Sijun Forums :: View topic

jester1966 · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 1:12 am

My problem is that when working with large (60 MB and more) files either with Photoshop or with Painter my system crashes regularly. I have a PIII 500 MHz (Intel), 512 MB RAM and plenty of disk-space for swapping. Anyway, I "just" have a Matrox G400 with 32 MB RAM and I think that this is the main reason for my instable system when working on graphics.

Most articles I have read on graphics card deal with their performance when gaming (especially 3d). Since I'm no gamer, I do not need this. Is anybody here who can tell me which benchmarks are important for my type of usage?

Thanks!

Jester1966

B0b · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 1:26 am

the G400 is an excellent 2D card, it has a very fast RAM DAC for display purposes.. i used to own one b4 i got a proffesional 3D card from 3Dlabs..

but as far as your system goes.. you've not stated enough information about it to comment on

lets have the rest of it..

Mobo
OS
What make is your ram etc

jester1966 · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 1:33 am

OS - Windows 98 SE

RAM Manufacturer: Infineon 133 MHz, 4 bars each 128 MB

What else would you need to know?

Jester1966

ceenda · member Member # Joined: 27 Jun 2000 Posts: 2030

quote

Quote:

OS - Windows 98 SE

**PINGGGGG**

98 is not good, imho, for processor and memory intensive programs.

Hardly had either Photoshop or Painter crash at all since moving to the NT based architectures (2000, XP).

HawkOne · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 3:13 am

[Edit: Oops ... I replied at the same time as ceenda ...]
Aha ...!!!

Win 98 ... that's your problem right there buddy ... it is not meant for professional applications, for several reasons ... but one very important one is that it does not manage demanding memory tasks very well at all ... Your applications are both Pro applications ... so you should chuck out that Win98 crap ... and get Win2000 or XP ... (XP Pro if you are hooking up to a network ... )...

It could be hardware related of course ... like an overheating processor(s), faulty RAM, conflicting devices and stuff like that ... but I'd put my money on Win98 as the culprit ...

I very much doubt it is the Matrox cards fault ... since they are pretty much top notch when it comes to 2D stuff ...

Cheers ...

[ August 19, 2002: Message edited by: HawkOne ]

eyewoo · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 4:31 am

Yepsir! Win98... Before moving to XP, I had gotten use to crashing 3 or 4 times a day while using Photoshop under Win98.

B0b · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 5:22 am

i'd recommend upgrading your OS to XP, cos no doubt you like to play games if your running 98

jester1966 · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 5:52 am

Thanks for all your replies. This was very informative. At least it kept me from spending much money on a new card and ending with the same symptoms. Now, I'm *not* a gamer (apart from enjoying an occasional Tetris or to do some Lego stuff [robots etc.]) but I also do not want to spend money on a new OS licence.

Seems that I have to live with this...

Thanks anyways

Jester1966

sunraven0 · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 7:02 am

I got the 2000 upgrade from 98 & I never crash in photoshop anymore. Its not too much more than a new card.

flatline01 · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 8:05 pm

couple of things.
a: upgrade to either 2000 or xp
b: make sure that your swap (scratch) disk is the fastest drive on your system. you should have a swap disk atleast twice as big as your ram.
c: try getting more ram. ram is dirt cheap, upgrade!
d: make sure you defrag regularly. temp files created by photoshop are usually deleted when you close photoshop, but if it crashes, guess what, those files are left there....

i'm running a win2k machine, with a vid card of 'only' 16mb, and it does fine. i used to use win 98, crashed every other day, sometimes several times a day. running dreamweaver and photoshop, no way. so yeah, biggest thing, upgrade the OS!

jester1966 · Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2002 1:37 am

Seems that it was a driver problem - have just downloaded the latest from Matrox and installed them. Up to know, even PS seems to run nicely.

I should have tried that myself... am only using PCs for round about 14 years now...

Thanks to all of you for your help!

B0b · Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2002 4:16 am

quote:
Originally posted by flatline01:
couple of things.
c: try getting more ram. ram is dirt cheap, upgrade!

98 doesn't reccognise more then 512Mb RAM...

eyewoo · Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2002 6:27 am

quote

Quote:

98 doesn't reccognise more then 512Mb RAM...

No kidding!!! Jeez, you'd think Dell would know about that. I could never understand why I couln't run my old Dell Dimension with 768 megs of RAM... It would run but totally unreliably, so I had to back off to 512 megs... I was on the phone with Dell several times about it, but without any solution... They knew I was running Win98!!!
Jeeeeeezzzz!!!

flatline01 · Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2002 8:02 am

quote

Quote:

98 doesn't reccognise more then 512Mb RAM...

another reason to upgrade to a real os!
hahahaha... =)

Atherium · Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2002 1:02 am

I am on the dell 8200 series with 512 ram and the new gforce4 4mb card and the combo is flawless, PS7, painter, everything is wicked quick and I have yet to crash

B0b · Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2002 8:23 am

i have a home built PC with 2Gb RAM and its amazing

Blind · Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2002 7:43 am

P4 2.0a, 1GB RDRAM, 80GB of RAID-0 with a 512MB swap file on a separate partition and a Matrox G550...

This rig SMOKES >8)

B0b · Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2002 12:12 pm

quote

Quote:

a 512MB swap file on a separate partition

that system swap or Photoshop scratch?