Help! How much computer memory do I need?

Hi Everyone,

I have WinXP Pro and I use Photoshop and Panorama Factory a lot. Lately, when stitching together six or more TIFF images, I get "out of memory" errors and if I have four images open in PS, it runs really slowly. Also, I can hear the hard drive going bananas writing to the swap file.

How much RAM should I have (I currently have 512MB)? How much do you have?

Thanks for the help guys.

It's a cop out I know, but the more the better. I would close all open programmes that were not in use and see if that helps. Everyone has their own opinion, but I would suggest a gig is the least I would want to work with. I do it for a living, so have rather more, so it's not relevant to you.

They say you should have at least four times as much ram as the largest files/s that you have open at any one time. They some more for the system. Ram is reletively cheap now though.

Graham

Ram is cheap, throw in another 512 stick. A gig seems to be the sweet spot, you will probably notice a difference adding the extra 512, after that you start seeing deminishing returns. Also depends how much your motherboard will accept.

Yeap at least 1GB and then some more. The other problem can be due to spybots/adwares. I personally use 1GB and at time it would slow down so I would run all three spybot SW to get rid of them. Believe me one won't do it.

Another 512 will practically double the speed of your workflow. But definitely more is better, up to 2 gigs is practical, 3 gigs is great if your machine can take that much.

After that, make sure that Pano Factory has plenty of swap space available.

ok you will need at least 512 DDRAM I use that much(on all newer computers) and that is compared like good old 1 gig of SDRAM with a speed.
So 1 gig DDRAM is a killer compared to an old SDRAM.

had 512, added 1gb - huge speed difference. 110% worth it.

Check to see how many slots are open before you buy.

Thanks everyone,

Ordered an extra GB of Corsair this afternoon

when you get that "out of memory" warning, it's talking about virtual memory, which is RAM, the memory where you store things, is your HardDrive space

as a guide, i'vr got 220gig of hard drive space (2x harddrives)
and 1gig of RAM

you should be able to pick up a stick of DDR ram for about $80
(don't get Generic, get a good brand, or you'll be paying for another one within a year)


i never have any problems

512 MB for photoshop =

1 GB =

2 GB =

I just added an extra 512MB to my existing 512MB, because I was tired of it taking around 20 seconds to load a CR2 image from Adobe RAW Converter (3.2) into Photoshop CS2 for editing.

And now it takes ... around 20 seconds still. Some functions may have sped up a little (applying noise filters, converting from 16-bit to 8-bit) but overall I'm quite disappointed at how little difference it made to double the RAM.

I suspect that a faster processor (currently using a Athlon 1800) may be what I really need to make a real difference. Opinions, anyone?

Stitching 6 TIFF files together? How large are they when saved on your hard drive? You may have trouble with any amount of RAM, but you'll want to have at least 1GB for photo processing.

Try stitching them one at a time.