Integrated graphics vs video board

  • Thread starter Thread starter ralph
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ralph

I am running PhotoShop Elements 4 under Windows XP Pro. My PC has an Intel
D865 motherboard with integrated graphics ("Extreme Graphics 2"), an Intel
P4 2.808 processor and 1 GB DDR400 ram. I have one 7200 rpm hard drive.
This PC was preveously used exclusively for general office work and web
browsing. For these purposes it was plently fast.

However, PhotoShop Elements runs a bit slower than I would like
(particularly when redrawing an image. Would any of the following produce a
significant improvement?
1: Additional ram.
2: A video board. If so, can you make specific recomendations? Of note: I am
not a gamer and do not do video editing.
3: Any other suggestions?
thanks....ralph
 
Am also using Photoshop Elements 4.
If you have large photo files (high resolution and uncompressed like .BMP
files) and load multiple images then more ram will help.
(one you start using the pagefile things slow down as the photo in loading)

Elements has the ability to specify where the temporary or scratch file can
be located where you specify, for this I have a second drive.

Although you are only doing 2D image processing almost any video card (does
not need to the latest and greatest model) will have some effect on
improving the speed of image rendering.

JS
 
ralph said:
I am running PhotoShop Elements 4 under Windows XP Pro. My PC has an Intel
D865 motherboard with integrated graphics ("Extreme Graphics 2"), an Intel
P4 2.808 processor and 1 GB DDR400 ram. I have one 7200 rpm hard drive.
This PC was preveously used exclusively for general office work and web
browsing. For these purposes it was plently fast.

However, PhotoShop Elements runs a bit slower than I would like
(particularly when redrawing an image. Would any of the following produce
a significant improvement?
1: Additional ram.
2: A video board. If so, can you make specific recomendations? Of note: I
am not a gamer and do not do video editing.
3: Any other suggestions?
thanks....ralph
Click to expand...

My 2nd PC has the same specs as you. My advice: Get ATI Radeon X850 Pro AGP!
It is one of the fastest AGP graphic card. Its 2D is ultra fast & sharp (its
3D is killer too). You can get it for less than $100. Before I built a new
core2duo system, I drove a 24" LCD at 1920x1200 with that card and it could
easily handle everything that I threw at it. Now, my wife uses that system
and she's very happy with what it can do with PhotoShop and video editing.
 
JS:
Thanks for your reply.
Where in PS Elements do you specify the location of the pagefile? Is it
possible to determine if it is being used?
thanks....ralph
 
Fidelis:
Thaks for your reply.
Does the ATI Raedon X850 Pro AGP produce a lot of heat? I have a very quiet
machine and would prefer not to add additional fans.
.....ralph
 
It's not a pagefile, it's the location of the scratch disk which is used
when editing large files.
If you only have one drive in your PC this option is of no value.
If you have or add a second drive then you can specify the second drive or
one of the partitions (logical drives/drive letters) on this drive as
follows:

In Photoshop's menus bar choose: Edit, then Preferences, next select
Plug-ins & Scratch Disk
Choose a drive letter from the list (Best to have a separate partition on
the second drive dedicated to the scratch file).

Also take note of the option Memory & Image Cache as you may not be using
all the available memory in your PC with the default setting.

See the Help file for additional information.

JS
 
ralph said:
Fidelis:
Thaks for your reply.
Does the ATI Raedon X850 Pro AGP produce a lot of heat? I have a very
quiet machine and would prefer not to add additional fans.
....ralph
Click to expand...

No. The fan is very quiet. I didn't hear anything from it unless I played
heavy 3D games.
 
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