Posted by Lee Badrick on March 18, 2006 at 2:45 PM
Can anyone answer a query about how much ram can be installed in a PC running XP pro.
I am about to upgrade the PC and have asked for 4 gig of ram to run files in PS in excess of 1 gig (with layers).
The supplier states that they will only provide 2 gig because of a compatability issue with the motherboard (Asus). They have suggested buying the pc and adding my own, extra ram afterwards if I want to go that way.
I also read something on here a while ago that there needs to be some work carried out on the XP part as well otherwise Windows will not recognise the extra ram.
I know some people here are running machines with over 2gig of memory.
Sorry if this has been out before but any help before I dish out lots of dosh would be appreciated.
Regards,
Lee.
Posted by David Kjaer on March 18, 2006 at 3:51 PM
Hi Lee
I think you will find PS CS2 can only use a max of 2GB of ram anyway - so at present there is little point in having too much more than this. But as we all know this could change overnight!
Hello Lee
David is correct in what he says, however, I have 4 gb RAM installed and I use XP64. The computer can therefore utilise 2gb on CS2 and the remaining memory on other programmes I have running at the same time. RAM is so cheap at the moment I would recommend installing more, rather than less.
Best wishes
Phil
With XP you can enable the bios to recognize 3Gbs of ram; check the Microsoft Knowledge Base for information about how to do this. This will enable Photoshop utilise up to 2.5Gb.
Posted by Lee Badrick on March 19, 2006 at 8:00 AM
Thanks for the swift replies gents.
Dave: Yes that's what I have come up against at the moment.
Phil: I saw that being mentioned here on NPN somewhere and that would be a safe option to take with the existing XP pro setup.
Phil: That would be a great way to go especially as the mobo (A8N-SLI) seems to support Athlon 64 cpus. I am concerned, however, about finding the correct drivers for the other hardware if I decide to go this route. This does seem to be a bit of an issue from what I can research. Did you have any problems setting this up and installing the software and drivers? Are there any restrictions with any other software I may need to be aware of if I decide on this route?
Thanks again for the info.
Lee
There certainly were problems with driver support, but most seem OK now. I still use dual boot, but hardly ever need XP now - XP64 is certainly much faster. I know that Nick has changed to XP64 and I think he is pleased with it.
Best wishes
Phil
Posted by Lee Badrick on March 21, 2006 at 4:17 PM
Thanks Phil, and all. Looking at trying the 3 gig on xp pro and then moving onto 64 when everything is in place.
I've had a few issues with XP-64, but in general they're all resolved now. The biggest issues where to do with Anti-virus and colour calibration. No-one had a XP64 driver for their colorimeters, although I was able to work around it by calibrating in Xp-32 and copying the profile into XP64. I have since managed to find one manufacturer who's been willing to provide a beta version of a driver and have updated the hardware to match - and both have run without any problems.
You may find that a few printer manufacturers are also not updating their drivers for XP-64 (Canon being one of the biggest culprits!) - and if they do they don't always have the same features as their 32 bit cousins. I guess many manufacturers will not do it for Vista either despite it being a relatively simple thing to do
If you need any specifics, then feel free to e-mail me and I'll do the best I can to help.
Posted by Lee Badrick on March 27, 2006 at 11:15 AM
Discussion
8 repliesI am about to upgrade the PC and have asked for 4 gig of ram to run files in PS in excess of 1 gig (with layers).
The supplier states that they will only provide 2 gig because of a compatability issue with the motherboard (Asus). They have suggested buying the pc and adding my own, extra ram afterwards if I want to go that way.
I also read something on here a while ago that there needs to be some work carried out on the XP part as well otherwise Windows will not recognise the extra ram.
I know some people here are running machines with over 2gig of memory.
Sorry if this has been out before but any help before I dish out lots of dosh would be appreciated.
Regards,
Lee.
I think you will find PS CS2 can only use a max of 2GB of ram anyway - so at present there is little point in having too much more than this. But as we all know this could change overnight!
David
David is correct in what he says, however, I have 4 gb RAM installed and I use XP64. The computer can therefore utilise 2gb on CS2 and the remaining memory on other programmes I have running at the same time. RAM is so cheap at the moment I would recommend installing more, rather than less.
Best wishes
Phil
Dave: Yes that's what I have come up against at the moment.
Phil: I saw that being mentioned here on NPN somewhere and that would be a safe option to take with the existing XP pro setup.
Phil: That would be a great way to go especially as the mobo (A8N-SLI) seems to support Athlon 64 cpus. I am concerned, however, about finding the correct drivers for the other hardware if I decide to go this route. This does seem to be a bit of an issue from what I can research. Did you have any problems setting this up and installing the software and drivers? Are there any restrictions with any other software I may need to be aware of if I decide on this route?
Thanks again for the info.
Regards,
Lee.
There certainly were problems with driver support, but most seem OK now. I still use dual boot, but hardly ever need XP now - XP64 is certainly much faster. I know that Nick has changed to XP64 and I think he is pleased with it.
Best wishes
Phil
Lee
You may find that a few printer manufacturers are also not updating their drivers for XP-64 (Canon being one of the biggest culprits!) - and if they do they don't always have the same features as their 32 bit cousins. I guess many manufacturers will not do it for Vista either despite it being a relatively simple thing to do
If you need any specifics, then feel free to e-mail me and I'll do the best I can to help.
Lee.