Computer Power?

"Cedar" <none RemoveThis @nowhere.ca> wrote in message
news:6b4pg.22237$QI1.18107@newsfe14.lga...
> How much "juice under the hood" does it take to be able to properly work
> with PhotoShop and Illustrator CS2? (I understand CS2 is the newest
> version.) Is a separate video card necessary? Would a 850 mhz machine
> with 384 mb of ram do the job?

Hi.

I am guessing that it might work, but only with very small image files.

Even though it did work, it would run very slowly, and you would not be able
to do very many edits before it hung.

Photoshop is RAM hungry, and CS2 is even more so than earlier versions.
Most people nowadays have a Minimum of 1 GB, and many have 3 GB of as fast
RAM as they can get.

A fast processor, ( 3000mhz and over ), will also help, as will more than
one fast HDD. One of these is usually left empty, so that Photoshop can use
it as a "Scratch Disc" (Virtual memory).

The video Card is not important. Almost any 64 Mb Card will do the job.
Fast powerful cards are really only important to Gamers.

The other factor which most people forget about is the Monitor, you need a
big one so that you can see the picture and all the Tools at the same time,
or even better 2 Monitors.

Roy G
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>Cedar wrote:
> How much "juice under the hood" does it take to be able to properly work
> with PhotoShop and Illustrator CS2?

It depends on the size of the image files.

> Is a separate video card necessary?

No.

> Would a 850 mhz machine
> with 384 mb of ram do the job?

There's a description of the min hardware and OS requirements somewhere
.... I'm too lazy to look it up but I think what you have is close to
minimal but might be OK, depending on your OS.

If you are working on small files for the web (say gifs or jpegs) or if
your photo images are from say 5 - 16 Mpixel digital cameras then you
can work fine with near-minimum hardware configurations. As the files
get bigger you'll find it really slows down as you don't have enough
RAM, but contrary to other posts in this thread you probably won't
crash. As a benchmarking exercise I've gone down to 256 MB of RAM and
ran tests with image files up to 550 MB (high rez medium format film
scans) and Photoshop CS ran fine (very slow, but no crashes).

Just curious as to why you are putting a $600 program on a $400
computer though ... if you're just learning you might give Elements a
try instead.

Bill
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In article <6b4pg.22237$QI1.18107@newsfe14.lga>, none DeleteThis @nowhere.ca says...
>
>How much "juice under the hood" does it take to be able to properly work
>with PhotoShop and Illustrator CS2? (I understand CS2 is the newest
>version.) Is a separate video card necessary? Would a 850 mhz machine
>with 384 mb of ram do the job?

Good question, but one that I cannot answer. Also, a definition of being "able
to properly work... " is in order.

The last legacy machine that I used with CS/CS2 was a dual-P3 1GHz with 1.5GB
RAM and a Matrox G-450 64MB VRam and 4 SCSI 160M HDDs. It ran nicely with big
files (1-2 GB) with multiple Layers.

In short, the more RAM, fast HDD real estate, then processor power, that you
have the better.

Hunt
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Bill Hilton wrote:
>>Cedar wrote:
>>How much "juice under the hood" does it take to be able to properly work
>>with PhotoShop and Illustrator CS2?
>
>
> It depends on the size of the image files.
>
>
>>Is a separate video card necessary?
>
>
> No.
>
>
>> Would a 850 mhz machine
>>with 384 mb of ram do the job?
>
>
> There's a description of the min hardware and OS requirements somewhere
> ... I'm too lazy to look it up but I think what you have is close to
> minimal but might be OK, depending on your OS.
>
> If you are working on small files for the web (say gifs or jpegs) or if
> your photo images are from say 5 - 16 Mpixel digital cameras then you
> can work fine with near-minimum hardware configurations. As the files
> get bigger you'll find it really slows down as you don't have enough
> RAM, but contrary to other posts in this thread you probably won't
> crash. As a benchmarking exercise I've gone down to 256 MB of RAM and
> ran tests with image files up to 550 MB (high rez medium format film
> scans) and Photoshop CS ran fine (very slow, but no crashes).
>
> Just curious as to why you are putting a $600 program on a $400
> computer though ... if you're just learning you might give Elements a
> try instead.
>
> Bill
>

Well, actually, it's complicated...but here's the short version: In
order to obtain funding from a specific source for graphics courses, I
needed to know if the school's computers would be able to handle the
software or not. (They do not yet have the software but are looking into
getting it.) Since it sounds pretty "iffy" according to these posts, it
would make more sense to try and work online from my machine at home
(which is another battle with my funding source... ! ) I figured
Adobe's system requirement guidelines were kind of ...um.. "out to
lunch" (as is so often the case, it seems).
Thanks for the info.
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Interesting stuff! Thanks so much for all the responses, "eh"!
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