Photoshop and Multicore Processors:

Moppie wrote in post #5025267
I think if I was building a dedicated photo processing machine I would use 64bit and as much ram as I could cram on the board.

I have 2GB and I rarely use all that during batch conversion. RAM is really only that helpful if you do a LOT of PS work with big documents.

According to Tom's Hardware:
http://www23.tomshardw​are.com …072&model2=1098​&chart=437
Seems two 'core 2 extreme's runs slower than one 'core 2 extreme'. for whatever that's worth.

tim wrote in post #5025376
I have 2GB and I rarely use all that during batch conversion. RAM is really only that helpful if you do a LOT of PS work with big documents.

So I wonder how much of an effect HDD speed has on the process then?
Clearly there is a lot of data to be read from, and then written to the HDD.

Perhaps someone can test a RAID array?

staereo wrote in post #5025452
According to Tom's Hardware:
http://www23.tomshardw​are.com …072&model2=1098​&chart=437
Seems two 'core 2 extreme's runs slower than one 'core 2 extreme'. for whatever that's worth.

Where's a wall I can bang my head against?
For all the great information on TomsHardware, it would appear they did make one, small error here.
Have a read of this thread: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=459748

Moppie wrote in post #5025487
So I wonder how much of an effect HDD speed has on the process then?
Clearly there is a lot of data to be read from, and then written to the HDD.

Perhaps someone can test a RAID array?

During batch conversion, using RAWs on one drive and writing JPGs to another, my hard drives tick over slowly, but my dual core CPU runs at 100% usage. I think HDD speed is irrelevant for me, CPU speed is the limiting factor.

tim wrote in post #5025515
During batch conversion, using RAWs on one drive and writing JPGs to another, my hard drives tick over slowly, but my dual core CPU runs at 100% usage. I think HDD speed is irrelevant for me, CPU speed is the limiting factor.

Interesting, one thing I noted was CPU usage with 2 cores active was around 90%, but it was down to half that with 4 cores active.
Its possible you might benefit from a faster CPU.

I'll try the test again read and writing to separate drives, see if it makes a difference.

Moppie wrote in post #5025529
Interesting, one thing I noted was CPU usage with 2 cores active was around 90%, but it was down to half that with 4 cores active.
Its possible you might benefit from a faster CPU.

I'll try the test again read and writing to separate drives, see if it makes a difference.

Did you do direct from RAW to JPG? I don't think you did. You had an intermediate format of TIFF, which would thrash the disk since it's a huge file format.

Moppie wrote in post #5025487
Where's a wall I can bang my head against?
For all the great information on TomsHardware, it would appear they did make one, small error here.
Have a read of this thread: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=459748

I half read the thread (sorry, I'm posting between work). So, if I understand right, Tom's test ended up using a rig that lacked sufficient resources (ie: ram in this case) to fully utilize the potential of the dual core 2 extreme?

If that's the case, big oopsie on Tomshardware for mixing that up.

staereo wrote in post #5025883
I half read the thread (sorry, I'm posting between work). So, if I understand right, Tom's test ended up using a rig that lacked sufficient resources (ie: ram in this case) to fully utilize the potential of the dual core 2 extreme?

If that's the case, big oopsie on Tomshardware for mixing that up.

Yip, it looks a lot like the photoshop test they do is memory intensive, rather than CPU intensive.

tim wrote in post #5025579
Did you do direct from RAW to JPG? I don't think you did. You had an intermediate format of TIFF, which would thrash the disk since it's a huge file format.

No, I didn't.
I'll give that a go next.

staereo wrote in post #5025883
I half read the thread (sorry, I'm posting between work). So, if I understand right, Tom's test ended up using a rig that lacked sufficient resources (ie: ram in this case) to fully utilize the potential of the dual core 2 extreme?

If that's the case, big oopsie on Tomshardware for mixing that up.

Indeed, this thread right here is showing dramatically different results, especially where we have all but eliminated the slow hard drive bottle neck for some aspects of the testing.

Moppie wrote in post #5025267
Vista Business, 32bit.
With a 512mb graphics card, I'm somewhat limited to how much of the 4gb I can see. Its currently showing 3325mb.

I think if I was building a dedicated photo processing machine I would use 64bit and as much ram as I could cram on the board.
But, my current machine also has to do everything else, including gaming, and I really can't be bothered with the potential limitations, or having a 3rd OS to dual boot.
At the end of the day a 32bit OS is more than fast enough for what I need given the current number of photos I process.

When you do the conversion test, might you have time to try under 32bit and 64bit XP? Be interesting to see how that effects things as well
(it might also distract skynet from its path to sentience.)

Don't forget to "Select All" before hitting save

Try the /PAE switch fix listed in my "can't see all 4GB RAM sticky" (newly added)
It was a nice fix that worked for me, but it will only work if your hardware can cope. Worth a try.

tim wrote in post #5025140
Drag a bunch of RAW files into photoshop, ACR will open, hit save down the bottom left, choose JPG, hit ok. Easy

"Could not complete the request because it is not the right kind of document"

I think I need to update ACR, never did it since installing on the "new" PC, it won't even open MarkII (2) files..

Well, it won't even open D60 files,. so I'm not the right guy for this particular test.
Plus, IMHO we already know that PSCS will use more than one or two cores, that it will use 4 cores at least.

We already know that ACR will do the same as I watch it do so in lightroom.

the test run on my PC would not tell us anything new.
The difference between Moppie's results and mine are do to the massive amounts of RAM and the super fast memory based swap disk.
Moppie has faster CPU cores, but he is running into the classic bottle neck that all PCs have had since the 1st PCs and have been very evident since the era of the 486 75Mhz CPU, ..
the drive subsystem. It is nothing new that the drive subsystem is the slowest aspect. thus the very reason I did my best to open this bottleneck on SkyNet.

Moppie wrote in post #5025529
Interesting, one thing I noted was CPU usage with 2 cores active was around 90%, but it was down to half that with 4 cores active.
...

IMHO, this is solid evidence that you have a bottleneck keeping the operation from taking full advantage of your CPUs

Time to build that 10TB raid array me thinks