Humbling Experience

[Silearth 6]

I mentioned in another thread that I broke down and bought Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate. I ordered online, so I guess I'm missing out on the flash drive. Due to a sale Corel was having, Ultimate was actually less expensive than the standard version.

 

I've used both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro--demo versions that last 2 months, and I like both programs. Just can't afford Photoshop, though. And while photoshop is the more powerful of the two, the healthy compitition between both companies insures that PSP grows more powerful in each new version.

 

Having said that, my poor computer is having a bit of trouble. This box that plays Sacred 2 on high settings is starting to choke on PSP. While it has never actually crashed, I am getting the hour glass and even the 'this program is not responding' for up to 30 seconds at a time.

 

If I am running a filter on a super large image, I can understand the delay. But when I have to wait just to select a small portion of an image--well something is going on.

 

Will I have to upgrade to 64-bit Vista and add another 4 gigs?

[Yarasa 0]

IMO problem shouldn't be your hardware if you don;t have any problems with high setting on games. It might be some installation issue or something. I never used PSP but looks like it is not really a large program. If you didn't try yet re-installation may fix the problem. Sorry don't have much experience with PSP.

[Zinsho 0]

I haven't used PSP/Photoshop much however... I have to disagree with Yarasa based on what I've heard from friends and such who do a lot of photo editing/graphic work.

 

Your RAM will make a huge difference, when you consider that the Sacred 2 map that Schot made is ~30mb rarred, and that when I open it on my laptop in Linux (Windows Fax & Picture Viewer acts differently) it uses up a few hundred meg of memory to view it... however when I try to resize it or zoom around it moves almost immediately, only stuttering slightly as it refreshes, whereas Windows Fax and Picture Viewer when I tried it at work just now stalls and hangs just trying to move/resize it.

 

(Home is a MacBook Air running Ubuntu while work is a Dell Latitude E6400... so both 2gb of ram, both dual cores, and the Dell has a larger hard drive) At home it takes a couple minutes to load it while it loads faster in Windows, but it also opens it a lot more smoothly once it's open.

 

So my guess would be that your memory is trying to load/swap the image to perform the tasks (I can remember running out of memory at one point trying to fiddle with Photoshop CS2 on an older machine, only 512 of Ram at the the time though I believe, but it wasn't a huge image either... just was trying to get multiple layers going)

[Silearth 6]

I pulled up the task manager and started checking out all unfamiliar processes. Seems that I had bittorrent and DNA running in the background(Hey there are legit uses for BT!)

 

I disabled those and uninstalled the programs. I also got rid of my swapfile and then defragged my hard drive.

 

Funny thing, I have not enabled my virtual memory yet as I wanted to see how Sacred would run. PSP is running smoother and faster--but I know what will happen if I try to edit a huge file...lol.

 

Sacred 2 also ran smoothly, though I only played for a couple of hours.

[Scrappy McSlap 6]

I just tried loading up the Sacred 2 map on my mac mini... the thing choked for a good 20 minutes solid to the point where I had to force quit the program haha... That's a pretty big file there!

[Yarasa 0]

I haven't used PSP/Photoshop much however... I have to disagree with Yarasa based on what I've heard from friends and such who do a lot of photo editing/graphic work.

 

... PSP is running smoother and faster--but I know what will happen if I try to edit a huge file

 

problem fixed without the upgrade

as everyone mentioned, extra ram and power needed only if the file is large. Regular home use, 2gb memory should be enough on most cases.

[stubbie 21]

Funny thing, I have not enabled my virtual memory yet as I wanted to see how Sacred would run.

 

Is this wise? I thought some programs would crash if there was no page file present?

[Silearth 6]

Funny thing, I have not enabled my virtual memory yet as I wanted to see how Sacred would run.

 

Is this wise? I thought some programs would crash if there was no page file present?

 

It was just an experiment. I believe Schot stated in another thread that he ran without a page file. I could be wrong. Every once an awhile, I like to disable the pagefile and do a defrag. In this case, I'll most likely restore the settings and reboot when I get home tonight.

 

I think I just have too many things running in the background and I have to determine which once are really needed. I've got a doohickey running for ATI, virus scanner, DVD burner, & a host of other automatic updaters. I also have Vista running at system recommended visual settings which are at their highest with the sidebar.