Memory vs Storage

[Union Of V]

Hi all,

 

Now that my rig is being used for GIMP as much as for gaming, I was considering a small upgrade. Replacing a 6-month-old processor for €200-300 is out of the question so I am either looking at:

• bumping my RAM from 4GB to 8GB to speed things up a bit or
  
• adding an extra hard drive to store photos and such, since my current 160GB is already half full with photos - but won't be full for a while yet.
  

Firstly, I figured out that if I work on a typical 38MB photo and create 30 layers, that works out at about 1GB RAM usage, which with what I have means I'll have 2GB spare anyway. But I haven't a clue how image editing programs use memory, so will I see a performance boost with an extra 4GB or not?

 

Secondly, when it comes to quiet hard drives, I hear the Caviar Green range is good. Correct?

 

Thanks in advance for your help

[premiumgfx]

I'm not sure. I'd be inclined to think that more memory would equal better performance.

 

When you're using photoshop a good thing to do would be to open up Windows Task Manager (press Ctrl-Alt-Delete) when Photoshop is minimized. On the applications tab find Photoshop, right click and click go to process. This will highlight a process in blue and on the far right in the same row will be its memory usage in kilobytes.

 

This would tell you how much memory Photoshop is using.

 

Report back here and I'll try to help you more.

 

Caviar Green harddrives are quiet, but for more performance at the expense of a bit more noise I'd rather go with the slightly more expensive or even cheaper (in NZ they are) Caviar Black series.

[fire_storm]

When you're using photoshop a good thing to do would be to open up Windows Task Manager (press Ctrl-Alt-Delete) when Photoshop is minimized. On the applications tab find Photoshop, right click and click go to process. This will highlight a process in blue and on the far right in the same row will be its memory usage in kilobytes.

 

 

I'd open your task manager when your running these programs to see what type and how much resources there using to better decide what type of upgrade would benefit your system the most.

 

Adding memory to your system usually does boost performance a bit to a certain point but at a certain point it does not add any performance. For example if you have 4 gigs of ram and you add 16 or 24 gigs of ram to your system you probably won't see a performance between between the two unless you have an application that uses that much ram.

[krazypoloc]

Most photo editing software has video acceleration that is powered by the video card. Also if you are seeing slowdowns and have 4GB of memory it is likely that you video card is running out of memory before your physical memory is used up. What video card are you running and how much memory does it have?

[Guest_Jim_*]

I don't know if doubling your RAM will increase the performance of GIMP any, but between a hard drive and RAM for an upgrade, unless the hard drive isn't SATA, I'd recommend the RAM.

Before buying anything though, look at this from GIMP's site. How To Set Your Tile Cache This describes how to control the rate at which GIMP dumps data from the RAM to the hard drive. Obviously having more RAM will help with that, but you may be able to get better performance without having to spend any money. As you said, you can have 2GB free even when GIMP is taking one on its own. Perhaps you can exploit that to get the speed you want. Probably worth reading even if you do get the extra RAM though.

[Union Of V]

Most photo editing software has video acceleration that is powered by the video card. Also if you are seeing slowdowns and have 4GB of memory it is likely that you video card is running out of memory before your physical memory is used up. What video card are you running and how much memory does it have?

I've a 5770 with 1GB GDDR5, however afaik GIMp doesn't yet support GPU acceleration. I'm not entirely sure so I'll do a bit of research to see if it's "in development", ie if I can get my hands on it. It's not so much that the rig is slowing down now, however now that I have a graphics tablet I'll be using far more layers and I want to be prepared for the day I have to make a 2hr photoshop with a hundred or so RAWs open in the background

 

@Guest_Jim_* Thanks for that article, I'll make sure it's not stuck on the default 1GB....

 

@rest I'll check the RAM usage when I get home

 

[EDIT] @premiumgfx The Caviar Black looks great, but I'd rather a quiet drive simply for storing photos. While the photos would load better with a faster drive, a few seconds delay at the start of a long photoshop isn't a problem for me. I'll just leave games and such on the faster drive.

Edited July 13, 2010 by Union Of V

[fire_storm]

I've a 5770 with 1GB GDDR5, however afaik GIMp doesn't yet support GPU acceleration. I'm not entirely sure so I'll do a bit of research to see if it's "in development", ie if I can get my hands on it. It's not so much that the rig is slowing down now, however now that I have a graphics tablet I'll be using far more layers and I want to be prepared for the day I have to make a 2hr photoshop with a hundred or so RAWs open in the background

 

I doubt your video card is slowing you down maybe if it was a really old video card or the computer had an some type of slow integrated graphics solution I could see it as a possibility but not with a 5770.

[Union Of V]

OK, I ran a small test and it doesn't seem like I risk running out of RAM:

• System on, idling: 1.31GB
  
• Open a RAW in GIMP: 1.39GB
  
• Duplicate 30 times: 1.40GB
  
• 3 massive blurs: an extra 0.10GB while it blurs, dropping back afterwards
  
• Open 25 RAWs in UFRAW: an extra 1.32GB, again dropping right back afterwards
  

By the way, yes the cache was indeed set to the default 1GB Thanks for that...