Hyperthreading, WinXP, PS7 and S-L-O-W performance

SS
Posted By
Stan_Schwartz
Dec 29, 2003
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451
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11
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Closed
I followed another thread about memory size and slow performance with WinXP.

I just changed from a Win2000 machine with a PIII @933 mHZ and 512K memory to a WinXP machine with a hyperthreading 3.06 GHz and 512K of PC2100 DDR SDRAM. I expected this machine to perform much better with PS7 but it is *terrrible* compared to the older Win2000 machine.

The performance slows down to almost imperceptible, for example, when doing a multiple step edge sharpening action, especially during the last step which is the application of USM.

Is there some optimal combination of "Photoshop Memory" slider and hyperthreading? I seem to get a little better performance when increasing to around 90% photoshop memory even though physical memory will dip below 10K. Hyperthreading on or off doesn’t seem to make much difference in throughput.

I just ordered another 512MB to bring total memory up to 1Gig. I hope that helps. This has been a terrible disappointment. I am not clear why a system with a faster CPU, faster memory and a faster HD runs Photoshop slower.

Stan Schwartz
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Mick_Murphy
Dec 30, 2003
Is it just a simple matter of running out of RAM and having to use scratch disk which will slow you right down anyway? Perhaps adding the extra memory will help. But I’m also just wondering why you are using PC2100 memory. Surely you need PC3200 (DDR400) to make use of such a fast processor as presumably you have a new motherboard to match.
SS
Stan_Schwartz
Dec 30, 2003
Mick,

PC2100 is the spec of the memory chip that came with the machine from the factory (Dell) when it was assembled in Dec 2002.

I tried following memory and scratch disk usage on both my faster 3Ghz machine and my slower 933MHz machine.

Both machines went down to about 10-15K physical memory and created about 550MB of pagefile use. Yet on the old 933MHz machine, the same automated actions ran much faster than on the 3 GHz machine.
DM
dave_milbut
Dec 30, 2003
turn down the memory allocation in ps to about 40% and inch it up from there.
MM
Mick_Murphy
Dec 30, 2003
Stan,
I very much doubt that the slower memory is likely to be causing the problem. I was just wondering why it was 266 rather than 333 or 400 MHz. It sounds like you are very low on memory at 10-15k so hopefully adding another 512 will solve the problem. Assuming that both are using scratch disk at this point, I don’t know why the older machine is faster – perhaps it’s the condition of the hard drives?
SS
Stan_Schwartz
Dec 31, 2003
Dave and Mick,

Thanks. The new memory will arrive tomorrow and we’ll see.

I think I know it’s not the hard drive. The hard drive I am using in my new machine was the second harddrive in my old machine.

I will also try the 40% setting.

Stan
SS
Stan_Schwartz
Dec 31, 2003
I just benchmarked my drives and memory and processor in my old and new computer. The HD speeds are comparable and the memory speed is about 5 times faster in my new computer.

The 40% setting seems to make no difference.

Is the difference possibly WinXP vs Win2000???

Stan
MM
Mick_Murphy
Dec 31, 2003
I doubt that it is a WinXP problem. I would suggest doing a complete drive reformat and reinstall of the OS. This had an amazing effect on the speed of CS when I did it recently on my laptop. I wasn’t having any speed problems with CS anyway and I didn’t do it for that reason but I was amazed at the effect. You could always set up a dual boot WinXP-2000 system on two partitions as a trial while you are at it.
CC
Chris_Cox
Jan 14, 2004
Also, make SURE you’re using the latest service packs for Win2K.
SS
Stan_Schwartz
Jan 15, 2004
I discovered the reason for this slowdown. I have two harddrives in this computer; the secondary drive was borrowed from the old computer I replaced. The primary drive is formatted as NTFS. The secondary drive was formatted under Win2000 using the option to format as FAT32. I was using the FAT32 drive as the scratch disc. Apparently, PS7 and WinXP don’t like that.

I changed the scratch drive to the C:drive and now the system is speedy. I will reformat the secondary drive to NTFS soon and use it again as the scratch drive.

Stan
RK
Rob_Keijzer
Jan 15, 2004
That’s it!
Reading through this thread I suddenly recognized an old problem I had. I too had that exact issue: Slow performance when using a second physical HDD for scratch. Never realized the FAT32 vs NTFS.

The problem is not relevant anymore but FYI this was the setup:

Win 2000 pro SP2
Dell Dimension PII 400 MHz
PS 7.01
C: 120 GB NTFS
Second HDD 60 GB FAT32 (also from an older setup)
RAM 128 MB

Windows Pagefile was on the secondary HDD (Win setup did that beyond control) PS scratchdisck was on second HDD.

Later changed PS scratch to C: Machine was noticably faster.

I know, the 128 RAM was a bottleneck, but it ran smoothly. Even with NeatImage and FocalBlade.

Rob
SS
Stan_Schwartz
Jan 16, 2004
Rob,

Thanks. The reason I didn’t tumble to this earlier was that each disc individually did well on read/write speed testing.

Stan

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