More than 2GB RAM under XP Pro 32-bit

[Tea]

Tannin's laptop has 1.5GB of RAM. If I buy him a litlte present of a 2GB stick and take out the 1GB stick, it could have 2.5GB. (There is only one slot.)

I'm confident an extra GB will help when he is running several big things at once - which is fairly often. (Photoshop and Paintshop Pro are the main offenders so far as being RAM hogs goes.)

BUT: does Windows XP Pro 32-bit version recognise more than 2GB? I remember reading about this stuff here but forgot the answer already.

 

[Chewy509]

Short answer:
Yep, it does... It supports up to 4GB of RAM.

 

[Tea]

Cool. Thanks Chewy!

(Must be W2K that has the 2GB limit then - I guess that's what I was thinking of.)

 

[Pradeep]

32bit Windows has a 2GB limit per process, which can be increased to 3GB per process using the /3GB boot switch and some compiler optimisations (setting flags correctly). Most apps/processes don't use more than 2GB, so you should be all set.

 

[Tea]

Thanks Pradeep. That's good to know. Actually, it would be nice to have a boot switch that says "Photoshop and Paintshop Pro can have 1.5GB between them, leaving 1GB free for all the less greedy apps, and if they ask for more they can bugger off", but I guess that's not a function built-in to Windows just yet.

Or putting it another way, I'm hoping that an extra GB will stop my system ... sorry, Tannin's system ... clagging up when I leave the memory pigs runing in the background because I hate shutting them down because it takes ages while they swap themselves back into RAM so they can load themselves out of RAM again (it's like hospital - "wake up! You have to take a pill now to make you sleep!") and then you have to start them up again later, which also takes far too long.

 

[sechs]

As long as you're under 3GB of physical RAM, there shouldn't be any problems. Above that, things could take a lot more effort.

That said, I'm not clear that adding more RAM is going to resolve the paging issue that you describe. Windows goes through a lot of effort to page-out those background processes that you're not using so that there's plenty of RAM free. This is to say that the behavior of your operating system is unlikely to change radically.

You may wish to consider getting a better-performing drive for that laptop. After all, this is Storage Forum.

 

[Tea]

Good advice there Sechs. I have no doubt at all that a faster drive would make more difference than any other upgrade could. But (at least as I understand things) it would also chew through more battery power, which I don't need .... Hmmmm, tempting just the same. On the downside, I don't think Samsung make any 7200 RPM notebook drives, so I'd have to go Hitachi. I'd prefer Samsung. Most likely, I'll just stick to my current plan, which is to upgrade the second HDD (I took the DVD-RW out to make room for it) from 120 to 160GB, or even 200GB, as soon as Samsung have one available. I am always struggling for room.

I actually already have a buyer for my 1GB stick, so it won't cost me much to go to 2.5GB. I think that 2.5GB is the upper limit for this machine in any case - there is only one slot, plus 512MB on the main board.

It will be interesting to see what difference the extra RAM makes to the swapping problem - I'll post with a report.

 

[Tea]

I just discovered that 2GB DDR2 sticks for laptops are available no worries.

At around AU$1100 each.

sigh

 

[LunarMist]

If you work with large image files, allocate a good portion of that RAM (e.g., 1GB) as a RAM disk and point the 1st scratch disk at it. It is more beneficial for PS that just getting a faster drive.

 

[sechs]

LunarMist has obviously missed any conversations on the Windows memory subsystem....

 

[LunarMist]

Yes I understand all that stuff. It is not about Windows, but how PS works with Windows. I've spent far too much time and money on all the HDs, other apps etc., to find the best compromises for large files. I haven't tried the Windows CS3 yet, but apprently it is not 64 bits, so will have stupid memory limitations. Macs are so much better.

 

[Tea]

Lunar, I'm not actually trying to make Photoshop run faster, in fact I wouldn't really mind too much if it ran even slower than it does now, I just want everything else to run at a normal speed when I have Photoshop and/or Paintshop running in the background.

(Why leave it running when I'm not using it? Because it takes so bloody long to start up and I hate waiting for the computer. Especially when there is absolutely no excuse for the slug-like performance. I have a ton of other image-manipulation applications and routinely have a several big TIFF files open in them: typically several in PMView, one in Neat Image, and a pile of JPGs in everything from web browsers to my watermark maker. None of these programs are slow to start, nor do they hog the system RAM to the point where other stuff slows down. (Except for the Gecko-based products, which all have the mysterious CPU utilisation bug I've posted about before, but they are fine until the bug kicks in, at which point you have to close them - all of them, no matter which one kicked in the bug - and restart them. But until the bug strikes, they too are well-behaved. It's only Photoshop and (to a lesser extent) Paintshop Pro that does this. I hate the bloody things, but what can you do? Some of the things I need to do to images can't be done in any of the more pleasant-to-use programs.)

 

[Tannin]

Tea, we are not spending $1100 on 1GB of extra RAM. Got it?

 

[Tea]

But ...

 

[Tannin]

No.

 

[Tea]

If ...

 

[Tannin]

No ifs, no buts, no party tricks. No..

 

[Tea]

Oh.... OK. But ...

 

[Tannin]

No.

Do you want me to explain using shorter words?

Look, we are buying a new notebook in maybe 6 months time, when the Core 2 Duos get really cheap and then we will make sure it's got at least two slots so we can have more than 2.5GB in it, maybe 4GB. And a bigger hard drive. So we just have to wait till then, OK.

 

[Tea]

Cool!

 

[Sol]

You could optionally set up an external 3.5" drive in a SATA enclosure and hook it up via a SATA PCMCIA or Express card adaptor. Then you could just get windows to swap to that when available.
I guess it would be painful to set up every time you wanted to use the thing, but I'm assuming if your not leaving the laptop set up for very long then this problem wouldn't come up so you could probably just leave the SATA card with the drive all hooked up at the office or home and plug it in when your there. It also gives you a nice fast drive to store anything you don't need on the road on which may be handy...

 

[sechs]

Yes I understand all that stuff.

I'd say, apparently not.

Taking a big chunk of system memory and making it unavailable to the operating system *is not* a way to improve memory performance.

Furthurmore, the existence of Photoshop's "scratch" disks is to save information when *memory* is not available; by reducing available memory, you only force Photoshop to use the scratch disk -- which is memory! If you simply set Photoshop up to use what you have, you'd save all of that stupid overhead of a RAM disk and the scratch disk system.

 

[Mercutio]

Photoshop loads its own memory manager, or it used to. Lunarmist could well be right if only for that one application.

 

[ddrueding]

Photoshop loads its own memory manager, or it used to. Lunarmist could well be right if only for that one application.

IIRC, in a previous discussion on this elsewhere, it was mentioned that PS writes some stuff to the scratch disk no matter how much RAM you have. Therefore it would make sense to make sure this was fast (ie. RAMDrive). If PS' memory management was logical, than this wouldn't be necessary.

 

[Tea]

Sol, that's a very S O'L suggestion: inventive, clever, and using as much expensive machinery as possible.

It would also be a pretty fair pain in daily use, insofar as I'd have to keep shutting the laptop down and starting it up again all the time. (I usually run it 24 x 7, rebooting only every week or two, or when I'm going to be away from the docking stations for any length of time.)

What I could do along those general lines is buy a 7200 RPM drive and use it instead of the existing 5400 RPM 120GB second drive, then swap the 5400 back in when I'm on the road and using batteries. But then I'd have to synchronise the drives before and after trips, which sounds like more work than putting up with Photoshop.

BTW, I can well believe that Adobe load their own memory manager: given the usual start-up time of Photoshop, I imagine that they also load a print manager, a window manager, a graphics and colour manager, a mouse driver, a keyboard management subsystem, and possibly a copy of the entire NASA database.

 

[ddrueding]

Samsung HM120J (2.5" 120GB 5400RPM PATA drive)

Seek - 2.1W
Low power Idle - 0.65

Seagate Momentus ST910021A (2.5" 100GB 7200RPM PATA drive)

Seek - 2.6W
Low power Idle - 0.95


Worth some extra speed? I think so.

 

[LunarMist]

Do you want me to explain using shorter words?

Look, we are buying a new notebook in maybe 6 months time, when the Core 2 Duos get really cheap and then we will make sure it's got at least two slots so we can have more than 2.5GB in it, maybe 4GB. And a bigger hard drive. So we just have to wait till then, OK.

A new notebook is probably the best option. I'm in a similar situation, but use notebooks only for travel where disk capacity is always the priority. Last year I shot about 200GB in three weeks. Using duplicate backups (3 sets of data) required too many 2.5" external drives/PSDs. I'm still waiting for the right new notebook, but would buy one of the custom-built Asus 12" ones now if pressed. I'm hoping for better choices by May - if anything exists with XP rather than the obnoxious Vista.

Core 2 Duo is very nice. I was playing around with one in a low-end notebook today - 1.6Gz, 1GB RAM, 120GB/5400 Seagate. The dual core is quite responsive and both PS and DPP of course are multi-threaded. DPP RAW conversion times are around 12 secs for the 1Ds MK II and about 20% of that is writing 48MB to the HD. (That is faster than a SCSI desktop system from 2005.) Likewise, opening a thousand thumbnails is limited by the slow drive. Larger 7200 rpm notebook drives are long overdue – 100Gb has been the max for 2 years. The larger capacity will improve performance and be most welcome.

 

[Tea]

Hmmm .......

For:

• Faster

Against:

• Higher seek power
• Higher idle power
• 20GB smaller
• Seagate

The seek power difference is trivial: OK, the batteries run down faster, but then you get more work done per unit of time. Scratch that one.

The idle power difference is more of a worry, but I could probably live with that one too - it's only one of two drives, after all.

The loss of 20GB is a show stopper: I seem to spend my whole life doing disc management on the laptop, I'm forever deleting things and moving other stuff off to archival storage. A lower capacity drive is not on the menu. Hell, I've even considered buying a Seagate 160GB 5400 RPM drive to get extra space, which leads me to:

Swapping Samsung peace of mind for Seagate oh-my-god-what-if-it-crashes-are-my-backups-good-enough? Nope. Thought about it, almost did it. Then Tannin got to hear about it and that was the end of that idea. (It's bloody difficult sometimes: he hears everything - you just don't have any privacy when you are living in the same brain as someone.)

Lunar: I think you are right. New laptop time.

 

[Tannin]

Not just yet, Tea. First we have to wait another month to see what new toys Canon announce in the lens and camera department. Then, assuming that they announce the things I think they will, we have to buy a 1D III, a 580EX with Better Beamer and assorted mounting hardware (possibly requiring new head and tripod to make it all fit), and a good lens in the wide/normal category, possibly an EF-S 17-55 or an EF 17-40. You always buy the necessities of life first, Little One, then worry about the things you woul merely like to have.

So, camera bits first, then we can buy a new laptop.

Oh, but first we have to find some money. There isn't actually any left at the moment. Feel like coming into work to give me a hand tommorow?

Tea?

Tea?

A hint for you all, gentle Storage Forum readers. The easiest way to get rid of an ape is by using four letter words. Well, one four letter word, actually. It starts with a "w". Does it every time.

 

[time]

IIRC, in a previous discussion on this elsewhere, it was mentioned that PS writes some stuff to the scratch disk no matter how much RAM you have.

Starting with CS, they no longer write direct to disk, just through Windows and its cache. A quick google search will show you that using a RAM disk with PS is now an old chestnut - Sechs appears to be correct.

 

[sechs]

A lot of people also forget that you can set Photoshop to use more or less memory. The default, if I recall correctly, is just 55%.

 

[Sol]

I don't think my suggestion would be quite that painful, whilst desktop machines don't seem to like letting you hot swap sata drives connected to the motherboard my laptop controller will allow me to safely remove my external drive just fine. You could just think of it as another docking station.

You could just take a leaf out of Vistas book and put your page file on a high speed USB key, or better still a good sized compact flash card with a PCMCIA adaptor.

Cheap, low power (actually might save some by allowing your drive to spin down a little more often) and the whole thing shouldn't even protrude out of the PCMCIA slot... Just cause the OS is rubbish that doesn't mean we can't steal whatever good ideas MS might have had (Or bought/stolen from someone else)...