New graphics card for photo editing

[justin_koenigshof]

<p>I'm in need of some technical assistance from fellow photo editors. This holiday I received a Bamboo pad and while I'm using the painting feature in Corel Painter 4 I notice significant jerking. It seems as though my graphics card is not sufficient. Currently I have the card which came with my computer and it has a memory of 128mb which I know is extremely small. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to what graphics card would be sufficient for any photo editing I might do. I also have Photoshop CS2. I've done some research on cards and was curious about the GeForce 9400 GT. Also, my operating system is XP so I'm going to need something that is compatible with that. </p>

<p>Any help with suggestions on possible cards would be extremely helpful. Thanks! Justin</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>This probably has much less to do with your video card and more to do with your computer's USB port speed (is it USB v1 or USB v2?) and other motherboard chipset/speed issues. You'll also want to free up as much of your machine's CPU as possible so that it can "think" more smoothly about the input from the device and what it's supposed to be doing with it in the application you're using. It may help to clean up the cache drive you're using, make sure your drive(s) are defragmented, etc. The video board is unlikely to be the problem, and 128MB of video RAM is vine unless you're dealing with high speed 3D video gaming and whatnot.<br /><br />How much system RAM does your machine have?</p>

[justin_koenigshof]

<p>I've got 2,038 MB of RAM and my processor is an Intel Pentium 4 CPU: 2.8 GHz.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>If you have a lot of processes cooking on the machine, that 2GB of RAM is probably well in use, and your machine is page-swapping RAM to the hard drive. Depending on how things are set up, and how clean/organized that drive, there will be continuing moments of latency that will get in the way of low-level hardware operations (like reading USB traffic from the tablet).</p>

[kevin_delson]

<p>Your computer memory and speed should be sufficient to run external devices including the bamboo Pad.</p>

<p>Matt is pretty much bang on in his asscessment of (Processes Running.)<br>

The key (esp with windows environment)..is to TURN OFF all unnecessary processes.<br>

Some of these processes are MS, some are add on software.</p>

<p>Things like Yahoo Messenger or AIM, Google Chrome, side bars, Aero GUI, blah..blah...blah are memory hogs.<br>

Another major problem with MS Windows architecture is release of memory. The programs, even when you close them, "trap" some memory; so a optimizer of some sort will help, just don't run it or anything else in the background.</p>

<p>Open up your memory and CPU status GUI and have a look. If you see more than 30 percent CPU activity, you have too many processes running.</p>

<p>Next, turn off search indexing..it's a worthless process that does nothing more than rob memory and cause the HD to crunch almost continuously.</p>

<p>It's a shame MS didn't do a better job with their internal CPU and buss interfaces.<br>

MS Windows is OK as long as you learn to optimize your system.<br>

I run Adobe PS CS2 AND Capture NX on my 3 gig machine with 4Mb RAM..No probs; although after about 3 hours of editing I shut down the programs and re-open them to re-capture RAM loss.</p>

<p>Lastly, you may consider dual booting where if you know you are about to get into a heavy editing session, you load ONLY necessary executables..I do this often. I'm talking not even loading virus scanners as long as you are not surfing the net. This is called a clean boot and you'll love it.</p>

<p>If I sound like the perfect MAC candidate..I AM! LOL</p>

[tommyinca]

<p>IMHO, Get a new up-dated and application optimized computer is the best bet, Here is a good one at $199 (I got the same one). Save power & green too.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103228&Tpk=acer%20aspire%20revo">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103228&Tpk=acer%20aspire%20revo</a></p>

[justin_koenigshof]

<p>Thanks for your responses. A couple of questions. How do I turn off search indexing? Also, how do I complete a 'dual boot?' And, to TURN OFF processes, do I do an 'End Process' in the Task Manager? Or is there another way?</p>

<p>I would Love to get a MAC, but alas, they're beyond my budget currently. </p>

[kevin_delson]

<p>Explaining f/ stops and exposure is one thing...<br>

Explaining how to streamline your computer is not something I'm willing to do<br>

as you could cause some serious damage.<br>

Google MS Search Indexing as well as other terms to see how this is done.<br>

Kinda' like cleaning one's own sensor, we can all tell you how to do it, but we accept no<br>

responsibility if you mess it up.</p>

<p>Here's a<a href="http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/17/disable-and-turn-off-windows-vista-search-indexer-and-indexing-service/"> link</a> to get you started.</p>

[justin_koenigshof]

<p>Thanks Kevin. I feel the same way about explaining computer advice. But I've got it figured out. It's only jerky when I use an extremely small paint brush size. Any other size isn't a problem. </p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>The one computer here we use for calendars has win2000; 2 gigs of ram; 2.5ghz P4; it goes back to about 2001/2002. Its is used with files that are typically 30 to 300 megs; sometimes 500. All it has is a PCI card from one of our ancient photoshop dream machines of 1994; a diamond stealth card that sports 4 megs of ram. The card was about 300 bucks then; plus we added more video ram as an upgrade for a few hundred more. The old card is poor with flight simulator with some planes; one gets weird effects than a modern gamer card. For us a newer card buys me nothing; thus with this box for photoshop cs2 the old card works just fine.</p>