hititfaster Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 By cheap I mean free if possible. I have a PC that I had built a couple of years ago, which generally runs OK. I don't know much about the spec. apart from the fact that it has 256mb RAM and an 80Gb hard drive. The problem is I do a lot with Photoshop and like playing music. If I have the two together, it's almost painful how slow things move on Photoshop... and if I press scan too I might as well walk away and leave it 15min :mellow: I've already done things like getting rid of as many of the icons on my desktop as possible and clearing out some crap from the system, but things are still sooooo slooooooowwwwww :ermm: Anyone have some quick tips I might be able to use to speed things up, or otherwise a bit of advice on what to upgrade to make things faster? I haven't defragmented it for a while, would that aid things? Thanks, Tom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Phaze Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 1. Back-up data, and format hard disk 2. Re-install Windows + all security patches. 3. BUY MORE MEMORY...... like up to 1Gb in total if you can. 4. Get another hard disk, and assign the "scratch disk" in PS to use it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JT! Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 1. Back-up data, and format hard disk 2. Re-install Windows + all security patches. 3. BUY MORE MEMORY...... like up to 1Gb in total if you can. 4. Get another hard disk, and assign the "scratch disk" in PS to use it.... ← I agree with the top to, after all they are free, and they work! Second 2 arnt so important, its should be ok with what you have Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Phaze Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 I agree with the top to, after all they are free, and they work! Second 2 arnt so important, its should be ok with what you have ← PS is very RAM intensive - the more you have, the faster processing data will be - as when the PC runs out of RAM, it uses the hard disk.....which is very slow in comparison. "A 3Ghz P4 with 256MB RAM would be slower than a P4 2.2Ghz with 2Gb RAM......" People seem to think that the faster the CPU, the faster the computer overall..... and only when they read about how PCs work, do they regret spending the extra ££ on a faster CPU instead of more memory..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTM Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 ^^^Format :mellow: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quick_spider Posted January 25, 2005 Report Share Posted January 25, 2005 Defrag. A Restart once in a while doesn't do it any harm. Windows is pretty crap at memory management. You could use msconfig to knock out any unneeded programs/processes from startup. See if you can beg/borrow/steal some more RAM from somewhere. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomturd Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 If I have the two together, it's almost painful how slow things move on Photoshop... So photoshop only goes slow if your playing music? What software do you use to play music? I suggest you find one which is a little easier on the CPU. Format if you can be arsed. I realise people dont like doing it but it is the best 'catch all' solution.. As for free non formatting general speeding up, click start> run> type "msconfig". Click startup tab. Uncheck everything which you dont need, including things like office quick start and anything that looks unfamiliar. Restart. Also run adaware, spybot, stuff like that. As for non-free, buy some more RAM. EDIT: When the MP3 was played in Winamp 5.05, the CPU utilization was between 3%-6%. This was consistent through the entire MP3. When the MP3 was played in Windows Media Player 10 the CPU utilization was between 33%-36%. This was consistent through the entire MP3. Try winamp 5.05 :S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hititfaster Posted January 26, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 So photoshop only goes slow if your playing music? It goes slower with music running, but it's hardly rapid without :) Changed my default player to Winamp, that made a bit of a difference I think, and I got rid of all the icons in msconfig too. Also re-started and things were instantly better... why does that make such a difference? :S I'll probably re-install everything once all my deadlines are out of the way. I don't even want to risk losing all my work. Cheers for the advice guys, muchos helpful :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartridge Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 Also re-started and things were instantly better... why does that make such a difference? :) ← How long had your PC been on? I think Photoshop writes loads of temp files when its running, which are then deleted when your PC re-boots? And that makes it faster... or something... :S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quick_spider Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 How long had your PC been on? I think Photoshop writes loads of temp files when its running, which are then deleted when your PC re-boots? And that makes it faster... or something... :) ← Windows is quite bad at memory management and I think you 'lose' the use of parts as things are loaded into it and then parts are finished with. I guess it's like sharing a bottle of wine with someone, but having to drink their half to get to your half which is at the bottom :S There are utilities to reclaim/defrag the memory on the fly - My dad uses Maxmem from AnalogX to tidy up the memory. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexx Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 Windows is the bloody memory god in comparison to photoshop. God knows how such an industry standard prog can be so utterly awful at handling memory, and run so apaulingly slow, it doesn't even run off an engine :S It's just a bunch of random commands, even it's management of basic stuff like fonts and brushes totally sucks lol. pff... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomturd Posted January 26, 2005 Report Share Posted January 26, 2005 It goes slower with music running, but it's hardly rapid without :P Changed my default player to Winamp, that made a bit of a difference I think, and I got rid of all the icons in msconfig too. Also re-started and things were instantly better... why does that make such a difference? :) I'll probably re-install everything once all my deadlines are out of the way. I don't even want to risk losing all my work. Cheers for the advice guys, muchos helpful :P ← The things which are listed in msconfig (startup tab) are the programs which load up every time you turn your computer on. Over 2 years of installing stuff youve probably made up quite a list of things which start every time you turn your pooter on, but never get used any more. Unchecking them means they wont start up when you turn your computer on. If you have stuff like hotkeys on your keyboard.. or err.. I cant think of anything else, and they dont work any more, you might need to go back into msconfig and re-check the box to load the (in this case) keyboard drivers when you start up. If everything works fine, leave it as it is :S And my tip of the day, go and back your work up now whatever you do :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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