Ram usage question

[Kirk Gittings]

I have a new computer, Quad Core 2 with 8 gigs of ram. Question for the computer wizards?

I installed one of these CPU and Ram usage monitors. I then ran through my normal PS workflow to see what happened on the monitor. With up to 5 large files open with as many as 12 layers, running very memory intensive procedures like Photomerge and Lens Correction, I never saw the memory usage rise above 51%, even with other programs running in the background. This is with a RAM allocation in PS at 70%, 30 History States, cache level 4.

What does this 51% RAM usage tell me, if anything, about how I should adjust my Performance settings in PS?

[Preston]

Kirk,

What does the user guide for the usage monitor say about what the data reveals? Without knowing the specific monitoring program, it's tough to tell what the 51% figure actually means.

-Preston

[Jeff Conrad]

What does PS show for scratch size? I assume you're running CS4 under a 64-bit OS.

[Mike1234]

First, as Jeff asks, do you have a 64 bit OS and 64 bit PS? Second, what does your System Information indicate reagrding your RAM (how much)? Lastly, have you tried setting your PS Preferences to 85 or 90 percent and checked the monitor again?

One more question... how large are the PS files and what filters are you using?

[Ed Richards]

It means you have enough memory. Do not raise you PS allocation above 70%, it can lead to real slow downs. There is a lot going out in the OS that PS depends on. Be happy!

[Mike1234]

PS will only use "available" RAM. I set mine to 85 percent but I close PS when I need other applications.

[Greg Miller]

Kirk - you are fine. Since you have PS set to use 70% of memory, if your PS maxed out, your monitor would show total memory usage at 85%+ (the additional used by the OS and any other apps that are running).

As with most things computer once you reach 90% utilization or more of a resource, you will see significant performance degradation. At 50% total memory utilization, you are in a comfort zone with room to spare.

70% for PS is a general sweet spot. You could try to tweak that a bit but you won't see any appreciable performance gains based on the numbers that you report. If you allocate more than that, you will start to starve other apps for memory, including the OS, and that usually has a way to come back and hurt PS too.

[Kirk Gittings]

First, as Jeff asks, do you have a 64 bit OS and 64 bit PS? Second, what does your System Information indicate reagrding your RAM (how much)? Lastly, have you tried setting your PS Preferences to 85 or 90 percent and checked the monitor again?

One more question... how large are the PS files and what filters are you using?

Yes I have a 64 bit OS and 64bit PS. I haven't tried setting Pref higher than 70%.

Files go up to about 200GB+ plus layers. Just for fun I ran things like lens correction that is very resources hungry.

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk - you are fine. Since you have PS set to use 70% of memory, if your PS maxed out, your monitor would show total memory usage at 85%+ (the additional used by the OS and any other apps that are running).

As with most things computer once you reach 90% utilization or more of a resource, you will see significant performance degradation. At 50% total memory utilization, you are in a comfort zone with room to spare.

70% for PS is a general sweet spot. You could try to tweak that a bit but you won't see any appreciable performance gains based on the numbers that you report. If you allocate more than that, you will start to starve other apps for memory, including the OS, and that usually has a way to come back and hurt PS too.

Thanks Greg. I have noticed that the CPU occasionally maxes out very briefly during some proceses. I mean it hits max for a very brief instant and then goes down again.

[Ed Richards]

CPU maxing out is fine. What are you doing that generates 200gb files? If you can handle several of those your system is amazing.

[Bill_1856]

My Gawd! Am I at the wrong forum?

[Kirk Gittings]

CPU maxing out is fine. What are you doing that generates 200gb files? If you can handle several of those your system is amazing.

Sorry, not enough coffee, 200 mb files. A slight difference.

[bob carnie]

When I saw that I was wondering what kind of work you were up too.

Sorry, not enough coffee, 200 mb files. A slight difference.

[Mike1234]

Well... at 200GB per image your amount of RAM makes little difference. You're going to be utilizing Scratch Disk BIG TIME and RAM will make relatively little difference. Good luck with the waiting... :)

That said... might I suggest you buy several SS HD's configured as RAM-discs in striped (not mirrored) configuration? You did say GB, not MB, right? Even 200MB files will cause you SERIOUS issues. :)

200GB... DAMN!!!!!

[Jeff Conrad]

200 MB files are pretty large, but with 8 GB RAM, there shouldn't be much of a problem.

Kirk, just out of curiosity, what do you show for Available RAM under Edit|Preferences|Performance? Similarly, if you click the triangle near the left of the status bar at the bottom of the document window and select Show|Scratch Sizes?

For what it's worth, Adobe have the following tips on optimizing performance for CS4:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404440.html (Mac)

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404439.html (Windows XP and Vista)

[Ed Richards]

200mb is nothing with that computer. I do them regularily with my sad old XP machine with only 4 gigs, which windowns can only see 3 gigs of. Do not worry about it.

[Jeff Conrad]

Gee, Ed, I see 3.25 GB on my 32-bit XP machine. You must have one o' them fancy video cards ...

The difference may seem pretty minor, but it's actually a big deal when one plays with the 3GB switch and variants thereof. Ultimately, though, it's a desperate last gasp--a setup like Kirk's is the only viable approach. And to think I once laughed at what anyone would ever do with a 4 GB address space ...

[Ed Richards]

And Bill Gates throught we would never need more than 640K.:-) What I am waiting for is better vectorized software so those multiple cores are more than marketing hype.

The other viable alternative is to stay with black and white. Files are only 1/3 the size, so I can work comfortably with my stream powered XP machine.:-)

[Kirk Gittings]

200mb is nothing with that computer. I do them regularly with my sad old XP machine with only 4 gigs, which windows can only see 3 gigs of. Do not worry about it.

Ed and all. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

This current machine in general is far faster than my last one. I think the issue is that I work extremely fast (I have to because I shoot so much for clients and have deadlines that are more like the film days of shoot process an deliver the next day) and have yet to own a machine that I don't get "ahead" of. What I mean by that is that after a rapid spurt of say cloning strikes, I have to wait for some background processing to finish before some of my shortcuts, say to enlarge the cloning tool, will work. On this machine even with 120MP files this happens. I am wondering if this is a cache issue. It doesn't appear, based on my memory usage, that it is a ram issue. Do I need a faster scratch disk?

[Preston]

Kirk,

A couple of things you can try...

Reduce the number of history levels to 20.
Reduce the cahe levels to 2.

All of these caches' and history levels have to be written to disk; so, if you can minimze disk activity, this may help.

You didn't mention if you have a second physical disk drive for your scratch disk. You don't need a huge capacity HD for a PS srcatch disk; I's say 250 or 300 GB, 7200 rpm eSATA drive would give excellent performance.

Given the specs of your machine, and the fact that the files are approximately 200MB, you shouldn't be seeing the kind of bootleneck you describe, above. I have an older Dell P4, with a 3.1 GHz Processor, 3 GB of Ram and a RAID 0 array running 32 bit XP, and I don't see that see that kind of slow-down with 300-350 MB PSD files with several layers and saved selections. Note that i usually have only one canvas open a a time. I do not have a separate, dedicated PS scratch disk, either.

I'm curious to find out what's causing this.

-Preston

[Mike1234]

If you're making enough money at what you're doing then the cost of hardware is of little concern. You might consider buying a server with mulitple CPU's and multiple MB's. It's really not that pricey to buy a dual MB server with two quad core CPU's per board. That's sixteen cores if you're counting and 128 GB of RAM is not at all uncommon. And don't forget the multithreading and multiple busses. If that's not enough you can buy several servers and tie them together.

[Bruce Watson]

Ed and all. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

This current machine in general is far faster than my last one. I think the issue is that I work extremely fast (I have to because I shoot so much for clients and have deadlines that are more like the film days of shoot process an deliver the next day) and have yet to own a machine that I don't get "ahead" of. What I mean by that is that after a rapid spurt of say cloning strikes, I have to wait for some background processing to finish before some of my shortcuts, say to enlarge the cloning tool, will work. On this machine even with 120MP files this happens. I am wondering if this is a cache issue. It doesn't appear, based on my memory usage, that it is a ram issue. Do I need a faster scratch disk?

Sounds like history states to me. Cut your number of history states in half and see if that has any effect. If it does, then you know. If it doesn't, then it's something else.

When I had this problem (on a much older system that yours, that unfortunately I'm still using) that's the thing that worked for me. Doesn't mean it will solve your problem however, because clearly YMMV.

And sometimes working with too few history states is worse than having to wait for the machine to catch up. But if that's true you probably really should consider slowing yourself down a bit. :D

[PenGun]

If you're making enough money at what you're doing then the cost of hardware is of little concern. You might consider buying a server with mulitple CPU's and multiple MB's. It's really not that pricey to buy a dual MB server with two quad core CPU's per board. That's sixteen cores if you're counting and 128 GB of RAM is not at all uncommon. And don't forget the multithreading and multiple busses. If that's not enough you can buy several servers and tie them together.

Be about $650 CAN for a X58 Mobo a 2.6G i7 quad and 6G RAM. $750 with a power supply. Fits in any ATX tower just fine.

With triple channel memory taking 24G and SSDs running over 300MB/s both ways you have no need for a render farm. Not that you ever did. My 165 Opteron with 2G RAM from many years ago twists 340MB files just fine.

[Kirk Gittings]

Preston and Bruce, I will try that tonight, BUT what if I want to keep that many history states? Do I need a faster PS cache drive? having said that i will answer Prestons question. For the moment I do not have a separate drive. I need to pull it out of my old computer and transfer it over. I just haven't gotten around to it. I will soon. I needed to get this computer up and running so I could get caught up with work. BUT I had this same issue on the old computer with a separate cache drive. So maybe the history states is the issue. Same question again 30 seems to fit my habits. Would a faster drive help with this?

[Mike1234]

Kirk... for that you'll need more RAM, I suspect. However, I don't know how Adobe has coded their sofware!! I limit my History States out of habit... been using PS since version 2.0. Heck... I don't even have my trash can set to remember what I've deleted... I NEVER delete what I don't want... no mikates since 1992!!

[paradoxbox]

just fyi it's a waste of money to upgrade the hardware beyond what you feel you really need. there's no solid definition for what you feel you need, if it's fast enough to let you get your work done then it's fast enough for printing. having a faster pc with more ram will just decrease the time your file spends in the RIP stage before printing, and i'm guessing most people here aren't printing enormous 8 foot wide files so it's not really a big deal. 8GB of ram is overkill IMO but it futureproofs your computer for another year or two I suppose.

don't get sucked into buying new pc components unless the working speed of your current setup is limiting your production or is annoying you by being too slow to work with.

fyi i run a much slower computer, a dual core 2.0ghz with 2gb of ram on windows xp sp3 (it came with vista but i changed it to XP myself)
i work with 200+ mb 4"x5" 1200dpi scans and it's only slow when making a change that applies to an entire layer, but even then it's not that slow, maybe 1 minute per large adjustment like smart sharpening

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk... for that you'll need more RAM

Hmmmm i'm not convinced. I just went from 4GB to 8Gb of RAM in the new machine and still have this issue as I did on the 2GB machine I had before that. Slightly better each time but still there.

[Doug Dolde]

Lloyd Chambers has a lot of good information on optimizing Photoshop. He's MAC oriented but a lot of it applies to PeeCees too, I'm assuming that's what you are using. I followed his guidelines on my quad core Mac Pro using 16GB ram and a Raid 0 scratch disk spanning three drives. My machine flies.

http://macperformanceguide.com/OptimizingPhotoshop-Intro.html

[Sheldon N]

Not sure if you want to go this route, but have you considered an overclock for the CPU? If you have good cooling and airflow, it's not too terribly hard.

I have a quad core Q9550 and 8 gb of RAM. I took the CPU from a stock 2.83 GHz up to 3.6 GHz, very significant performance improvement, no cost, no problems in 9 months.

One problem is that Photoshop does not always spread the load across CPU cores very efficiently, so a faster clock speed is sometimes the best way to improve performance.

[Kirk Gittings]

Thanks Sheldon:

A) I should probably wait till the warranty runs out as I'm sure it would invalidate it.
B) That scares the crap out of me.

[PenGun]

Thanks Sheldon:

A) I should probably wait till the warranty runs out as I'm sure it would invalidate it.
B) That scares the crap out of me.

All chip speeds are a crapshoot. You have an average piece and it passes the tests it gets speed designation. That is not at all what it is capable of, just what it will do under normal conditions. Because of this almost all processors have 'headroom'.

I have not run a processor at stock speeds in 15 years. My present Opteron 165 which is supposed to run at 1.8 Ghz has been purring along for years at 2.4 Ghz.

[Jim Bradley]

Lloyd Chambers has a lot of good information on optimizing Photoshop. He's MAC oriented but a lot of it applies to PeeCees too, I'm assuming that's what you are using. I followed his guidelines on my quad core Mac Pro using 16GB ram and a Raid 0 scratch disk spanning three drives. My machine flies.

http://macperformanceguide.com/Optim...hop-Intro.html

I followed Lloyd's recommendations on my new PC box.

Everything I've read about PS performance optimizing points to having a dedicated FAST scratch disk. SATA drives are dirt cheap now ( I added 3x1TB to my system)

Setting up XP Pro for Raid 0 (Striping) was non-trivial but there are instructions out there. It was easier with "fresh" disks as I wasn't worried about date loss.
JGB

[Kirk Gittings]

Ok guys be patient with me, computers are a tool that I use somewhat reluctantly and I really struggle to understand how they work inside.

So I decreased the cache level to 2 (but left the history states to 30), which seems to have solved my "getting ahead" issue. BUT that change seems to have significantly slowed down how fast it saves files, which I guess I can live with. Does that trade off make any sense?

[Donald Miller]

My new machine has a 3.06ghz I-7 quad chip liquid cooled that has been overclocked by the manufacturer to 3.95ghz and they maintain their 3 year warranty at that clock speed.

I run my cache level at 2 and my memory states at 10. I dedicate 7 gigs of ddr3 ram to PS.That leaves 5 gigs for everything else.

[PenGun]

My new machine has a 3.06ghz I-7 quad chip liquid cooled that has been overclocked by the manufacturer to 3.95ghz and they maintain their 3 year warranty at that clock speed.

I run my cache level at 2 and my memory states at 10. I dedicate 7 gigs of ddr3 ram to PS.That leaves 5 gigs for everything else.

So that'll be a Brookfield AKA LGA1366. That's a Land Grid Array with 1366 pins/nubs.

They overclock like butter. Just crank em' up.

You have, depending on the motherboard a total of perhaps 24G of RAM capability.