Build a Photoshop PC

Of course, the subject should have read "Building a Photoshop PC", but I’m sure you already guessed that!

In the writings of Al Treacher, the <rqqoa0179fjs7rscf3ddmacufuccf33q32@ 4ax.com> scrolls contained these prophetic words:

To give you even more headaches read this article below. Now is *not* a good time to build a new machine too many new motherboard designs and technology are coming out. Intel have their new socket design due out at the end of the year, SATA 2 and PCI-Express is due out as well…

The article is a comparison of Intel/AMD processors and their abilities.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/opteron-x50/index.x?pg= 1

Personally? I am waiting till beginning of next year before I build another system to a workstation specification. That way I avoid the ‘sting’ of new technology, and the the prices should have stabilised.

Oh and I am running a Athlon 64, very fast system compared to Intel’s chips…

Oh and before people accuse that site of being AMD biased, just check other reviews, Opteron seems to beat Xeons hands down in most disciplines, and those that it doesn’t are Intel optimised and we have yet to see how the 64Bit optimisations affect both Intel and AMD. —
Scottish Heritage:
http://www.CelticShadows.co.uk

In my experience the four biggest contributors to PS performance are, in order:

1. CPU speed
2. Memory speed
3. Disk subsystem speed
4. CPU cache size

Don’t get too hung up with all the multiprocessor/hyperthreading marketing glitz. PS is multiprocessor aware but will use a second CPU only for a very limited number of operations (e.g. certain filters). One is usually better off with a single cpu system with a faster FSB. There are exceptions to this, e.g. if the system will not be a dedicated PS workstation.

Rick

"Al Treacher" wrote in message

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.
Considerations:
Two processors, each with HyperThread tech, so in theory I’d get a performance equivalent to maybe three and a bit individual processors. **IF** Photoshop supports more than two processors – I know it supports two, but would it support (essentially) four?

Also, it looks like the Front-Side-Bus speed of Xeons is low compared to the other Intel processors available, at 533MHz or possible even only 400MHz. I’m guessing this is because of the necessity to synchronize more threads, but I could be wrong.

Would this result in Photoshop running slower than a single processor system running a 800MHz FSB?

I’m having problems finding the details of the cache size for Xeons. It looks like there is an average (512KB) level 2 cache, with a 2MB level 3 cache on some chips, but finding which ones seems impossible! Any ideas?

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

HT tech again, so essentially a dual processor on a single CPU. 800MHz Front-Side-Bus.
1MB of level 2 cache.

Seems like a good all-round option, but I’d like to find out if the dual Xeons would outperform this when running Photoshop.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Raising the FSB speed to 900+MHz would increase the speed the core was running at, and also give faster RAM transfer. How much of a performance increase (if any) would be noticeable?

Of course, there’s the slight hit-and-miss of getting a chip that will reliably overclock and keeping it cool, but I’d deal with that…!

I’d thought this was going to be a relatively easy project and I’d have had the thing up and running now… How naive of me…
Your thoughts/observations/experiences and opinions are welcome!
Cheers,
Al

"Al Treacher" wrote in message

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

snip<

Sounds like overkill in the three cases.
If your PC is a tool you use for your trade AND if you are very busy you "could" need something that fast.
Like someone said here not long ago, a few seconds gained on rendition of filters can add up and make you more productive at the end of the day.But are you really that busy that seconds count?
Working with photoshop is made much easier with a multiple display system and a good graphic tablet.
I would get two or three very good monitors and a calibrating tool instead of gamers motherboards and chips.

Stephan

Al Treacher wrote:

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.
Considerations:
Two processors, each with HyperThread tech, so in theory I’d get a performance equivalent to maybe three and a bit individual processors. **IF** Photoshop supports more than two processors – I know it supports two, but would it support (essentially) four?

Also, it looks like the Front-Side-Bus speed of Xeons is low compared to the other Intel processors available, at 533MHz or possible even only 400MHz. I’m guessing this is because of the necessity to synchronize more threads, but I could be wrong.

Would this result in Photoshop running slower than a single processor system running a 800MHz FSB?

I’m having problems finding the details of the cache size for Xeons. It looks like there is an average (512KB) level 2 cache, with a 2MB level 3 cache on some chips, but finding which ones seems impossible! Any ideas?

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

HT tech again, so essentially a dual processor on a single CPU. 800MHz Front-Side-Bus.
1MB of level 2 cache.

Seems like a good all-round option, but I’d like to find out if the dual Xeons would outperform this when running Photoshop.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Raising the FSB speed to 900+MHz would increase the speed the core was running at, and also give faster RAM transfer. How much of a performance increase (if any) would be noticeable?

Of course, there’s the slight hit-and-miss of getting a chip that will reliably overclock and keeping it cool, but I’d deal with that…!

I’d thought this was going to be a relatively easy project and I’d have had the thing up and running now… How naive of me…
Your thoughts/observations/experiences and opinions are welcome!
Cheers,
Al

Al,

You are going to spend some big bucks for that. Dell actually has a workstation set up to run ( and it is included ) PS.
I have looked at these and thought they would be an ideal "PS Only" machine ( my dream ).
However, having said that:

I have used PC’s for years. Never touched a Mac. But, that changed when I WON a new G5 (dual 2ghz) with the 23" cinema display. I added another 512mb of memory and I tell you, PS screams on it. It takes me 7 seconds to open PS on the Mac and perhaps 30+ seconds on my 1.7 PIV with 1GB of memory. I have never been one to get involved in the PC vs Mac argument. I always thought they were BOTH nice. Now that I have both, I can’t believe that I am spending probably 75% of my time on the Mac now! Consider a Mac though. There was no learning curve to speak of. Just getting used to new keyboard shortcuts. I have to say, this dual Proc Mac has won me over. Of course, the gorgeous display played a small part. 🙂

—–= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—– http://www.newsfeeds.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–== Over 100,000 Newsgroups – 19 Different Servers! =—–

"Vector Newman" wrote in message

Al Treacher wrote:

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.
Considerations:
Two processors, each with HyperThread tech, so in theory I’d get a performance equivalent to maybe three and a bit individual processors. **IF** Photoshop supports more than two processors – I know it supports two, but would it support (essentially) four?

Also, it looks like the Front-Side-Bus speed of Xeons is low compared to the other Intel processors available, at 533MHz or possible even only 400MHz. I’m guessing this is because of the necessity to synchronize more threads, but I could be wrong.

Would this result in Photoshop running slower than a single processor system running a 800MHz FSB?

I’m having problems finding the details of the cache size for Xeons. It looks like there is an average (512KB) level 2 cache, with a 2MB level 3 cache on some chips, but finding which ones seems impossible! Any ideas?

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

HT tech again, so essentially a dual processor on a single CPU. 800MHz Front-Side-Bus.
1MB of level 2 cache.

Seems like a good all-round option, but I’d like to find out if the dual Xeons would outperform this when running Photoshop.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Raising the FSB speed to 900+MHz would increase the speed the core was running at, and also give faster RAM transfer. How much of a performance increase (if any) would be noticeable?

Of course, there’s the slight hit-and-miss of getting a chip that will reliably overclock and keeping it cool, but I’d deal with that…!

I’d thought this was going to be a relatively easy project and I’d have had the thing up and running now… How naive of me…
Your thoughts/observations/experiences and opinions are welcome!
Cheers,
Al

Al,

You are going to spend some big bucks for that. Dell actually has a workstation set up to run ( and it is included ) PS.
I have looked at these and thought they would be an ideal "PS Only" machine ( my dream ).
However, having said that:

I have used PC’s for years. Never touched a Mac. But, that changed when I WON a new G5 (dual 2ghz) with the 23" cinema display. I added another 512mb of memory and I tell you, PS screams on it. It takes me 7 seconds to open PS on the Mac and perhaps 30+ seconds on my 1.7 PIV with 1GB of memory. I have never been one to get involved in the PC vs Mac argument. I always thought they were BOTH nice. Now that I have both, I can’t believe that I am spending probably 75% of my time on the Mac now! Consider a Mac though. There was no learning curve to speak of. Just getting used to new keyboard shortcuts. I have to say, this dual Proc Mac has won me over. Of course, the gorgeous display played a small part.

🙂

—–= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—– http://www.newsfeeds.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–== Over 100,000 Newsgroups – 19 Different Servers! =—–

Thanks for making me drool. Wasn’t necessary. 😉

Brooklyn NYC wrote:

"Vector Newman" wrote in message

Al Treacher wrote:

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.
Considerations:
Two processors, each with HyperThread tech, so in theory I’d get a performance equivalent to maybe three and a bit individual processors. **IF** Photoshop supports more than two processors – I know it supports two, but would it support (essentially) four?

Also, it looks like the Front-Side-Bus speed of Xeons is low compared to the other Intel processors available, at 533MHz or possible even only 400MHz. I’m guessing this is because of the necessity to synchronize more threads, but I could be wrong.

Would this result in Photoshop running slower than a single processor system running a 800MHz FSB?

I’m having problems finding the details of the cache size for Xeons. It looks like there is an average (512KB) level 2 cache, with a 2MB level 3 cache on some chips, but finding which ones seems impossible! Any ideas?

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

HT tech again, so essentially a dual processor on a single CPU. 800MHz Front-Side-Bus.
1MB of level 2 cache.

Seems like a good all-round option, but I’d like to find out if the dual Xeons would outperform this when running Photoshop.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Raising the FSB speed to 900+MHz would increase the speed the core was running at, and also give faster RAM transfer. How much of a performance increase (if any) would be noticeable?

Of course, there’s the slight hit-and-miss of getting a chip that will reliably overclock and keeping it cool, but I’d deal with that…!

I’d thought this was going to be a relatively easy project and I’d have had the thing up and running now… How naive of me…
Your thoughts/observations/experiences and opinions are welcome!
Cheers,
Al

Al,

You are going to spend some big bucks for that. Dell actually has a workstation set up to run ( and it is included ) PS.
I have looked at these and thought they would be an ideal "PS Only" machine ( my dream ).
However, having said that:

I have used PC’s for years. Never touched a Mac. But, that changed when I WON a new G5 (dual 2ghz) with the 23" cinema display. I added another 512mb of memory and I tell you, PS screams on it. It takes me 7 seconds to open PS on the Mac and perhaps 30+ seconds on my 1.7 PIV with 1GB of memory. I have never been one to get involved in the PC vs Mac argument. I always thought they were BOTH nice. Now that I have both, I can’t believe that I am spending probably 75% of my time on the Mac now! Consider a Mac though. There was no learning curve to speak of. Just getting used to new keyboard shortcuts. I have to say, this dual Proc Mac has won me over. Of course, the gorgeous display played a small part.

🙂

—–= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—– http://www.newsfeeds.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–== Over 100,000 Newsgroups – 19 Different Servers! =—–

Thanks for making me drool. Wasn’t necessary. 😉

Sorry….I feel your pain.

—–= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—– http://www.newsfeeds.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–== Over 100,000 Newsgroups – 19 Different Servers! =—–

"Vector Newman" wrote in message

Al Treacher wrote:

snip<

, PS screams on it. It takes me 7 seconds

to open PS on the Mac and perhaps 30+ seconds on my 1.7 PIV with 1GB of memory.
snip<

My friend has the same Mac than yours and we compared PS launch speed just because it’s fun
Results: The Mac wins:
4 seconds for my "antique" Athlon 2400, 1.5 GBof ram 3 seconds for the Mac.
Now the question is: So what?

As a reference, I use a P4 1.7Ghz without hyperthreading, 1GB of PC2100 DDR memory. Drive C holds all programs and is a 30GB partition on a 40GB drive and holds the WinXP page file, Drive D is 100GB which stores the data files and the PS scratch disk, and Drive D is a 160GB used for backup. Drive E is a 10GB partition on the same physical drive as C, and is used as a dual boot for other purposes.

I find this plenty fast for the files I use, including scans of 35mm slides at 2700 dpi (10 gpixels). It takes only 5-6 seconds for even the most complex operation, such as some filters.

If you deal with larger files, such as medium format scans, you will want to go to 2GB of memory – anything larger can’t be used by 32-bit software such as PS, even though it will run in 32-bit mode on a 64-bit machine such as AMD. Apparently Adobe has no plans to support 64-bit architectures in the near future. This may change, however, as Intel just announced that they were scrapping their current technology thrust of increased speed/decreased cell size due to heat problems, and instead pursuing one of multiple (initially two) processors on a single chip. If past performance is any indication, I suspect it will take them two or three generations to get it right.

I have no experience with dual processors with PS, but in other applications the increase in speed by no means doubles. A 20-30% increase is more typical, and then only if the software is designed and compiled to support it (PS is, I believe). The most increase I’ve seen is about 60% in a database application running multiple independent queries. But that application is inherently decoupled, wheras image processing is not.

In short, spend your money on memory and large, fast drives with at least 8MB of buffer, or even a striping RAID. I think it will gain you more bang per buck than multiple processors.

Don

"Al Treacher" wrote in message

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.
Considerations:
Two processors, each with HyperThread tech, so in theory I’d get a performance equivalent to maybe three and a bit individual processors. **IF** Photoshop supports more than two processors – I know it supports two, but would it support (essentially) four?

Also, it looks like the Front-Side-Bus speed of Xeons is low compared to the other Intel processors available, at 533MHz or possible even only 400MHz. I’m guessing this is because of the necessity to synchronize more threads, but I could be wrong.

Would this result in Photoshop running slower than a single processor system running a 800MHz FSB?

I’m having problems finding the details of the cache size for Xeons. It looks like there is an average (512KB) level 2 cache, with a 2MB level 3 cache on some chips, but finding which ones seems impossible! Any ideas?

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

HT tech again, so essentially a dual processor on a single CPU. 800MHz Front-Side-Bus.
1MB of level 2 cache.

Seems like a good all-round option, but I’d like to find out if the dual Xeons would outperform this when running Photoshop.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Raising the FSB speed to 900+MHz would increase the speed the core was running at, and also give faster RAM transfer. How much of a performance increase (if any) would be noticeable?

Of course, there’s the slight hit-and-miss of getting a chip that will reliably overclock and keeping it cool, but I’d deal with that…!

I’d thought this was going to be a relatively easy project and I’d have had the thing up and running now… How naive of me…
Your thoughts/observations/experiences and opinions are welcome!
Cheers,
Al

On Thu, 20 May 2004 09:44:58 +0100, Al Treacher
wrote:

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Or you could do Option 4 and have either a single or dual Athlon system in which case you’d have a faster PC, but there you go…

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

Don wrote:

[snip]

I have no experience with dual processors with PS, but in other applications the increase in speed by no means doubles. A 20-30% increase is more typical, and then only if the software is designed and compiled to support it (PS is, I believe). The most increase I’ve seen is about 60% in a database application running multiple independent queries. But that application is inherently decoupled, wheras image processing is not.

In short, spend your money on memory and large, fast drives with at least 8MB of buffer, or even a striping RAID. I think it will gain you more bang per buck than multiple processors.

I agree with this. I think that the most important
considerations are: large amounts of fast RAM, a large photoshop swap area and fast disks. After that
comes the exact CPU speed.

The first three dictate a fast front side bus (800 Mhz), a dedicated swap disk, and a raid disk configuration.
After that I’m not sure that 3.0 Ghz, 3.2 Ghz, etc.
matters much. Of course if you have the first three,
go for the fastest CPU you can afford. But if you don’t have the first three, get the fastest CPU that still
allows you to take care of the first three.

Just my two cents.

As far as new technology is concerned, I’d not wait
for it. It will come when it comes. But replacing
a mother board and CPU is certainly less costly than
doing the memory and disks.

—- Paul J. Gans

"Al Treacher" wrote in message

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.
Considerations:
Two processors, each with HyperThread tech, so in theory I’d get a performance equivalent to maybe three and a bit individual processors. **IF** Photoshop supports more than two processors – I know it supports two, but would it support (essentially) four?

Also, it looks like the Front-Side-Bus speed of Xeons is low compared to the other Intel processors available, at 533MHz or possible even only 400MHz. I’m guessing this is because of the necessity to synchronize more threads, but I could be wrong.

Would this result in Photoshop running slower than a single processor system running a 800MHz FSB?

I’m having problems finding the details of the cache size for Xeons. It looks like there is an average (512KB) level 2 cache, with a 2MB level 3 cache on some chips, but finding which ones seems impossible! Any ideas?

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

HT tech again, so essentially a dual processor on a single CPU. 800MHz Front-Side-Bus.
1MB of level 2 cache.

Seems like a good all-round option, but I’d like to find out if the dual Xeons would outperform this when running Photoshop.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Raising the FSB speed to 900+MHz would increase the speed the core was running at, and also give faster RAM transfer. How much of a performance increase (if any) would be noticeable?

Of course, there’s the slight hit-and-miss of getting a chip that will reliably overclock and keeping it cool, but I’d deal with that…!

I’d thought this was going to be a relatively easy project and I’d have had the thing up and running now… How naive of me…
Your thoughts/observations/experiences and opinions are welcome!
Cheers,
Al

Paul J Gans wrote in news:c8joi5$t3t$:

<snip>

The first three dictate a fast front side bus (800 Mhz), a dedicated swap disk, and a raid disk configuration.
After that I’m not sure that 3.0 Ghz, 3.2 Ghz, etc.
matters much.

As a side note, it does on the AMD side for chips such as the Opteron and FX, which have the memory controller on the chip. Faster chip, faster memory access.

And it’s mighty damned fast.

<snip>

On Thu, 20 May 2004 09:44:58 +0100, Al Treacher
wrote:

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.
Considerations:
Two processors, each with HyperThread tech, so in theory I’d get a performance equivalent to maybe three and a bit individual processors. **IF** Photoshop supports more than two processors – I know it supports two, but would it support (essentially) four?

If your applications are multithreaded and support more than one processor you will be fine, but even with applications that do not support multiple processors a dual processor system is fine if you find one application keeping one processor busy while the other handles OS and anything else (Oracle 7 database on a two processor system worked like that).

Fo all other considerations there is a simple preference list:

1) Available real memory (and accessing speed)
2) Processor speed (no longer relevant once you run out of memory)
3) Virtual memory speed (put scratch and pagefile on RAID-0)

1) Graphic apps live on available memory. If you have a single huge file or a smaller one with lots of layers doesn’t matter, you will end up using large chunks of memory. If you have not enough memory you will fall from RAM-speed (several 2-digit-nanoseconds access time) to disk-speed (1-digit-milliseconds at best; 100.000 times slower). Access speed and caching is less relevant, more memory is always better than going to the disk drive, even if more memory may be slower than less memory on some systems.

2) Most current processors are able to process more data than their memory interface can provide. FSB 800 is promising but still: getting the hardware that gives you the last five percent of performance will never pay.

3) There will be a day when you run out of memory. If you have 2 GB this day will come later, but it will come.
If you are prepared, you will drink less coffee than otherwise. Even if RAID-0 is a high risk configuration that I’d never recommend for storing important data, it is perfect for high speed access to pagefile and scratch files – contents that will be gone when you close the application or switch off the system.

On the other hand: If you have multiple disks then distributing pagefile and scratch files over as many of them as possible will probably give better results. Graphic apps tend to have certain access patterns for reading contiguous chunks of data from one location while writing it to some other location – if source and target reside on the same disk, this will result in slow transfer and heavy disk activity. Source and target on different drives reduces positioning activity and enables higher transfer speed.

And, by the way, there is no need for a high speed graphics card.

Michael

"Xalinai" wrote in message

2) Most current processors are able to process more data than their memory interface can provide. FSB 800 is promising but still: getting the hardware that gives you the last five percent of performance will never pay.

Promising? Five percent? Where have you been the last year?

FSB 800MHz pumps twice as much data to a cpu (or cpus) as 400MHz, and 50% more than 533MHz.

Rick

Rick wrote:

"Xalinai" wrote in message

2) Most current processors are able to process more data than their memory interface can provide. FSB 800 is promising but still: getting the hardware that gives you the last five percent of performance will never pay.

Promising? Five percent? Where have you been the last year?
FSB 800MHz pumps twice as much data to a cpu (or cpus) as 400MHz, and 50% more than 533MHz.

Rick

Where did you get those figures from? In the real world it will not be quite as cut and dried as that, it may reach that at burst rates but not continually.

Stuart

On Fri, 21 May 2004 02:01:03 -0700, "Rick" wrote:

"Xalinai" wrote in message

2) Most current processors are able to process more data than their memory interface can provide. FSB 800 is promising but still: getting the hardware that gives you the last five percent of performance will never pay.

Promising? Five percent? Where have you been the last year?
FSB 800MHz pumps twice as much data to a cpu (or cpus) as 400MHz, and 50% more than 533MHz.

Sure.

But it does so for how much of the total code processed? And it does so in what address mode?

How does a graphics application work? Adressing pixels, 3 bytes per pixel. PS is processing data bytewise or double-byte-wise (in 16 bit mode) adressing multiple pixels in a grid that makes memory locations of pixels in adjacent rows three times the image width apart (Filters, sharpen, blur). This isn’t very much the thing that high speed burst mode was designed for.

You won’t get much more than five to ten percent on application level from the faster memory bus on the average system. There will be more if memory access is the major bottleneck in two (otherwise similar) competing systems for specific applications (like Video streams).

Michael

"Stuart" wrote in message

Rick wrote:

"Xalinai" wrote in message

2) Most current processors are able to process more data than their memory interface can provide. FSB 800 is promising but still: getting the hardware that gives you the last five percent of performance will never pay.

Promising? Five percent? Where have you been the last year?
FSB 800MHz pumps twice as much data to a cpu (or cpus) as 400MHz, and 50% more than 533MHz.

Where did you get those figures from? In the real world it will not be quite as cut and dried as that, it may reach that at burst rates but not continually.

With the current P4, which can’t do much (or in many cases, anything) with bus speeds higher than 533MHz, that’s correct. But that will be changing in the very near future.

Rick

Hecate wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2004 09:44:58 +0100, Al Treacher
wrote:

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Option 1:
Dual-processor motherboard with a pair of 2.8GHz Intel Xeon CPUs.

Option 2:
Single Pentium 4C (Prescott) 3.2GHz CPU.

Option 3:
Single Pentium 4C (Northwood) 2.8GHz CPU overclocked to about 3.2GHz. (Using PC4000 DDR500 RAM.)

Or you could do Option 4 and have either a single or dual Athlon system in which case you’d have a faster PC, but there you go…
—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

I’ve been a geek for a couple of decades, but don’t claim to know it all. I’ve also used PS for several versions. (I think I started with 3, skipped 4, and hit the rest.) I also sell computer equipment for a living (such as it is).

I recently built my own PS machine. I have a P4 3.0 GHz HT with 1 GB of Dual Channel PC3200 memory. I have a 7200 rpm 120 GB SATA hard drive. I also have a CD-RW/DVD-+RW drive and a Firewire card. My son had bought me a case with a top and side window in it, so I had to get a blue cathode light in it. My Antec power supply also has blue lights, as does the case front. It’s all kind of cool. The case has 4 fans, which is overkill. I use the heat sink and fan that came with the Intel box set. Oh, I have an Intel D865-GBF motherboard.

In short, this is a very nice PS computer. It’s very fast. I do professional digital wedding photography as a side job and need to run batches and hairy filters to do a bunch of pictures at once. In using XP’s performance measuring tools, I don’t have any real bottle necks.

The P4 seldom works at 100% or anywhere close to it. The Hyper Threading technology gets used some, but not all that much. I really like it to run iTunes in one "processor" while I’m working in PS. Even with the heaviest filters, the processor runs closer to 75%.

My guess is that’s because the memory is the bottleneck. Dual Channel 400 MHz REALLY makes a difference!!! That is absolutely critical to performance in PS. Maybe DDR-II will help a lot in the near future, but it isn’t hear yet. I don’t have any need for more than 1 GB. I know a lot of people claim that 2 GB is the cat’s meow, but I have a tough time filling up memory. Usually I don’t even get close. I can only get close with large stitched pano images, but haven’t filled up memory there either.

I don’t see much need for a faster hard drive. Yes, PS does swap no matter how much memory you have. However, that all runs in the background and doesn’t seem to slow down much of what I do. Otherwise, the HD speed is for opening and saving files. That’s it fast enough for me; even in batches. Besides the only way to get real disk speed would be to do 15,000 rpm drives in RAID 0. That means very expensive SCSI server drives.

Well, there is my $.02.

Clyde

Clyde wrote:

I recently built my own PS machine. I have a P4 3.0 GHz HT with 1 GB of Dual Channel PC3200 memory. I have a 7200 rpm 120 GB SATA hard drive. I also have a CD-RW/DVD-+RW drive and a Firewire card. My son had bought me a case with a top and side window in it, so I had to get a blue cathode light in it. My Antec power supply also has blue lights, as does the case front. It’s all kind of cool. The case has 4 fans, which is overkill. I use the heat sink and fan that came with the Intel box set. Oh, I have an Intel D865-GBF motherboard.

Why did you "had to get a blue cathode light in it"? Did the blue light speed up the machine? <g>

I don’t see much need for a faster hard drive. Yes, PS does swap no matter how much memory you have. However, that all runs in the background and doesn’t seem to slow down much of what I do. Otherwise, the HD speed is for opening and saving files. That’s it fast enough for me; even in batches. Besides the only way to get real disk speed would be to do 15,000 rpm drives in RAID 0. That means very expensive SCSI server drives.

A hd’s cache size matters, the bigger the better. The new hds have 8mb cache, up from the older 2mb, and the newer ones probably will have more.

Do we need Windows XP to run CS?

??? news: ???…

Clyde wrote:

I recently built my own PS machine. I have a P4 3.0 GHz HT with 1 GB of Dual Channel PC3200 memory. I have a 7200 rpm 120 GB SATA hard drive. I also have a CD-RW/DVD-+RW drive and a Firewire card. My son had bought me a case with a top and side window in it, so I had to get a blue cathode light in it. My Antec power supply also has blue lights, as does the case front. It’s all kind of cool. The case has 4 fans, which is overkill. I use the heat sink and fan that came with the Intel box set. Oh, I have an Intel D865-GBF motherboard.

Why did you "had to get a blue cathode light in it"? Did the blue light speed up the machine? <g>

I don’t see much need for a faster hard drive. Yes, PS does swap no matter how much memory you have. However, that all runs in the background and doesn’t seem to slow down much of what I do. Otherwise, the HD speed is for opening and saving files. That’s it fast enough for me; even in batches. Besides the only way to get real disk speed would be to do 15,000 rpm drives in RAID 0. That means very expensive SCSI server drives.

A hd’s cache size matters, the bigger the better. The new hds have 8mb cache, up from the older 2mb, and the newer ones probably will have more.

Why did you "had to get a blue cathode light in it"? Did the blue light speed up the machine? <g>

Of course it did. Didn’t you know they do that? I put a "Type R" sticker on my PC, and it’s 5 times quicker now.

Ewan

In article ,
says…

Hi folks,

The PC I currently run Photoshop in is now a very long way past its "best by" date, so the time has come to build a new one. I’ve sought advice from a couple of techie friends about the basic system architecture and I’ve got essentially three direction that I could take, it seems. Neither of my "advisors" use Photoshop regularly, so I’d like to get opinions from other people that do…

Al,

I’d like to add that optimizing the Windows operating system can significantly increases your machine’s performance.

Most machines shipped right out of factories are loaded with software that you never need. These software can be quite a bit of overhead. Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

There are a lot of tune-ups you can do for Windows XP or 2000. It is even worthwhile to do a fresh installation of the Windows and configure it the way you want and only install the software you need. You definitely will get extra mileage from a clean optimized system.

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

This day of Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:35:10 -0500, Terry
proclaimed:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me. You might not have allocated enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

-dhaley

—
~david-haley

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 21:14:51 -0700, David Haley
wrote:

This day of Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:35:10 -0500, Terry
proclaimed:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me.

Would you keep your passport, cleaning agents, groceries and insurance contracts in one big pile on the floor of your house?

So why do you do that with your computer?

The minimum requirement is to keep your user data and the files that are used to operate the computer (OS, programs, whatever came in those expensive boxes) separate. You can restore everything you bought from original media but it can be troublesome to re-create anything you made.

It is better to have separate drives for this purpose but separate partitions will do.

You might not have allocated
enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

There are enough tools available to change partition sizes.

I think this is no longer neccessary as you can mount new disks at the places you like since W2K and thus extend filesystems over as much space as you like.

Michael

This day of Thu, 03 Jun 2004 09:27:46 GMT, (Xalinai)
proclaimed:

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 21:14:51 -0700, David Haley
wrote:

This day of Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:35:10 -0500, Terry
proclaimed:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me.

Would you keep your passport, cleaning agents, groceries and insurance contracts in one big pile on the floor of your house?

So why do you do that with your computer?

The minimum requirement is to keep your user data and the files that are used to operate the computer (OS, programs, whatever came in those expensive boxes) separate. You can restore everything you bought from original media but it can be troublesome to re-create anything you made.

Or, you just know what you need to keep and what you don’t. 🙂 I’ve formatted my computer(s) several times and have never lost anything, nor have I ever had more than one partition.

It is better to have separate drives for this purpose but separate partitions will do.

You see, I’m not convinced that multiple partitions really matter. Multiple drives are what you want if you’re going for data safety; but your analogy with real life objects just doesn’t seem right at all. If the disk dies then the disk dies, no matter how many partitions you have.

You might not have allocated
enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

There are enough tools available to change partition sizes.
I think this is no longer neccessary as you can mount new disks at the places you like since W2K and thus extend filesystems over as much space as you like.

Michael

—
~david-haley

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 09:27:46 GMT, (Xalinai) wrote:

The minimum requirement is to keep your user data and the files that are used to operate the computer (OS, programs, whatever came in those expensive boxes) separate. You can restore everything you bought from original media but it can be troublesome to re-create anything you made.

It is better to have separate drives for this purpose but separate partitions will do.

I agree with you on this. When I was setting up the new machine I put in 2 drives – 1 for the operating system and all programs and the second for all data and any file downloads. For example I have installed Agent, the news reader, on C: drive while the newsgroup messages are all stored on D: drive.

Next I have 2 external drives similar in size to the main drives. These are only switched on when I use Norton Ghost to create a backup or to restore a drive if something has gone wrong. I create a backup each week keeping the current and 2 previous copies and deleting any earlier copies.

The only other thing you will need is a bootable floppy disk so that you can format the new drive.

While you are correct in saying that you can restore using the original media that ignores the settings side of the game. Using Ghost or similar programs restores both the program and any settings changes made to suit your usage. I can recall the time it took me 2 weeks to recover from a disk failure – with Ghost or similar it would be around 30 minutes or so.

While this may sound like an overkill consider what you will do, and how long that will take, if you lose a drive for whatever reason.

Cheers, John

Use au instead of invalid for emails to me.

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me. You might not have allocated enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

At the very least it makes reformatting and reinstalling the system and apps much easier if your data and documents are elsewhere – I never store anything I need to keep on my system drive, so if I have to unexpectedly wipe the drive I don’t have to worry about making any backups of my documents (which would be very hard to do if the system was hosed).

In regards to not planning ahead that is something that has bit me in the past (alotting too much room for the system partition and not enough for the data/documents volume) but HD space is so cheap nowadays if you run out of room it’s a simple matter to add a FW harddrive to your system that’s large enough to keep you going for years…

In article , junkmale221
@hotmail.com says…

This day of Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:35:10 -0500, Terry
proclaimed:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me. You might not have allocated enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

Hope this helps,

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

I was under the impression that partitioning a disk splits it into "slices" like a pie chart. if so, surely long read or write operations would be slowed by a function of the size/number of partitions that you have, unless the program doing the writing also can write to the other partitions and distributes temp data across them in a way that doesn’t impact performance.

I don’t know how PS stores temp data, but I imagine that it doesn’t seamlessly switch to the partition that is under the drive head at any given time. Surely then, if you had 2 equally sized partitions on a drive, PS would slow down by a factor of two?

N.B. I’m probably wrong, so please do correct me. Can you partition a disk in a concentric ring configuration? That way, you could even increase performance by using the fastest part of the physical disk for a temp data partition.

Ewan

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 16:07:06 GMT, "Captain Blammo" wrote:

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

I was under the impression that partitioning a disk splits it into "slices" like a pie chart. if so, surely long read or write operations would be slowed by a function of the size/number of partitions that you have, unless the program doing the writing also can write to the other partitions and distributes temp data across them in a way that doesn’t impact performance.

Partitions are defined as ranges of cylinders – that is the same track on a number of disk heads, one per disk surface. Writing on several partitions the same time would cause the positioning mechanism to move between the area of both partitions – severely slowing down the operation.

With regard to the paging file used by windows, it is written in block sized like the memory pages – 2 KB – and, depending on the applications memory access pattern, at most times randomly. No long contiguous write access. The benefit from using several page files on different disks results from having multiple independent disk mechanisms handling multiple read/write commands simultaneously.

I don’t know how PS stores temp data, but I imagine that it doesn’t seamlessly switch to the partition that is under the drive head at any given time. Surely then, if you had 2 equally sized partitions on a drive, PS would slow down by a factor of two?

Using multiple partitions on the same disk for scratch files will cause a slowdown that can be even bigger than a factor of two.

N.B. I’m probably wrong, so please do correct me. Can you partition a disk in a concentric ring configuration? That way, you could even increase performance by using the fastest part of the physical disk for a temp data partition.

Partitions are always concentric rings.

And, yes, if you make sure that the scratch file and page files are allocated in the fastest part of the disk, you can have a performance gain.

But this would mean to create the "scratch"-partition as the first partition on a drive and as most systems only have one disk this would require a heavy amount of fiddling.

Michael

Xalinai wrote:

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 21:14:51 -0700, David Haley
wrote:

This day of Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:35:10 -0500, Terry
proclaimed:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me.

Would you keep your passport, cleaning agents, groceries and insurance contracts in one big pile on the floor of your house?

So why do you do that with your computer?

The minimum requirement is to keep your user data and the files that are used to operate the computer (OS, programs, whatever came in those expensive boxes) separate. You can restore everything you bought from original media but it can be troublesome to re-create anything you made.

It is better to have separate drives for this purpose but separate partitions will do.

You might not have allocated
enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

There are enough tools available to change partition sizes.
I think this is no longer neccessary as you can mount new disks at the places you like since W2K and thus extend filesystems over as much space as you like.

Michael

Is that what the file system is for? I that it allowed you and the OS to organize all your data into folders and files. Why do you need an extra logical layer on top of that?

Yes, I have partitioned many of hard disk in the past 20 or so years. The only reason I’ve ever seen that makes since is when you have multiple booting operating systems. They do need their own partitions so the stupid (pre-FS load) boot process can find what it’s looking for.

I guess the only other reason would be if you have an OS or app that is so flaky, screwed up, and dangerous that it’s likely to damage the rest of the data. Then again, why would you even run such a thing? OK, we did in the past because that’s all there was, but you don’t need to today.

Clyde

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 23:26:11 +1000, JC
wrote:

The only other thing you will need is a bootable floppy disk so that you can format the new drive.

Only if you have an ancient computer. You can easily boot and reformat from the install CDROM for both W2k and XP>

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 10:17:11 -0400, Brian wrote:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me. You might not have allocated enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

At the very least it makes reformatting and reinstalling the system and apps much easier if your data and documents are elsewhere – I never store anything I need to keep on my system drive, so if I have to unexpectedly wipe the drive I don’t have to worry about making any backups of my documents (which would be very hard to do if the system was hosed).

It doesn’t matter where you store your data if you have a proper back up and archiving strategy. Whilst it’s convenient to have your data on another drive (I have it on an internal drive, an external drive and archived to DVD) as long as you use proper back up it really doesn’t matter where it is.

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

Terry wrote:

In article , junkmale221
@hotmail.com says…

This day of Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:35:10 -0500, Terry
proclaimed:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me. You might not have allocated enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

Hope this helps,

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

With 1 GB of ram and PS as the *only* application running, what are some scenarios that virtual memory will kick in? For example, consider an editing session starting with a 100mb file and ending with ~six adjustment layers.

Xalinai wrote:

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 16:07:06 GMT, "Captain Blammo" wrote:

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

I was under the impression that partitioning a disk splits it into "slices" like a pie chart. if so, surely long read or write operations would be slowed by a function of the size/number of partitions that you have, unless the program doing the writing also can write to the other partitions and distributes temp data across them in a way that doesn’t impact performance.

Partitions are defined as ranges of cylinders – that is the same track on a number of disk heads, one per disk surface. Writing on several partitions the same time would cause the positioning mechanism to move between the area of both partitions – severely slowing down the operation.

With regard to the paging file used by windows, it is written in block sized like the memory pages – 2 KB – and, depending on the applications memory access pattern, at most times randomly. No long contiguous write access. The benefit from using several page files on different disks results from having multiple independent disk mechanisms handling multiple read/write commands simultaneously.

In theory, accessing multiple disks simultaneously can improve performance. But in reality, how can you tell if the file system or PS is really doing this?

I don’t know how PS stores temp data, but I imagine that it doesn’t seamlessly switch to the partition that is under the drive head at any given time. Surely then, if you had 2 equally sized partitions on a drive, PS would slow down by a factor of two?

Using multiple partitions on the same disk for scratch files will cause a slowdown that can be even bigger than a factor of two.

N.B. I’m probably wrong, so please do correct me. Can you partition a disk in a concentric ring configuration? That way, you could even increase performance by using the fastest part of the physical disk for a temp data partition.

Partitions are always concentric rings.

And, yes, if you make sure that the scratch file and page files are allocated in the fastest part of the disk, you can have a performance gain.

But this would mean to create the "scratch"-partition as the first partition on a drive and as most systems only have one disk this would require a heavy amount of fiddling.

Michael

I guess the only other reason would be if you have an OS or app that is so flaky, screwed up, and dangerous that it’s likely to damage the rest of the data. Then again, why would you even run such a thing? OK, we did in the past because that’s all there was, but you don’t need to today.

Your OS can become hopelessly corrupt at the drop of a hat, regardless of how stable it runs under normal circumstances. Especially Windows (and no, this isn’t a platform flame, merely a fact of life – I use Win2K, XP and OS X, and I’ve had to reinstall all three, albeit OS X only once and it was my fault the system went down in the first place).

In an emergency do you really want to have to worry about what non-system data might be on that volume, and whether it was backed up, or how to even back it up if the OS is hosed? I don’t, so I keep *all* non-system / non-software data and documents on a separate volume.

To be honest I don’t see any valid argument not to set up systems (both production workstations as well as my home machines) this way, but I see plenty of great reasons to continue this practice.

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:16:22 GMT, Clyde
wrote:

Xalinai wrote:

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 21:14:51 -0700, David Haley
wrote:

This day of Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:35:10 -0500, Terry
proclaimed:

Also, most machines come with one-partition-for-one-drive configuration. It is best to repartition the hard drive to keep system files, program files and data files separate.

Why? Just seems like asking for trouble to me.

Would you keep your passport, cleaning agents, groceries and insurance contracts in one big pile on the floor of your house?

So why do you do that with your computer?

The minimum requirement is to keep your user data and the files that are used to operate the computer (OS, programs, whatever came in those expensive boxes) separate. You can restore everything you bought from original media but it can be troublesome to re-create anything you made.

It is better to have separate drives for this purpose but separate partitions will do.

You might not have allocated
enough space on one partition, at which point you’re in trouble if you need more of whatever files go there.

There are enough tools available to change partition sizes.
I think this is no longer neccessary as you can mount new disks at the places you like since W2K and thus extend filesystems over as much space as you like.

Michael

Is that what the file system is for? I that it allowed you and the OS to organize all your data into folders and files. Why do you need an extra logical layer on top of that?

Because the OS doesn’t know which files belong to me and which files belong to the computer itself. If you let application designers and M$ ideas about disk organisation run free, you find that some programs use a folder under c:\documents, others write to the user’s "my documents" folder and others create databases in their install directory.

So as there is a basic necessity to do a thorough cleanup in each program’s settings to teach it like a pup where to go and where not, you can avoid a lot of that hassle doing the right setup early.

That is: Install the OS in a small partition (~10GB will suffice) and create a separate partition where programs are to be installed. It will take a little effort to empty the C:\programs folder destruction free and mount that second partition there. After that, all programs installed on C:\programs are on a separate partition that doesn’t mix with windows components.

Another partition is mounted in c:\documents… where all user’s "my documents" folders reside.

Now the system feels like the usual one filesystem windows clone but works in a very different way. And once one compartment becomes full, it can be increased by adding another disk, moving the data elsewhere or replacing the mounted partition with one from a different drive without interrupting normal operations.

Yes, I have partitioned many of hard disk in the past 20 or so years. The only reason I’ve ever seen that makes since is when you have multiple booting operating systems. They do need their own partitions so the stupid (pre-FS load) boot process can find what it’s looking for.

How about using the same set of user data from different operating systems?
One partition for Win2K that runs smooth and stable, one for WinXP where you do some experimental work and a third one with the Mac Emulator – all accessing the same data on a separate partition.

Current multi hundred gigabyte drives almost require structures like that.

I guess the only other reason would be if you have an OS or app that is so flaky, screwed up, and dangerous that it’s likely to damage the rest of the data. Then again, why would you even run such a thing? OK, we did in the past because that’s all there was, but you don’t need to today.

How about interesting but still unfinished applications?

Michael

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 11:36:46 GMT, wrote:

Xalinai wrote:

In theory, accessing multiple disks simultaneously can improve performance. But in reality, how can you tell if the file system or PS is really doing this?

The only way to assure that the system is using multiple disks the same time is to use a RAID system.

With the current, cheap RAID controllers you are limited to either RAID-0 (no redundancy, high speed), RAID-1 (Mirroring, safe, no performance improvement) or RAID-10 (Mirrored RAID-1 pairs combined to phigher performance RAID-0 stacks; requires a minimum of four disks).

More efficient RAID-5 units are usually sold as external devices and not/seldom part of a PS workstation setting.

Michael

This day of Fri, 04 Jun 2004 14:54:48 GMT, (Xalinai)
proclaimed:

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:16:22 GMT, Clyde
wrote:

Is that what the file system is for? I that it allowed you and the OS to organize all your data into folders and files. Why do you need an extra logical layer on top of that?

Because the OS doesn’t know which files belong to me and which files belong to the computer itself. If you let application designers and M$ ideas about disk organisation run free, you find that some programs use a folder under c:\documents, others write to the user’s "my documents" folder and others create databases in their install directory.

So as there is a basic necessity to do a thorough cleanup in each program’s settings to teach it like a pup where to go and where not, you can avoid a lot of that hassle doing the right setup early.
That is: Install the OS in a small partition (~10GB will suffice) and create a separate partition where programs are to be installed. It will take a little effort to empty the C:\programs folder destruction free and mount that second partition there. After that, all programs installed on C:\programs are on a separate partition that doesn’t mix with windows components.

Another partition is mounted in c:\documents… where all user’s "my documents" folders reside.

Now the system feels like the usual one filesystem windows clone but works in a very different way. And once one compartment becomes full, it can be increased by adding another disk, moving the data elsewhere or replacing the mounted partition with one from a different drive without interrupting normal operations.

Forgive me for being obtuse but I’m still not convinced you’re actually accomplishing anything with the above setup.

Is your argument that it’s easier to format the OS drive?

How does installing things somewhere else prevent them from using their default (and sometimes hard-coded) mydocs, c:\docs, whatever storage settings?

How exactly are things "working in a very different way"?

Basically, I’m not convinced you’re accomplishing anything you can’t do with good organization on a single partition anyways. I’ve never had multiple partitions except when I had to with fat16 and a 4 gig hard-drive, and that was one of the least pleasant experiences I’ve ever had. I regularly format my hard-drive and know exactly where the files I want to keep are.

-dhaley

—
~david-haley

Xalinai wrote:

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:16:22 GMT, Clyde

<snip>

Because the OS doesn’t know which files belong to me and which files belong to the computer itself. If you let application designers and M$ ideas about disk organisation run free, you find that some programs use a folder under c:\documents, others write to the user’s "my documents" folder and others create databases in their install directory.

OK, the OS knows something about your files – let’s hope so. The OS installer really does know what files are yours and what are OS files. Upgrades wouldn’t work otherwise.

I don’t let apps "run free". I make them put data where I want and know. I also put all my data where I want it to go. Then I back it up. Yes, I let the OS put stuff where it wants to and don’t put my data there. So, the file system, with me organizing it, keeps the OS and my data separate. It doesn’t happen often, but that makes reinstalling the OS very simple, clean, and functional.

So as there is a basic necessity to do a thorough cleanup in each program’s settings to teach it like a pup where to go and where not, you can avoid a lot of that hassle doing the right setup early.

Yes. How is that different with or without partitions? You are configuring you apps using the file system. The file system just has one more layer if you partition.

That is: Install the OS in a small partition (~10GB will suffice) and create a separate partition where programs are to be installed. It will take a little effort to empty the C:\programs folder destruction free and mount that second partition there. After that, all programs installed on C:\programs are on a separate partition that doesn’t mix with windows components.

Another partition is mounted in c:\documents… where all user’s "my documents" folders reside.

Now the system feels like the usual one filesystem windows clone but works in a very different way. And once one compartment becomes full, it can be increased by adding another disk, moving the data elsewhere or replacing the mounted partition with one from a different drive without interrupting normal operations.

That sounds like a lot of work for nothing.

Yes, I have partitioned many of hard disk in the past 20 or so years. The only reason I’ve ever seen that makes since is when you have multiple booting operating systems. They do need their own partitions so the stupid (pre-FS load) boot process can find what it’s looking for.

How about using the same set of user data from different operating systems?
One partition for Win2K that runs smooth and stable, one for WinXP where you do some experimental work and a third one with the Mac Emulator – all accessing the same data on a separate partition.
Current multi hundred gigabyte drives almost require structures like that.

I guess the only other reason would be if you have an OS or app that is so flaky, screwed up, and dangerous that it’s likely to damage the rest of the data. Then again, why would you even run such a thing? OK, we did in the past because that’s all there was, but you don’t need to today.

How about interesting but still unfinished applications?

Yes, alpha/beta testing and experimentation are valid reasons for partitioning. I got tired of that years ago and spend my time actually working now. To each his own.

Michael

I guess a big question I have for the partitioning crowd is what files on your system are you willing to sacrifice and which ones are valuable to you? To me they are all valuable. If they aren’t I delete them. I want to keep my OS, apps, and data files all working just fine.

Clyde

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 16:12:56 -0700, David Haley
wrote:

This day of Fri, 04 Jun 2004 14:54:48 GMT, (Xalinai)
proclaimed:

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:16:22 GMT, Clyde
wrote:

Is that what the file system is for? I that it allowed you and the OS to organize all your data into folders and files. Why do you need an extra logical layer on top of that?

Because the OS doesn’t know which files belong to me and which files belong to the computer itself. If you let application designers and M$ ideas about disk organisation run free, you find that some programs use a folder under c:\documents, others write to the user’s "my documents" folder and others create databases in their install directory.

So as there is a basic necessity to do a thorough cleanup in each program’s settings to teach it like a pup where to go and where not, you can avoid a lot of that hassle doing the right setup early.
That is: Install the OS in a small partition (~10GB will suffice) and create a separate partition where programs are to be installed. It will take a little effort to empty the C:\programs folder destruction free and mount that second partition there. After that, all programs installed on C:\programs are on a separate partition that doesn’t mix with windows components.

Another partition is mounted in c:\documents… where all user’s "my documents" folders reside.

Now the system feels like the usual one filesystem windows clone but works in a very different way. And once one compartment becomes full, it can be increased by adding another disk, moving the data elsewhere or replacing the mounted partition with one from a different drive without interrupting normal operations.

Forgive me for being obtuse but I’m still not convinced you’re actually accomplishing anything with the above setup.

Is your argument that it’s easier to format the OS drive?

If I have that default user specific documents folder separated from the system drive, the system disk will be less changed, less used and in the end less fragmented than a volume where everybody reads, writes and modifies files.

Chances are that there is even less need to format the system drive from time to time as it seems common on many a Windows system.

How does installing things somewhere else prevent them from using their default (and sometimes hard-coded) mydocs, c:\docs, whatever storage settings?

No. The method I use results in programs installing in their default location but the same time not on my system drive.

How exactly are things "working in a very different way"?

The program is installed in C:\programs, but c:\programs is no longer a folder but a mountpoint for a different partition or disk so the size of c:\programs is no longer taken off the C: volume.

Basically, I’m not convinced you’re accomplishing anything you can’t do with good organization on a single partition anyways. I’ve never had multiple partitions except when I had to with fat16 and a 4 gig hard-drive, and that was one of the least pleasant experiences I’ve ever had. I regularly format my hard-drive and know exactly where the files I want to keep are.

Did you ever work in an environment were you had to replace the OS of several PCs within a short time and had no chance to test every workstation before it was to be used again?

I set up the system I’m currently working on three years ago when a deinstallation of ZoneAlarm destroyed the network functions. A year before that the system migrated from a WinNT4 installation done in 1997 to Win2K.

There are three drives attached to the main disk controller, two to an IDE Raid-0 controller and one huge external RAID-5 box with 6x120GB configured as a 5-disk-array plus one hot spare.
The whole thing shows only three filesystems to the User: A system drive (C:, 40 GB), a temp drive (T:, 200 GB) and the user file drive (U:, 800GB). Main use of that system is video editing, that’s the reason for the huge temp drive.

Michael

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

Hope this helps,

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

With 1 GB of ram and PS as the *only* application running, what are some scenarios that virtual memory will kick in? For example, consider an editing session starting with a 100mb file and ending with ~six adjustment layers.

One easy way to find out is to call up the Windows Task Manager by right-clicking on the task bar and starting the "Task Manager". Under the "Performance" tab, you will see how much "Physical Memory" is available. This monitor gives you live info regarding your system. If the available physical memory is getting low, say about 10% of Total physical memory, chances are that the virtual memory will kick in pretty soon.

Another indicator of the virtual memory kicking in is that you hear a lot disk reading and writing activity, plus the system is slowing down.

Having Windows paging file and a clean partition reduces the chance of having the paging file fragmented. Whenever you have a huge paging file broken into small chunks and they are sitting on different parts of the hard drive, the performance can be slowed to a halt.

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

In article <K0Ivc.52807$>, eas6
@nbnet.nb.ca says…

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

I was under the impression that partitioning a disk splits it into "slices" like a pie chart. if so, surely long read or write operations would be slowed by a function of the size/number of partitions that you have, unless the program doing the writing also can write to the other partitions and distributes temp data across them in a way that doesn’t impact performance.
I don’t know how PS stores temp data, but I imagine that it doesn’t seamlessly switch to the partition that is under the drive head at any given time. Surely then, if you had 2 equally sized partitions on a drive, PS would slow down by a factor of two?

N.B. I’m probably wrong, so please do correct me. Can you partition a disk in a concentric ring configuration? That way, you could even increase performance by using the fastest part of the physical disk for a temp data partition.

In my experience, the biggest advantage of properly partitioning hard drives is to avoid fragmentation of the Windows paging file (virtual memory) and Photoshop’s scratch disk.

Say if you have the Windows paging file on a partition with a lot of existing data files, chances are that you don’t have a big chunk of free disk space to ensure that the paging file isn’t fragmented. If you have a machine with 1 GB of RAM (which is rather common these days), you will need a contiguous free space of over 1 GB to avoid fragmentation for the paging file. Having a fragmented paging file can bring the fastest machine to a halt.

Same can be said about Photoshop’s scratch disk. So, I prefer having the paging file and scratch disk on clean partitions where I don’t store much data file. Also, keep the primary scratch disk away from paging file partition.

Anyway, when configuring a new PC for Photoshop, by all means get at least 2 hard drives. Preferrably attach them on a high-performance disk controller rather than the generic disk controller on the motherboard.

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

In article ,
Terry wrote:

In article <K0Ivc.52807$>, eas6
@nbnet.nb.ca says…

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

The size of your pagefile reqm’t is determined by theapplications you run, n ot the RAM in your system.

I was under the impression that partitioning a disk splits it into "slices" like a pie chart. if so, surely long read or write operations would be slowed by a function of the size/number of partitions that you have, unless the program doing the writing also can write to the other partitions and distributes temp data across them in a way that doesn’t impact performance.
I don’t know how PS stores temp data, but I imagine that it doesn’t seamlessly switch to the partition that is under the drive head at any given time. Surely then, if you had 2 equally sized partitions on a drive, PS would slow down by a factor of two?

N.B. I’m probably wrong, so please do correct me. Can you partition a disk in a concentric ring configuration? That way, you could even increase performance by using the fastest part of the physical disk for a temp data partition.

In my experience, the biggest advantage of properly partitioning hard drives is to avoid fragmentation of the Windows paging file (virtual memory) and Photoshop’s scratch disk.

Say if you have the Windows paging file on a partition with a lot of existing data files, chances are that you don’t have a big chunk of free disk space to ensure that the paging file isn’t fragmented. If you have a machine with 1 GB of RAM (which is rather common these days), you will need a contiguous free space of over 1 GB to avoid fragmentation for the paging file. Having a fragmented paging file can bring the fastest machine to a halt.

Same can be said about Photoshop’s scratch disk. So, I prefer having the paging file and scratch disk on clean partitions where I don’t store much data file. Also, keep the primary scratch disk away from paging file partition.

Anyway, when configuring a new PC for Photoshop, by all means get at least 2 hard drives. Preferrably attach them on a high-performance disk controller rather than the generic disk controller on the motherboard.

pagefile fragmentation is best prevented by setting it to a fixed size and then using a defrag product that can defrag system files during reboot. (I like perfectdisk.)

Putting the pagefile in it’s own partition is a guarenteed performance loss since a long seek is required every time you need to access it. Putting it on different disk is good, as long as that disk is underutilized when you need to swap.

TaskManager can show you how big your pagefile should be;

Start up every application you want to run, all at once.

Open up more PSD files than you will ever need to, for real.

Start TaskMAnager (right mouse click on taskbar). Click on performance. The lower graph is the pagefile size.

In controlpanel/system/performace set swap space to MIN=MAX. Make it a bit larger that the number taskman just gave you. More can’t hurt.

Do a stand-alone defrag to eliminate pagefile (and other system file) fragments.

—
Al Dykes
———–
adykes at p a n i x . c o m

Xalinai wrote:

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 11:36:46 GMT, wrote:

Xalinai wrote:

In theory, accessing multiple disks simultaneously can improve performance. But in reality, how can you tell if the file system or PS is really doing this?

The only way to assure that the system is using multiple disks the same time is to use a RAID system.

With the current, cheap RAID controllers you are limited to either RAID-0 (no redundancy, high speed), RAID-1 (Mirroring, safe, no performance improvement) or RAID-10 (Mirrored RAID-1 pairs combined to phigher performance RAID-0 stacks; requires a minimum of four disks).
More efficient RAID-5 units are usually sold as external devices and not/seldom part of a PS workstation setting.

Michael

My question was in the context of multiple drives NOT configured as RAID. If you cannot prove that multiple non-RAID drives are indeed accessed simultaneously by the OS or an application, then you cannot substantiate your original statement:

The benefit from using several page files on
different disks results from having multiple independent disk mechanisms handling multiple read/write commands simultaneously.

Terry wrote:

If you have 2 or more hard drives, you are still much better off with multiple partitions on a single drive. Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB. Writing a 1 GB paging file on one partition at once isn’t the fastest solution. It is highly recommended to break the paging file into smaller chunks on separate partitions, even if you have just one hard drive. This configuration also helps avoid fragmenting the paging file which can seriously slow down your machine.

Hope this helps,

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

With 1 GB of ram and PS as the *only* application running, what are some scenarios that virtual memory will kick in? For example, consider an editing session starting with a 100mb file and ending with ~six adjustment layers.

One easy way to find out is to call up the Windows Task Manager by right-clicking on the task bar and starting the "Task Manager". Under the "Performance" tab, you will see how much "Physical Memory" is available. This monitor gives you live info regarding your system. If the available physical memory is getting low, say about 10% of Total physical memory, chances are that the virtual memory will kick in pretty soon.

Another indicator of the virtual memory kicking in is that you hear a lot disk reading and writing activity, plus the system is slowing down.
Having Windows paging file and a clean partition reduces the chance of having the paging file fragmented. Whenever you have a huge paging file broken into small chunks and they are sitting on different parts of the hard drive, the performance can be slowed to a halt.

Terry

www.PhotoRevamp.com

So you can’t think of a scenario that:

"Say if you have 1 GB of RAM, your paging file (virtual memory) will be bigger than 1 GB."

With 1 GB of ram and PS as the *only* application running, what are some scenarios that virtual memory will kick in? For example, consider an editing session starting with a 100mb file and ending with ~six adjustment layers.

Disc access (virtual memory) _always_ "kicks in" for Photoshop because it uses its own proprietary disc files as temporary and swap space (so to speak, for lack of a better term). Always have at least two separate spindles. More is better!

In article , wrote:

My question was in the context of multiple drives NOT configured as RAID. If you cannot prove that multiple non-RAID drives are indeed accessed simultaneously by the OS or an application, then you cannot substantiate your original statement:

New to the OS thing, right? I simply cannot believe that XP does not support overlap seeks. It would be an abomination of computer architecture established decades ago. And, btw, the application has to work through the OS to access a disc drive.

"Hecate" wrote in message

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 23:26:11 +1000, JC
wrote:

The only other thing you will need is a bootable floppy disk so that you

can

format the new drive.

Only if you have an ancient computer. You can easily boot and reformat from the install CDROM for both W2k and XP>

And even ME, had to rebuilt someone’s ME machine and a friend saved me a lot of time giving a an bootable ME CD
I didn’t even know it existed.
Stephan

"Stephan" wrote in
news:gArwc.13391$:

"Hecate" wrote in message

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 23:26:11 +1000, JC
wrote:

The only other thing you will need is a bootable floppy disk so that you

can

format the new drive.

Only if you have an ancient computer. You can easily boot and reformat from the install CDROM for both W2k and XP>

And even ME, had to rebuilt someone’s ME machine and a friend saved me a lot of time giving a an bootable ME CD
I didn’t even know it existed.
Stephan

…..and Win98SE too!

One reason for having seperate partitions
is that you can change the sector size, I
think it’s called. If you are doing video with
large files having large sector sizes keeps
the files less fragmented while using too
much space for small files. For small files
the sectors should be smaller to get more
files on the partition.

I run Photoshop on a
Dual Xeon 2.8GHz, 2Gb ram (thinking of getting more)
2X 75Gb raptors as RAID0 (those drives rock) this has system and storage.
SCSI U320 2x 15000rpm (I think 36GB each) Setup as RAID0 for photoshop scratch only.
1 extra SCSI 320 drive for WinXP page file and extra storage.

This makes photoshop FLY even when working on 2Gb+ files.

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 12:43:11 -0500, (jjs)
wrote:

With 1 GB of ram and PS as the *only* application running, what are some scenarios that virtual memory will kick in? For example, consider an editing session starting with a 100mb file and ending with ~six adjustment layers.

Disc access (virtual memory) _always_ "kicks in" for Photoshop because it uses its own proprietary disc files as temporary and swap space (so to speak, for lack of a better term). Always have at least two separate spindles. More is better!