Photoshop Elements 2.0 and Page File

[eigtball]

Hey,

 

I have Photoshop Elements 2.0, and for the past little while I have

been running Windows XP without a Pagefile. This is due to the fact

that my hard drive is slower then a snail with no place to be. I

have to replace my harddisk, but funds are lacking and I don't even

have a scanner yet.

 

Elements gets mad because I don't have a page file. Does anyone

else not use a pagefile or similar experienced with maybe PS?

 

Cheers,

[aaron_w.]

Sean, neither Photoshop or Photoshop Elements incorporate a Page File (or use Window's Page File), so are you referring to an alert message similar to the following?

 

"You currently have Photoshop Element's primary Scratch and Windows' paging file on the same volume, which can result in reduced performance. It is recommended that you set Photoshop's primary Scratch volume to be on a different volume, preferably on a different physical drive."

[eigtball]

Hi,

 

See the attached JPEG for the error in question. As for scratch, I use my D: drive. Oh and another quick question, can I upgrade Photoshop 6 to CS?

 

Cheers,<div></div>

[jon_austin]

Recommend you go ahead and establish a WinXP page file, and see how this impacts your system's performance. If you don't like the results, you can always go back to no page file.

 

When you set it up, WinXP will examine your system specs (amount of RAM, total / available disk space) and make a page file size recommendation, which you can adjust, if you wish.

 

If you aren't having any problems with Photoshop Elements performance (or, at least, are willing to live with them), you could try creating the smallest size page file WinXP will allow.

 

If you have gobs of RAM or don't tax Photoshop Elements (i.e., by having large numbers of files and/or huge files open simultaneously), then a page file may not be necessary, although if you're disk space-challenged, this is not likely. Still, the norm for most systems is to have a page file, and the Photoshop Elements programmers just want to make sure you have the ability to swap active work in and out of the page file when you run out of RAM during any given editing session.

[aaron_w.]

Sean, I'm pretty sure that Adobe will let you upgrade from v6 to CS (as long your V6 is legally licensed).

 

Imho, you should not run WinXP without a page-file (even though you only have a 5400rpm hard-drive). Specifying no page-file is wasteful on whatever RAM you have. That's because when a program requests virtual memory allocation, it may ask for a lot more than it ever actually uses. If there is no page file available, Windows has to allocate RAM for that request, locking that allocated RAM out from other use. I recommend that you enable a page-file and simply let Windows manage it.

[eigtball]

Thanks for the replies. I am going to solve this big problem by getting a new hard drive. This one is really kicking the bucket. I have enabled a pagefile to see if there is a performance difference, and there is. I am going to live with it for another week or so then I am getting my new one.

 

I got my copy of photoshop CS upgrade today. It works as an upgrade to my Version 6. My version 6 was a legal license. I got the upgrade for a really nice price that is why I asked the original question (it pays to have 1 computer dealer that you have given over 15K dollars over the last 6 years or so!).

 

Cheers,