RAM vs Video Card Memory

dbnavan

Can some explain the difference in upgrading a video card and upgrading memory, a friend of mine who is big into graphics, corel and photoshop is looking for my advice, he is running a P4 3ghz with 512 DDR ram and 128 video card but his programs are running a bit slow, trying to decide weather to go 1gb ram or 512 video card, or do both.

I never really deal with graphics so I dont now, I would just do the upgrade for him.

Thanks in advance.

d

petes

Upgrade the RAM first. Its system memory. What type of graphics card is it? And when did the programs start going slow?

Ruu_Old

I believe video card memory is dedicated memory and holds the video, textures, overlays, etc. Some graphics cards are onboard and they share the system RAM (shared memory access). RAM would be the reason things are going slow, or possibly the computer needs to be reformatted if you have used it for quite a while as a fresh install is sometimes no harm. Did the programs become slow all of a sudden. Upgrading the RAM to 1gb would probably be the best thing to do anyway as I think some graphics programs use a good bit of it.

SouperComputer

If the machine is sluggish in general before he even gets to use Photoshop or Corel, then it needs a software cleanup.

Remove unused programs, backup and remove data that is not frequently accessed. Remove Norton if present and replace with a proper package (NOD32 is a good place to start). Cleanup the startup items (MSconfig). A spyware/malware/virus scan would do no harm either.

Finish all this up with a disk defrag and see how it goes.

The graphics card is of no consequence in this case, contrary to popular belief. Unless he is working with 3DS max or other programs that require 3D rendering. Photoshop and corel work in 2d mode, so the texture memory is dictated by the screen res. For example XGA (1024x768x16bit) uses a measly 2MB of texture memory. IE, 128MB texture memory is fine, unless it is shared as the guys say.

The problem with shared memory is not really the memory useage, but the slowdown in graphics and RAM performance that it causes. If it has onboard graphics with shared memory (Some do have dedicated, even when onboard!) then pickup an older AGP card. A 9600 pro or XT would be way more than sufficient for 2d photo\productivity work.

1GB RAM would be nice, but make the most of what is there first, then add RAM if it will help his Photoshop\Corel performance. Get him to go about his normal business with his productivity software, fire up the apps that he often uses with the typical amount of files he has (or would like to have) open . Then check memory useage with Task Manager. If it exceeds the physical memory available, then add RAM. Otherwise, its money down the tubes.

Another thing you could do if he is a heavy photoshop user is add another HD and specify it as the scratch drive, you could store the Windows swapfile there too for ultimate performance.

Talisman

The graphics card requirements for Photoshop are a 1024x768 display with 16-bit colour. If you have a 128MB graphics card then you more than meet the requirements.

On the memory side of things the Adobe applications are beasts if you have less than 384MB of memory they won't install. 512MB is the minimum you should have installed but I'd recommend a minimum of 1024MB. We have G5s here in the office with 1024MB RAM installed. When it's running, Photoshop eats about 760MB. One of the designers has a system at home with 2048MB RAM and he says it runs much smoother for him.

Definitely upgrade the RAM before the Graphics card. A graphics card will improve performance in games and maybe CAD applications depending on the card you go for but you won't see an improvement in Photoshop.

Anti

agreed, all you need is more ram Another 512mb should do, and defrag the hard drive ( a couple of times if needed ). And run a virus and spyware scan.