with Photomatix. How much video memory do I need? One model of the Macbook Pro has 256 megs of video memory and the others have 512 megs. I’m going to have 4 gigs of RAM in either computer but how essential is it to have that extra 256 megs of video memory? I will not be doing 3D or video work.

At least 128MB, but more important, make sure it supports OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0.
That way you take advantage of the new (CS4) graphics.
Here’s more info http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html

If you don’t use CS4, it’s not important.

How to Improve Photoshop Performance

Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections