Memory issue with illustrator (but not really)

[GraphicDisorder]

Well, mines dead now, but web I installed CS5 in my PC, we had the option of running it in 32 or 64.  Since Puerre loaded it, I don't remember what we loaded. I think it was 64.

One thing I had not seen posted yet, is that  you will need to "assign a %" of your ram to Illustrator so it knows how much to work with. It will assign an amount by default but I ran Illy and Photoshop CS5 on 8 GB.

Also, what do you guys do with your computer that you might need 24gigs of ram?
Artist who are creation and rendering image files for animation could use something like that, but I can't imagine Photoshop needing more than 8 or 10 but I'm not real familiar with ram and PC. I know a pC uses probably 20% more ram to do the same thing in a Mac. Just stating differences here. Still, 25gigs?  Shazam!

Illustrator doesn't have a ram setting, Photoshop does.  Illustrator and Photoshop though both have scratch disc settings.

24gigs of ram is great, I run sometimes 20-30 programs at once, none of them struggle.  SO that's the point, do more, wait less.  Very simple.  You can get by on much less, but you will wait more and be force to run less programs or at least less efficiently.  There is no disadvantage to having too much ram, and folks ram is cheap.  My new computer has 32gb of ram.  It's epic!

[mk162]

ram is cheap, unless you buy the good stuff.  I had problems with the cheap stuff failing.

hard disks used to be cheap.  I can't even get them from my normal place right now.

I try to by gaming components or higher end when I am repairing systems around here.  I also recycle a lot when I kill a system and replace it.  Those parts get redistributed if they are better than what is in another system.

[GraphicDisorder]

ram is cheap, unless you buy the good stuff.  I had problems with the cheap stuff failing.

hard disks used to be cheap.  I can't even get them from my normal place right now.

I try to by gaming components or higher end when I am repairing systems around here.  I also recycle a lot when I kill a system and replace it.  Those parts get redistributed if they are better than what is in another system.

By cheap I mean in the scheme of things to spend 1-200 on 24gb of ram to be able to run whatever you want, anyway you want, and as much of it as you want is CHEAP.  Never had ram fail here.  We build our own computers here as well.  I dont cheap out.  My newest rig the parts a lone were near 2k, just the parts. 

[Fresh Baked Printing]

I don't know if was mentioned yet but loading a ton of fonts can also degrade performance.

[inkman996]

Has anyone really tried solid state drives yet? They are damn expensive still but seems like a good option in the future.

[GraphicDisorder]

Has anyone really tried solid state drives yet? They are damn expensive still but seems like a good option in the future.

I run a SSD on both my old and my new computer.  DRASTIC performance jump.

[Dottonedan]

200.00 of ram or 30-50 gigs of ram, something is either cheap or not fast enough. LOL.

Like MK2 said,  Fonts or too many of them open can cause problems. Having a stock pile of ram can't be the answer.  I'm betting that The processor has much yo do with all this. For example, you may think that having the biggest ad the most will or should enable you to handle having 30 programs open at a time. Pro's might tell you that this thought is inaccurate. I don't know. Just makes sense to me. Overload.

Check font usage,
Check HD to see if it needs defragged.
Check to make sure the file you are wirking on is actually residing on the biggest and fastest HD. Externals and networks are not safe to work from.

I must have forgot that its only Photoshop to where you can allocate more ram but seems like you can do that to all programs on a PC if I remember. Must not be. I'm not in front of a computer at the moment.

[Gilligan]

@Dan... you can install 64 bit all you want, Illustrator doesn't have a 64bit version.  (I know you can't right now but,) look at your "Program Files/Adobe" folder and you will see very few programs in there compared to "Program Files(x86)/Adobe" (that is the 32 bit applications).

FWIW, PC's have actually been a head of the curve when it comes to Adobe products recently, this info comes from Mac Users.  They can't use Nvidia cards in new systems meaning that they can't take advantage of the tie in to that engine built into Premier (video editor) and there were functions in the Options of PS that were not available to Mac users until recently (I forgot which ones but the user was very stoked about it finally being available for Macs).

I'm not trying to start a Mac vs PC because I honestly have no dog in the fight.  I'm just a proponent of truth and there is a LOT of old info out there and misconceptions especially when it comes to the Adobe suite or "doing graphics on a computer."  You still need a Mac to use Final Cut which is the defacto standard when it comes to video editing in the big time and I'd only argue that someone should build a hackintosh to save money because my beef beyond the disinformation is the retarded price tag on mac stuff.

As far as why the memory?  As others have mentioned, multi-tasking.  My wife (used to) constantly have Illustrator with at least 5-8 projects up and PS with several projects open as well as Dreamweaver and then the litany of other apps such as Opera, Firefox, filezilla and Access.

@inkman, she runs a SSD drive for her root drive on that system.  It's SATA6 and such... it's OK... not like "holy sh|t" but it's definitely faster.

[Gilligan]

200.00 of ram or 30-50 gigs of ram, something is either cheap or not fast enough. LOL.

Like MK2 said,  Fonts or too many of them open can cause problems. Having a stock pile of ram can't be the answer.  I'm betting that The processor has much yo do with all this. For example, you may think that having the biggest ad the most will or should enable you to handle having 30 programs open at a time. Pro's might tell you that this thought is inaccurate. I don't know. Just makes sense to me. Overload.

Check font usage,
Check HD to see if it needs defragged.
Check to make sure the file you are wirking on is actually residing on the biggest and fastest HD. Externals and networks are not safe to work from.

I must have forgot that its only Photoshop to where you can allocate more ram but seems like you can do that to all programs on a PC if I remember. Must not be. I'm not in front of a computer at the moment.

She has the biggest baddest processor you could get for a regular desktop at the time.  6 core 3.7ghz?(that might be the "turbo speed").

I'll look at font usage but she I'm pretty sure she had more fonts on the old system.

[jsheridan]

From what I remember about cores and who uses them..you can have all you want but unless you specify who uses what, those extra cores may never get used as the others are being fought over.

[GraphicDisorder]

200.00 of ram or 30-50 gigs of ram, something is either cheap or not fast enough. LOL.

There is nothing slow about DDR3 PC 1333 ram.  BTW that's the ram in my "old" computer...lol.  My newer PC is DDR3 1600.  It's super quick.  Photoshop with 1,000's of fonts opens in about 1 second. 

Like MK2 said,  Fonts or too many of them open can cause problems. Having a stock pile of ram can't be the answer.  I'm betting that The processor has much yo do with all this. For example, you may think that having the biggest ad the most will or should enable you to handle having 30 programs open at a time. Pro's might tell you that this thought is inaccurate. I don't know. Just makes sense to me. Overload.

Check font usage,
Check HD to see if it needs defragged.
Check to make sure the file you are wirking on is actually residing on the biggest and fastest HD. Externals and networks are not safe to work from.

I have a few thousand fonts on my computer, Photoshop opens in 2 seconds on my old computer, around 1 second on my newest.  Fonts are not a issue with you have ram/processor power.  Defragging is automatic on computers for several years now, shouldn't be a problem unless we are talking about relics of computers.  Another tip would be not to be working from a hard drive that is your main OS drive, I have all my files on a second Internal hard drive, the drive is only for files, not for windows.  I let programs and windows live on one drive, data on another.  This speeds up things a bit more.  Addition to that even my music lives on its own drive.  I don't want to be saving a file on a hard drive that is reading a music file constantly throughout the day, while it might be just minor, if your running windows, programs, music and saving files all on the same drive, performance will suffer, drives only have so much throughput.  I can nearly saturate a drives throughput with just one file in Photoshop.      I just designed a banner a few minutes ago.  Photoshop file is 1.19gb. 

You mention overload, I guess I look at that differently.  Why would you want to worry about overloading a computer, I want to work efficently all day long, I dont want to worry about what I have open, or what should be closed to be able to do something else faster.  How much time is wasted concerning yourself with that stuff?  Daily I have all of these programs open 100% of the day.  Photoshop (several projects open), Illustrator(several projects open), iTunes, Outlook, AIM (several windows), Calendar, 5-10 Browsers windows/tabs, Vector Magic, Fast Manager, and a few others.  Addition to that many days I have open and using Separation Stuido, CuteFTP, Quicken, and a few others.  I never have to close anything to run something else or improve its performance. 

As far as what Pros would tell you?  Who gets to determine who a pro is?  I have built computers for longer than I have been into screen printing/embroidery/etc and I am a "pro" at that aren't I?  (Note my career before this was going to be a network admin, this is what I went to school for). 

I must have forgot that its only Photoshop to where you can allocate more ram but seems like you can do that to all programs on a PC if I remember. Must not be. I'm not in front of a computer at the moment.

Correct, its all good, jut trying to save people from looking for it when its not there.

[Gilligan]

From what I remember about cores and who uses them..you can have all you want but unless you specify who uses what, those extra cores may never get used as the others are being fought over.

That is becoming less and less true... since hyper threading (2002), software has been gradually making the shift to multi-threading.  Multi-core processors super sped this up.  Before that it was only a select few that were expected to run on multi (physical) processor PC's... 3d software for sure.  But even still, Sony Vegas (my video editor of choice) has had an option for how many CPU's to use for years.  Lots of other software will have this also.  Not very uncommon now.

But it is slightly true that some haven't quite got past 2 or 4... I'm not 100% certain but nothing would disappoint me more than if Adobe wasn't utilizing every core you could throw at it (in modern times).

FWI, I'm not the only one having this memory issue.  It's been going on for some time and I've googled around a bit and found lots of other threads with people like me but no solutions.  Lots of people saying Adobe refuses to accept they have a problem.  Sounds like they need a 12 step program.

[Gilligan]

@Brandt, Yes, we need to move the files and scratch to a faster HD but that's just not economical right now since HD prices are so retarded due to the flood.  We are just hanging tight.  When I bought this system for her before (the flood), she had two 750's in a raid 1 for her BS file storage and usage because she is so sloppy and won't keep her files on the server like she should.

Sold that system before it was even complete and then prices on HD's doubled.  So she's stuck using an external for now.

The thing is, it's not a performance issue... it's a complete glitch that doesn't let you do things.

Example... she had my "new office" layout up (I'll attach it.)  That file's art board is like 24x24'ish... not huge.  All just some basic vector stuff with a few numbers (the dims... I added the letters in mspaint *rawr*).  We were getting the errors just having that file open.  PS, closed and all.  Pathetic.

Oh, one of the things that the glitch affected is when I said "make those temp walls red"... she did and it didn't show up.  She was like "wtf?"... then all of a sudden "boop" the error showed up.  It couldn't manage to "preview" the change in color on those few lines.

[GraphicDisorder]

@Brandt, Yes, we need to move the files and scratch to a faster HD but that's just not economical right now since HD prices are so retarded due to the flood.  We are just hanging tight.  When I bought this system for her before (the flood), she had two 750's in a raid 1 for her BS file storage and usage because she is so sloppy and won't keep her files on the server like she should.

Sold that system before it was even complete and then prices on HD's doubled.  So she's stuck using an external for now.

The thing is, it's not a performance issue... it's a complete glitch that doesn't let you do things.

Example... she had my "new office" layout up (I'll attach it.)  That file's art board is like 24x24'ish... not huge.  All just some basic vector stuff with a few numbers (the dims... I added the letters in mspaint *rawr*).  We were getting the errors just having that file open.  PS, closed and all.  Pathetic.

Oh, one of the things that the glitch affected is when I said "make those temp walls red"... she did and it didn't show up.  She was like "wtf?"... then all of a sudden "boop" the error showed up.  It couldn't manage to "preview" the change in color on those few lines.

It's for sure buggy, but CS5 seems to be way better so far for me anyway.  I got that error almost daily in CS3.  I am not sure what they changed, I just know that its working way way better for me so far.

[jsheridan]

Right there with u waiting for HD prices to stabalize before I build my new server. Priced a 1TB last month.. 250 when it was 99 last year.