Well, I just reinstalled Mac OS X to try and solve some issues I was having. It was less of a hassle than I thought it would be. Solved the problems I was having with Illustrator. Everything was running fantastic.
But, I was just working in Photoshop, opening about ~20-30 small PNG’s (from 4kb to 50kb) at a time to resize, grayscale, etc. I opened up 63 PNGs at once to make things go quicker. They all opened up, with a bit of lag. Now, if I even try to open up 1-5 PNG’s at a time, they open very slow. Saving, and editing the images are quick and responsive. It’s just opening the files that gives me a slowdown.
Is there anyway to reset some memory settings? Or clear some cache? I believe this is what caused my issues with Illustrator before (opening too many files at once.)
I did a complete reinstall. Erase & Install. 10.4 -> 10.5.6 Reinstalled Creative Suite3 Ran very fast, until I opened up 63 PNG’s at once. Since then, it takes about 2 minutes to open up 5-10 PNG’s.
Because, in my experience, it is almost always necessary after a major software installation.
Ann – Necessary? Sorry, but that’s almost laughable. In 15 years, I’ve NEVER ran DiskWarrior after an install (of any kind), nor have I ever heard of this advice from anyone but you, including industry experts. If DW helped you after an install, you needed to run it before the install.
If a directory is fragmented then the computer will run slow.
whether you fix your directory before or after an install is really of no consequence but DW is a necessary tool to keep your computer running smoothly.
When I open up a smaller amount (25 or so) of these files, it takes quite a while (~3-4minutes). After I have about 100 of them open, Photoshop starts performing like it’s brand new. I can open up 25+ and it will take ~3-5 seconds to open them up.
So at the moment, it’s running flawless with around 150 windows open. But once I close all of those images, it bogs down again when opening files.
My guess is that your data is fragmented all over your Hard Drive; your Directories are overwritten and corrupt; and that you don’t have a large enough dedicated Scratch Drive.
Nobody said DW defragments a drive in OS X. It came with a utility that did in Mac OS 9.2.
DiskWarrior rebuilds the directory so that there are no items out of place, big difference but more important than defragmenting. OS X defragments the drive on the fly, over time.
Do you actually use, or even own, the complete CS4 Suite?
Not that it’s of any relevance (at all), to this discussion, but yes. I own and use the complete suite. What’s your point?
And have you ever checked the percentage of out of order data on your HDs?
No. I don’t worry about things that are non-problems. The only time I find a need to run DW is when I begin to have noticeable issues and that’s very rare. I never had a need when using Tiger when this machine was new, nor have I needed to with Leopard – that’s about a 3-year span.
If it’s more than about 3%, your performance will increase considerably if you clean it up. (You can check it in a few seconds with DW’s Graph.)
For giggles, I ran the graph procedure a few days ago and obtained a reading of 17% out of order. According to you, repairing anything over 3% should increase performance "considerably". I went ahead and rebuilt the directories – and experienced absolutely no noticeable difference in performance (which is exactly what I expected).
DiskWarrior is great and has saved me many times over the years. I’ve recommended it to countless friends and coworkers and I’m never without the current version. However, there’s just no point in running it constantly and there’s certainly no need to adopt a regimen to run it after every install – major or otherwise. It may make you feel better, but it’s simply a placebo.
It is no "placebo" and running it after installing the CS4 Suite definitely seemed to improve performance here.
But if you already have DW, what on earth do you have against using it?
17% out of order is high and I would be concerned of reaching the point where the Directories are so damaged that DW can no longer repair the Disk and you have to wipe it.
That would involve a great deal more time and effort even if you do have a flawless back-up
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