upgrading my computer for lightroom

My computer is pretty good. But I think I might be able to make it better for lightroom. Any suggestions would be useful.

I have a Core 2 Duo 4300, 2 GB of vista RAM, Windows XP 32 bit, 2 500 GB hard drives set up in RAID 0+1 (with RAID 0 partition for OS, RAID 1 for all my files). A 256 NVIDIA 7300 GT card.

Suggestions I considered: upgrading to 64 bit, and getting another drive for the paging file, or, getting rid of the paging file completely.

I'm not a computer wiz, so any suggestions would be appreciated!!

THanks.

I tried getting rid of the page file once because I read something about it on the net, but I had nothing but trouble after that.

Why do you want to increase performance? Is it too slow or is it just gadget lust?

More ram can never hurt (famous last words). Going 64 bit will allow tons of ram with one main caveat--you may not be able to find the drivers you need and you may have some old stuff that won't run anymore.

Having said that, more ram will only actually improve things if you are getting to the limit of your current ram in my understanding. Can anyone more expert than myself confirm that?

expatdude wrote in post #4838796
I tried getting rid of the page file once because I read something about it on the net, but I had nothing but trouble after that.

Why do you want to increase performance? Is it too slow or is it just gadget lust?

More ram can never hurt (famous last words). Going 64 bit will allow tons of ram with one main caveat--you may not be able to find the drivers you need and you may have some old stuff that won't run anymore.

Having said that, more ram will only actually improve things if you are getting to the limit of your current ram in my understanding. Can anyone more expert than myself confirm that?

Thanks for your message... I think lightroom is fantastic but would just like to be able to zoom in quicker and switch files quicker (although its definately fast enough to be usable...). Would lots more ram with 64 bit actually speed things along a little? Is the reality that there are many drivers that don't work, or do most work these days? My printer is a few years old... probably made before 2005, so I'm not sure.

Within 32 bit would 3 vs. 2 GB make a difference? Maybe I need a separate drive for my paging file.

Thx!

Have you tried unchecking "save changes to xmp" in the Catalog settings to increase performance? Do you have the latest version of lightroom?

I'm using a core2duo 4400, with 2gb RAM with Vista, and a 2gb ReadyBoost, and LR flies along pretty well for me. {Although I don't think the Readyboost is really helping out LR in particular.}

Myself, I may consider upgrading the processor itself within a year or so (probably not going quad-core, however), and add a second 500gb hard drive... for me, I think that would likely be the biggest boosts I'll get... but overall I'm pleased with LR's performace on my 2.0ghz core2duo... but yes, there is always more power to be squeezed out if you're willing to throw money at it.

There may always be some lag when switching between images, or when zooming in, especially if the previews have not been built.

For anyone that cares RAID 1 is definately worth it for data protection. I love not having to worry about hard drive failure (fires or theft is stil an issue though).

I would suggest not doing anything unless performance is a real problem. If it is tell us what the problem is and when it happens and we might be able to work out what the cause is.