[Snakebyte]

Its official, Photoshop7 sucks and I wish it to return to the hell from which it came, I HATE PS7!!!

However, Ps7 makes better use of my 2Gigs than Ps6. In 7 my painting utilizes all the memory I allocate to it ~1.777 (100%) whereas Photo6 will say ~1.9 Gig but only actually use 1.2gig.
Also, in Photo6 the Scratch disk will read xxM/1822M (indicating that Photo6 has 1.8Gigs available) but as soon as I open a BIG image that number will drop to 1039M.

When I have Task manager open (WinXP) Photo7 with a Large open image will in fact use all the mem it should use. Photo6, however, will just use ~1.1 Gigs of mem, ignoring the remaining 700. The performance IS noticeable between the two.

Photoshop6 is patched and Photoshop7 is not patch (wont let me install it)�

I very much would like to use 6 again..


Loaded the same image in both Ps 7 and 6.... yea I managed to misspell Photoshop in the picture.
_________________
Kevin Moore
www.darkesthorizons.com

[B0b]

photoshop will eat any Memory you allocate to it

i personally dont look @ how much RAM is taken, i know i've allocated 85% of available RAM out of my 2Gb, with other apps open.

my next box however will have 4Gb RAM thats for certain.. and i'll prolly increase the Scratch partion to 4Gb instead of 2 that i have now..

[Snakebyte]

Thats the problem, Photoshop 6 Isnt useing the mem I allocate to it, It stops at about 1.2Gig and goes no further. Whereas Photoshop 7 will use all the mem (1.8+Gig).
_________________
Kevin Moore
www.darkesthorizons.com

[Pat]

I don't think 6 is any less adept than 7 at addressing large amounts of RAM. I think the difference lies in how the versions are programmed to use it. Photoshop's caching system has been altered with each release to better utilize the ever-increasing hardware and OS changes.

In your case the performance differences you're noting are internal to Photoshop's code and I suspect that in order to take advantage of the extended RAM addressing you'll have to use the newer version. However, here's a couple of things you can check to insure that 6 is as much up to speed as possible:


1) Make sure your memory preferences for each version are similar. Obviously, different settings will alter performance. Make sure the number of cached history states are set to the same number between versions as well as your number of cache levels.

2) Make sure you have sufficient hard drive space cleared for the older version. The relationship between RAM and free HD space is always touchy depending on the OS. Photoshop 6 may be unable to utilize all your RAM if it can't access enough scratch space for a 1 to 1 match. In your case this means for PS6 to fully utilize 1.8 gigs of RAM you'll need an equal amount of open space on your drive to initialize the scratch disk. This can be difficult to determine is happening correctly since Photoshop's virtual memory scheme is independent of your OS's cache scheme. I'm not too familiar with XP but Win2K defaults to opening a a page file the size your physical RAM (or larger) as well --so you're potentially looking at 1.5 to 2 times your installed RAM on top of Photoshop's 1 to 1 requirements in HD space before you even open up an image. In some instances backing off the maximum amount of allocated RAM can improve performance.

In any event, it's a safe bet that on newer hardware the latest version of Photoshop will perform more efficiently. On not-so-new hardware it becomes a toss up between a new feature set and performance hit you'll take for the upgrade. Either choice involves a compromise, so depending on your personal tastes and how you use the application the only one who can make the choice is you. Frankly, I'd echo what a lot of users have been saying about PS7: get used to it. It's rough at first, but most of the discomfort is temporary.

-Pat

[soogarrush]

thank you for this thread...

i never knew photoshop had its own memory management until i read this...yeah pretty stupid of me. i had a 3gb partition for the winxp swapfile thinking photoshop uses the xp swapfile but it doesnt!! grrr...

now i just went in and setup the photoshop 'scratch disk'. the performance should be alot better now.

[B0b]

with 2k i have 1Gb Page File set manualy.. i like to have full control over my OS..