Photoshop CS2 doesn’t detect all available memory

R
Posted By
Rennie
Jun 12, 2007
Views
605
Replies
10
Status
Closed
Hi,

I recently bought an extra 2gb of Ram on top of my 1gb because thinks were kinda slow when working with photoshop. Even the most basic of files use over 500mb of ram (I think memory management has really gotten worse since the introduction of the CS series, and it sometimes hangs for no apparent reason)

When i look at the prefereces i see that photoshop says there is 1756 mb available while i have 3gb.
I have 2 chips of 512 mb and 2 of 1 gigabyte. So the 1756 is a real strange number in itself. The 512 chips are corsair memory and the 1gigabyte chips are kingston.

I have installed the 9.02 update.
Anyone familiar with this problem and how can i fix it?

Regards,
Rene
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LenHewitt
Jun 12, 2007
What O’S are you running under? In XP, without enabling the 3/gb switch that’s what you would expect to see.
R
Rennie
Jun 12, 2007
Indeed windows XP
3/gb switch? what is that?
H
Ho
Jun 12, 2007
The 3/GB switch is a line inserted into the boot.ini file that restricts XP to 1GB of RAM while making the extra RAM available to apps like CS2 that can utilize it. You can Google for info and learn how to implement it. Just be aware that on *some* systems there are adverse consequences to using the switch, and in the worst case, your machine will not boot. Make sure you have a workable recovery strategy in case this happens to you.
R
Rennie
Jun 12, 2007
Yep found it. And it works. Windows still works fine.
Absolutely didn’t know about this. Thnx alot!
RP
Richard_Poitevin
Jun 18, 2007
I have 3gb ram installed on my Athlon64 XPsp2 computer. The 3/gb switch (Physical Address Extension) is enabled and System Properties>General shows 2.87gb ram.

Photoshop Preferences shows "available ram: 1719mb". The "let Photoshop use" box below has been set to 75%. Can I change this to 100%?
DM
dave_milbut
Jun 18, 2007
if you give ps 100% of your available ram (3 gig) what will the other applications and the operating system run on?

the answer is no. with only 3 gig on board, don’t allocate all of it for photoshop. you system will slow to a crawl. leave it at 75% if that works ok for you. if you up system memory to 4 gig, then yes, go for 100%.
C
chrisjbirchall
Jun 18, 2007
Just to add to what Dave has said: "other applications" includes Adobe Bridge which, along with some plu-ins, runs outside of Photoshop’s allocated memory. Unless you are working on very large files, keep the PS allocation at or around the default 55%.
RP
Richard_Poitevin
Jun 18, 2007
So with 3gb ram installed, when Photoshop Preferences says 1.7gb is available that leaves approx 1gb available for Windows and other apps. If no other apps except Photoshop are running, how much memory would Windows use when working on a large file in CS3? Are there any pitfalls to setting the Ps memory allocation to 100% in this case?

With a large file open in Ps, could I change the Ps memory allocation to 50%, or even lower, just before opening a memory hungry plugin? And then, after closing the plugin, change the memory allocation back to a higher percentage? In other words, do Ps memory allocation settings take effect immediately as it is changed?
H
Ho
Jun 18, 2007
No. You must restart PS after a memory allocation change.
DM
dave_milbut
Jun 19, 2007
don’t run windows with less than 256 meg left after starting photoshop. more if as chris said, you plan on using bridge or any other app along with photoshop.

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