Improving laptop photo processing speed?


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sonix

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Jan 17, 2002
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Sengkang
www.emomentz.com
Hi All,

Need an advise here to improve my current laptop. Currently it's Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz with 5200 Rpm harddisk and Memory around 680Mb+ (due to video card is shared 128Mb).

My questions:
1. By upgrading the hardisk to 7200 RPM helps?
2. Upgrading the RAM?
3. Using external harddisk (7200RPM) better (USB2.0/Firewire) than doing it itself on laptop?

Which one above or alternative way is wiser choice to do given tight budget?

Apologize if this topic has been discuss before. Kindly give me the link if you can find one.

Occasionally I also do video editing (very light editting). Transfer from DV to harddisk, edit abit, convert to DVD.

Thanks guys :cool:
 

sell the laptop get a desktop

external harddisk will always be slower than internal
 

It's likely that the most immediate performance improvement you will get is if you upgrade your RAM capacity to at least 1 gig. If possible, 1.5 gig to 2 gig will even be better esp. since your graphics card uses shared memory.

Upgrading your HD to a 7200 rpm unit is also a good idea, esp. for video editing, but the RAM upgrade will give you the most immediate improvement in performance. Between the two, do the RAM first.

I'd definitely also tweak your XP system settings. If you have at least 1-1.5 gigs of RAM, try out the tips on this page:

http://kadaitcha.cx/performance.html

I'd also look into disabling services that you don't need to squeeze out as much free memory for applications as possible, and I find that disabling windows prefetch speeds up my laptop and desktops by a fair bit.

[update: now I don't think disabling Windows prefetch is such a good idea - I prefer my system's performance with it at the normal default]
 

Kahheng,

Thanks for your valueable input! Will give it a try and start eye-ing on discounted RAM.

Cheers!
 

There is always a max ram support even for shared ram graphic card. So don't invest too much on ram. 1GB is effective enough for your process I feel.
 

Got 7200rpm harddisk for laptop meh? Didnt see any around.

By the way, the best way to improve laptop processing speed is to upgrade the RAM. I'm currently running on 1.5GB and pretty good. And I have turned off my pagefile so that Windows won't use my harddisk to run as ram. This can significantly improved the performance.
 

Yes.. saw it in Sim lim... kinda expensive tho.. $300+ for 40gig or higher.. can't really recall.. I only remember it's expensive
 

wow .. p4 2.8ghz slow ...

If on tight budget, best way to gain "apparent speed increase"
is to restructure your work process....
Maybe go toilet, or drink coffee in between slow processes. : )
 

tunster said:
By the way, the best way to improve laptop processing speed is to upgrade the RAM. I'm currently running on 1.5GB and pretty good. And I have turned off my pagefile so that Windows won't use my harddisk to run as ram. This can significantly improved the performance.
Can share how to do that? TIA
 

Germinc said:
Can share how to do that? TIA
Right click "My Computer", select "Properties" - > "Advanced" - > Performance "Settings" -> Advanced - > Virtual Memory "Change" - > Paging file for selected drive "No paging file" - > "SET".

Recommended for laptops/PCs more than 1GB of RAM only
 

+evenstar said:
Right click "My Computer", select "Properties" - > "Advanced" - > Performance "Settings" -> Advanced - > Virtual Memory "Change" - > Paging file for selected drive "No paging file" - > "SET".

Recommended for laptops/PCs more than 1GB of RAM only

I turned off paging too. Provided you have at least 1gb.

However if you do alot of PS, I suggest 2gb.

I do not think HD will help you much, unless you use the HD as your scrap space for PS.
 

Actually. No, increasing the ram may slow your system down. Check your laptop manual. Alot of motherboards downclock ram when the capacity of the memory module hits 1gig.

and your mainbottle neck is definitely the HD. For a quick check, use pull up the taskmanager whilst running your usual PS. you should still have quite a bit of space in your ram. No sense adding ram if you haven;t finished what you have.

im running 2gigs of ram on my desktop and routinely work with really large files. (100mb and above for each layer) and i very seldom hit about the 1gig ram usage mark.

Fast hd = faster routine access = faster file loading = snappier performance.
 

Do check on your RAM usage as what ouyang suggested...my desktop experience with 2 gig RAM with giganormous files does suggest over 1gig is pretty useful...especially with a client perched behind you...but think that even if motherboard downclocks RAM, a larger amount of RAM would make for faster overall operation as a slight speed downgrade of RAM not really as important as amount of RAM in Photoshop.

a 7200 HD would prob be useful to speed up things as well...not just with PS but overall comp operations like starting up...but one thing is, do you work plugged in to power? cause a faster spinning drive will eat more power than a slower one...

an external HD does actually speed up PS...at least my un-empirical testing suggests...but one thing is for sure, it would be useful as a backup to your built-in HD...of course, if it is powered via your laptop, that's a MAJOR powerdrain as well...and if powered by powerbrick, than adds more bulk plus can only use with a powerpoint handy...
 

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