Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Carbondale, CO
    Posts
    64

    Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    1. I have been sending large prints (44"x44") to my 9880 from my Powermac G5 (2GB memory) and PS (CS3) keeps crashing. I ordered 2 more GB of RAM, and another FW hard drive..... will that help my problem?

    2. I heard that free HD space will also help... as it is now, I am working on files on a FW drive. Will it run smoother if I clean my internal (faster) drives and use those for the printing files?

    3. I have been having problems with the 9880's driver in printing on roll paper (44"). To make a print that is 44"x60", would you chose the 44"x36" roll paper-banner, or would you make a custom size?

    Thanks for your help.

  2. #2
    3d Visual Effects artist
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Culver City, CA
    Posts
    1,177

    Re: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    More memory will certainly help speed up things with larger files! As far as harddrive space, yea photoshop has to swap to 'scratch' disk space. You don't need terabytes of scratch space, I think generally what space you have left on your average harddrive (at least 20 or 30 gigs) is usually plenty for the swap space. If you fill up harddrives quick, or don't keep a relatively consistant size, you might want to pick up a 60gb harddrive and use that as your dedicated scratch drive? I use one of my drives that I always have plenty of free space on. 44"x44" is roughly 14,000 x 14,000 pixels (at 300dpi), that's big, but not huge, and certainly not what I would think to crash photoshop. I've worked with 24,000 by 30,000 pixels with no problems (other than slowing down a whole lot!), and I've only got 2 gigs of ram on my machine at home.

    As far as crashing, when do you actually get the crashes, what happens? I've actually only seen photoshop crash a very few times (and I've worked with some rather large files), it'll get slow with huge files for sure, but hardly ever out right crashes. It's bar none, the most stable graphics program I've ever used. When you run out of ram, it doesn't usually crash, it just starts swapping information to your harddisk (essentially turning your harddisk into a giant, but slower, RAM. If I understand it correctly). The more you swap the slower it gets (cause reading/writing to RAM is much faster than swapping to harddrives), so the more RAM you have, the less often (and less amount) you'll swap to disk. Speeding things up for sure, but I'm not sure if it would cure crashing problems, since large files don't generally crash photoshop, from what I've seen. I don't have any experience with hardware specifically on a Mac though, (I use PC with Windows/Linux), I'm sure there are some knowledgable mac users on here though.

    You might want to look at lowering your memory allocation in photoshop, I think it defaults somewhere around 70%, maybe try 60% or less? things will get slower, but it might make memory-related problems less frequent. While you're doing that you can make sure that the harddrive that has the most free space is set as your primary scratch drive.



    (edit) sorry I just re-read your question, and you mentioned that it's crashing when you're sending to print! Hm... I don't know for sure if RAM would help this or not. Do you have the latest stable/certified drivers for your printer?
    Daniel Buck - 3d VFX artist
    3d work: DanielBuck.net
    photography: 404Photography.net - BuckshotsBlog.com

  3. #3

    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Westminster, MD
    Posts
    1,653

    Re: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    Photoshop LOVES memory.

    Make a custom paper size in the driver. You also must be aware that the Epson driver has a limit to the image length. If you exceed the driver's ability to print long, you must you a RIP to overcome the problem with Epson's driver.

    Unfortunately I forget the limit of the 9880.
    When I grow up, I want to be a photographer.

    http://www.walterpcalahan.com/Photography/index.html

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Shoreview, MN
    Posts
    67

    Re: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    If installing a current driver doesn't help, try running the print using a different driver (use a gutenprint driver rather than Epson, or visa-versa). If it works, you can blame the other driver.

    You can set the location of your PS scratch disk in preferences. Use one of your internal disks (they have a faster interface) and make sure that disk has space (I like Daniel's suggestion of 20-30Gb).

    I agree with the others, more memory makes PS much faster, and will reduce scratch disk usage. If you have a weak printer driver, it is possible that adding memory (and scratch space) will keep it from being so stressed by the large files, and things may start working. The changes make PS work better anyway, so it seems worth a try.

    Later,

    Clyde

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Carbondale, CO
    Posts
    64

    Re: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    Quote Originally Posted by Daniel_Buck View Post
    sorry I just re-read your question, and you mentioned that it's crashing when you're sending to print! Hm... I don't know for sure if RAM would help this or not. Do you have the latest stable/certified drivers for your printer?
    The epson driver should be updated. It sends things fine when it's a 70-130MB'ish size file... but going larger I get the spinning beach ball of death. Some times it will finally send it after 10 minutes or so, but usually just crashes.

    I would like to use another RIP... can anyone suggest some? I tried downloading quadtone, but could never get it to run on 10.5 on this older G5 powermac. I do mostly B&W printing, often with Museo Max.

    Thanks for any suggestions.

  6. #6
    jetcode
    Guest

    Re: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    2G is not a lot of memory and more than likely your OS crashes not CS3, at least on my PC

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    ljubljana, slovenia
    Posts
    26

    Re: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    printer also using memory, don't forget about that. for some pro and lan printers there is option for memory upgrade, maybe that will help speeds up printing (but not crashing, i think. that's another problem)

  8. #8

    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Massachusetts USA
    Posts
    8,476

    Re: Will more memory and HD help with big prints?

    Even with a faster connection like FireWire, the computer has to send data to the printer in manageable portions. The "spooler" program on the computer, is what manages that data transfer. It is limited by available RAM on the computer. If Photoshop has already taken up all the RAM for editing purposes, this doesn't leave much for the spooler, so it has to use virtual memory on the hard disk, which is slow by comparison.

    The process is also limited by how much data the printer can hold, before it requests more from the computer. As izo has pointed out, if the printer can hold more, then the computer can send it more at a time.

    Beyond a certain point, the whole process gets bogged down and times out. It's like trying to move all the water from one ocean to another, using only a teaspoon: "You can't there from here", as they say.

    Even with a RIP, having a small amount of RAM on both the computer AND the printer, is likely the real bottleneck here.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •