Memory issue with illustrator (but not really)

[Gilligan]

Well, we only have a 60 gig SSD in there for the OS drive.  With 7 and CS5 being such disks hogs I have no choice but to limit it down.  Besides when will I ever even get very much into a page file with 16 gigs of ram in there?

[GraphicDisorder]

Ha... Nice cat.  I wasn't trying to reiterate--just wondering if I was the only one not alpha testing CS6.

That link Pierre posted was for a used computer at an utterly amazing price, right?-Wasn't the whole computer selling for what that i7 2600 goes for?  And those Quadro cards *are* pretty sweet.

Inkman:  Hit Win+R and type "resmon", you can get info on memory, disk, and CPU usage. 
I only have six gigs on the new-ish laptop, and I can't seem to use over half of it without trying really hard.  Go figure.  Anyone have screen shots of resmon, and how they're killing ten or twenty gigs of memory?

Dan:  It's quite possible, as discussed in the other thread, that the power supply had something to do with your Mobo being fried, if that's what happened.  Bad power can fry just about anything, and a power supply that's going bad can do amazingly crappy things to your computer.  You can destroy just about any electronic component with 'dirty' power, or power that is out of range--many would-be techs have discovered that with their own body's electricity.
It's really too bad more power supplies don't have proper line filtering capacitors.

A 2600 goes for a good amount but that's not the point.  The poster was being led to believe it the deal was a powerful rig.  It was several years ago in reality, but technology moves quick and maybe he didn't realize that.   It's like buying a 10 year old vette... Sure it's faster than a Honda civic but it's a dog compared to a new vette...   Pick your poison. 

Ill give you a screen shot tomorrow if you want using 20 gigs of ram on photoshop alone...   Again not the point.  Photoshop like many 64bit apps will use what you let it.  I could limit it to a couple gigs if I like and it would just use that much.  But I bet if I allow it more ram, it will work faster...  Ram is faster than scratch disc use....   So while you can throw a slow computer at a program and limit its ram use and claim you can't get it to use more ram its not because it doesn't want to, it's because your not letting it or your not doing anything that requires it.  I for one use a lot of ram and it speeds up everything and is pretty cheap, certainly cheaper than my time.  One can either choose to wait longer on a computer and get less done or spend some cash and save time...   It's really that simple.  Easy choice for me.

[Gilligan]

Lots of programs are now ATTEMPTING, I say that because not all are very good at it, to use as much ram as you can give it and then give it up when another programs use it.

Linux is the king of doing this, it does it at an OS level.  If you look at "used ram" on a linux system it will be 100%, but in reality most of that is "cache" and it will give it up when needed.  You will also see that the swap file will hardly ever get used unless you REALLY use that physical ram up.  Not just cache it up.

What Brandt says is true.  It was quite common back through the 90's and just as much so today, just that most people don't notice it because they aren't "power users" like us.  The cheapest way to speed up a PC is to dump more ram in it.

Granted for most ppl they come with 4-8 gigs now a days and that is plenty for your average home user.  But when you start talking about PS usage... well, you really should double that to reach that same "marginal" ROI.  But it's still relative.  Like Brandt says, it's cheap... fill it up and not worry about it again.

[Gilligan]

A good analogy would be square footage for your shop.

You don't "NEED" 5,000 sqft to run a successful screen printing shop, but if you could go from 2,500 to 5,000 for only a little bit more, wouldn't you?  Would you blame someone that paid even a little more to go to 7,500?

[ravenmark]

One of the simplest ways to speed up illustrator is to keep you vectors clean with a minimum amount of nodes & individual objects. There are ways to clean up the most complex paths. Also as with it an photoshop there are 5 ways to do anything choose the ones adding the least to the file size of the document & are that are less memory intensive.

[GraphicDisorder]

One of the simplest ways to speed up illustrator is to keep you vectors clean with a minimum amount of nodes & individual objects. There are ways to clean up the most complex paths. Also as with it an photoshop there are 5 ways to do anything choose the ones adding the least to the file size of the document & are that are less memory intensive.

All true, but with memory, you dont have to worry about any of that. 

You can go around the mountains, or drive over them with the right tools.  Ill drive over them, save myself some time.... 

[ravenmark]

All true, but with memory, you dont have to worry about any of that. 

But if you do all that and still have memory to barrel over stuff, imagine what else you can put that memory to use to pull off in a design. 

[ScreenFoo]

Yeah, but the square footage analogy would only work if you had some microsoft and adobe engineers telling you what you could do with the extra space.   
Linux analogy is great, it's too bad Adobe won't touch it. 

I'm with Derek, that it's not that hard to learn how to create lean fast files, and if you already have the best processor you can get, nothing will make it work faster--a leaner file will work faster period, no matter what computer you own..
And more RAM is great--I'm not trying to say you shouldn't get more RAM if you can use it, only that you shouldn't be worrying about getting more RAM if you don't. 

If you feel you need a processor that came out last year instead of three years ago, by all means, fork over the money.  I'm not trying to step on anyone's buyers pride/remorse.  Just seems odd to me that people who may keep the same computer for 3 or even 5-10 years would want to spend 3X the amount of a two or three year old awesome computer for a this year awesome computer--unless they're planning on getting a new awesome computer every year.   I guess my point was, when the whole computer costs what another CPU goes for, seems like a 3-4x difference in speed is a decent value either way--whether or not you have the bucks to drop on the fast one.

Just my opinion, not trying to tell anyone what to do...

[GraphicDisorder]

Yeah, but the square footage analogy would only work if you had some microsoft and adobe engineers telling you what you could do with the extra space.   
Linux analogy is great, it's too bad Adobe won't touch it. 

I'm with Derek, that it's not that hard to learn how to create lean fast files, and if you already have the best processor you can get, nothing will make it work faster--a leaner file will work faster period, no matter what computer you own..
And more RAM is great--I'm not trying to say you shouldn't get more RAM if you can use it, only that you shouldn't be worrying about getting more RAM if you don't. 

If you feel you need a processor that came out last year instead of three years ago, by all means, fork over the money.  I'm not trying to step on anyone's buyers pride/remorse.  Just seems odd to me that people who may keep the same computer for 3 or even 5-10 years would want to spend 3X the amount of a two or three year old awesome computer for a this year awesome computer--unless they're planning on getting a new awesome computer every year.   I guess my point was, when the whole computer costs what another CPU goes for, seems like a 3-4x difference in speed is a decent value either way--whether or not you have the bucks to drop on the fast one.

Just my opinion, not trying to tell anyone what to do...

I agree that it's not for everyone....

My usage is clearly in the power user range.  I could get by with less, hell much less, but the fact is I would have to sacrifice the way I use and WANT to use a computer.  For me that means NEVER worrying about if the computer can do what I am about to ask of it, never having to close something so there are more resources for some other program/function, AND while that's happening all the programs open still have all of the resources they need to run perfect.  I wanna jam music, have 30 files open, email, quoting software, several browser windows, and so on.  My computer never so much as blinks at this. 

Creating lean fast files would only be needed if you don't have the horsepower so I agree if someone lacks power go for it, but I have always had the power so no need to do that.  I love to keep extra layers, many versions, and so on in a single file so I can come back and use parts of or revisit a concept.  Others do this by creating a new file, or so on.  I find that slower.  So I don't.  Doesn't mean your way or others way is wrong, its probably not for a slower computer.  But if you have the power why work lean.

This computer I am on was sub 2k, I have been using it for 3ish years now.  It's still very fast by today's standards and will continue being used for several years to come.  How fast will the computer being recommended be in 3-4-5 years?  Its already very slow in comparison and he's not even bought it yet.  Food for thought. 

In my time as a geek, I have see a lot of people that have no clue how much time they can save with a well configured computer.  I always try to steer people to making smarter choices with these things.  For me a fast computer is like a auto.  I can print manually at X speed, or I can buy a auto and print much faster and spend free time on something else.  Same applies here to a computer.  Spend more money, have more time.  I assure you its noticeable.

[ScreenFoo]

A lean file that's half the size is twice as fast--whether you have an i7, or a PIII.   As for saving copies, gigabytes are even cheaper on hard drives than they are in RAM. 

Not to say you can't value minutes of your time adding up in hundreds of dollars if that's all you do.  Again, not telling you to do anything.

[GraphicDisorder]

A lean file that's half the size is twice as fast--whether you have an i7, or a PIII.   As for saving copies, gigabytes are even cheaper on hard drives than they are in RAM. 

 

I disagree, I see no delay be it a small file or a large file.  I can work with files 100's of mb or 1mb they run the same, by your same thought process a computer with less specs will be slower.  I am certainly not going to change how I work over a $100 bucks in ram.  I mean seriously how much do you value your time?  I bet I could justify that ram cost in less than a week in time savings.

Not to say you can't value minutes of your time adding up in hundreds of dollars if that's all you do.  Again, not telling you to do anything.

We design every day, often 8hrs a day.  It doesn't take long or much at all to justify a powerful computer here, time saved is drastic by working the way you want, not having to have a computer dictate how you work with it.  I find big value in that.  I have computers from slow to fast, I have came from shitty to awesome, I know exactly the differences.  I now enjoy running what I want, as much of it as I want, and having big ole honkin' files that take no time at all to deal with on my computer.  It's not that expensive to be able to do that either IMO.

If I was only doing minor design work, or not much design work I am sure it would be less critical, however that's not the case here. 

[ScreenFoo]

I disagree, I see no delay be it a small file or a large file.  I can work with files 100's of mb or 1mb they run the same, by your same thought process a computer with less specs will be slower.  I am certainly not going to change how I work over a $100 bucks in ram.  I mean seriously how much do you value your time?  I bet I could justify that ram cost in less than a week in time savings.

We design every day, often 8hrs a day.  It doesn't take long or much at all to justify a powerful computer here, time saved is drastic by working the way you want, not having to have a computer dictate how you work with it.  I find big value in that.  I have computers from slow to fast, I have came from shitty to awesome, I know exactly the differences.  I now enjoy running what I want, as much of it as I want, and having big ole honkin' files that take no time at all to deal with on my computer.  It's not that expensive to be able to do that either IMO.

If I was only doing minor design work, or not much design work I am sure it would be less critical, however that's not the case here.

You've taught me a great lesson on valuing my time--I'll try not to post any observations that are contrary to yours.  I'm glad we can agree on the second part though.   

[GraphicDisorder]

I disagree, I see no delay be it a small file or a large file.  I can work with files 100's of mb or 1mb they run the same, by your same thought process a computer with less specs will be slower.  I am certainly not going to change how I work over a $100 bucks in ram.  I mean seriously how much do you value your time?  I bet I could justify that ram cost in less than a week in time savings.

We design every day, often 8hrs a day.  It doesn't take long or much at all to justify a powerful computer here, time saved is drastic by working the way you want, not having to have a computer dictate how you work with it.  I find big value in that.  I have computers from slow to fast, I have came from shitty to awesome, I know exactly the differences.  I now enjoy running what I want, as much of it as I want, and having big ole honkin' files that take no time at all to deal with on my computer.  It's not that expensive to be able to do that either IMO.

If I was only doing minor design work, or not much design work I am sure it would be less critical, however that's not the case here.

You've taught me a great lesson on valuing my time--I'll try not to post any observations that are contrary to yours.  I'm glad we can agree on the second part though.   

Look at it this way, if you had a faster computer you could spend more time on this topic.  LOL

 

[Gilligan]

I think both of you guys are correct.

The file would be much faster... problem is the scale in which you are measuring it on.   On a pIII with a gig of ram it would be seconds (maybe minutes) but on that i7 with 32gigs of ram we are talking about milliseconds if not less of a difference.  Basically it's not perceivable to Brandt at that point so it's a moot point.

Granted, it's obviously better practice to create a more fit file than a bloated one.  This is why things are so ridiculous everywhere in the computer world.  "hey, ever user has like 4+ gigs of ram and a terabyte of storage... who cares how many resources our product uses"  Boom you have CS5 taking up 15gigs of space and windows needing 20gigs for a basic install.  That's ridiculous!


For the record that 6 core cpu w/ 16 gigs of DDR3 ram and a 60gig SSD sata6 hard drive, mobo with USB3 and other bells and whistles and a bad a$$ super cool (temp wise) case... ran me about $600 bucks.  This doesn't count the dual 24" monitors she runs, but those are system independent.

[GraphicDisorder]

I think both of you guys are correct.

The file would be much faster... problem is the scale in which you are measuring it on.   On a pIII with a gig of ram it would be seconds (maybe minutes) but on that i7 with 32gigs of ram we are talking about milliseconds if not less of a difference.  Basically it's not perceivable to Brandt at that point so it's a moot point.

Granted, it's obviously better practice to create a more fit file than a bloated one.  This is why things are so ridiculous everywhere in the computer world.  "hey, ever user has like 4+ gigs of ram and a terabyte of storage... who cares how many resources our product uses"  Boom you have CS5 taking up 15gigs of space and windows needing 20gigs for a basic install.  That's ridiculous!


For the record that 6 core cpu w/ 16 gigs of DDR3 ram and a 60gig SSD sata6 hard drive, mobo with USB3 and other bells and whistles and a bad a$$ super cool (temp wise) case... ran me about $600 bucks.  This doesn't count the dual 24" monitors she runs, but those are system independent.

Sort of the point I was making Gilligan, your $600 buck computer would run a circle around that one being recommended and is only marginally more expensive. 

Real world example just happened today.  I decided today that my computer is good enough, so that new one I built: i7 with 32gb of ram and 240gb SSD and 1.5tb of data space, I gave it to our new employee to use since he is doing the bulk of design work now.  He was blown away at the difference.  He said he was having to close out files/programs to allow others to run better.  BTW the computer in question he was using was a several year old HP Q6600 Quad Core, 8gb of DDR2, 10krpm Vraptor, with a 1tb black WD data drive.  Night and day was his words.  He can now work however he likes, rather than having to stop, close things or not open them to start with.  He finished several hundred in design work today already.  His increased output will pay for that 1.8k computer in no time.