is G400 DH 16MB enough for photoshop ??

[cpkslash]

I want to run photoshop with dual monitor both running at 1024x768x32bit.
is G400 DH 16MB enough for it ??
or should I move to 32mb ??
thanks a lot !!

[djroberts]

I think that's fine. I run my G200 in 1600x1200x32 for Photoshop at work and it does well.

- DJ

[Kruzin]

Graphics work will always benefit from more local video RAM. It will help the most, of course, on large (>10meg) files, or if you like to work with multiple images open at once.

I would suggest the 32 meg, but if cost is an issue, the 16meg will still do the job nicely

[Helmchen2000]

Hi Kruzin

I don't understand what you are talking of.
Can you explain how photoshop will benefit from more video RAM?
I guessed since now only games and video tools will benefit from video RAM because of buffering and textures. But photoshop I think only uses less than 4 MB of video RAM with 1024x768x32 as resolution and I don't know any function in Photoshop which will use one byte more.
For graphic Apps I recommend to buy as much system RAM as possible you will get an performance increase with every MB. When I upgraded from 128MB to 192MB (a gift) the work went on much more fluent so that I'm considering an upgrade to 320MB.
At last I use Photoshop only for great images with more than 20MB for smaller Pics I use Corel Photopaint 9 its User Interface is much more intuitive and customizable and the drawing tools are much more impressive.
And if I compare the different versions of Photoshop and Photopaint it seems that Adobe is now stealing the 'great improvements' in a weak form from Photopaint.

Helmchen

[Steve C]

I think I agree with Helmchen here... Photoshop requires only enough video ram to display all the pixels on screen - no more. So a 4mb card would do the job fine for 1024x768x32 for example.

Cheers,
Steve

[Kruzin]

Helmchen - If you have an image open, that image is stored in local video RAM to display it. The larger the file, the more video RAM you will want.

What if you have 20 images open? Yea, they can be stored in system ram, but if you have enough video RAM, it can stay there, and local video RAM is much faster to use than system RAM for displaying images. It just makes that graphics app run smoother.

[Helmchen2000]

OK Kruzin you are partially right.
It's not the image that is stored in video-RAM it's only the visible part of it. If you have an image of 2000x2000pixels zoomed to window size only this zoomed picture is in video-RAM. If this 2000x2000pixel image has some objects(layers) some undo data and who knows what it will perhaps need over 100MB and this is sure not in video-RAM. If your window you want to switch to is not in video-RAM it should take not more than 1/20 of a second to bring it to display.

Helmchen

[Helmchen2000]

Sorry Kruzin you arent't right at all!
I've checked it and observed photoshop on switching between windows and photoshop redraws the windows everytime they were redisplayed. Therefore it doesn't matter how much video-RAM you have even with 2 100x100x1 images the data were pulled from system-RAM on switching between them. I think this is a behavior of windows GDI-System which forces applications to redraw its windows if they were covered by another window. You can see this very good if you turn on the 'show windows while dragging feature' -> even on a 640x480 dispay with one little window you will see the redrawing.

Helmchen