Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/03

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Darkroom to digital
From: "Robert G. Stevens" <robsteve@hfx.andara.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 11:27:29 -0300

Chandos:

The most important cpu specification with Photoshop is MMX.  Your celeron
does not have MMX.  If anybody ever asks me about PC's, I always say that
they need to get a pentium with MultiMedia Extensions (MMX).  A lot of the
bargain PC's do not have this feature.  The MMX increases the Photoshop
speed dramatically as PS5 is designed to use these extensions.  What MMX
does is that rather than the program having to calculate how to manipulate
an object, there are standard routines programmed right on the chip that it
can call.  Anything that runs at chip level is always faster than executing
code in a program.

Other than MMX, a PC used with Photo Shop should have 128mb or more of
memory.  For high end use SCSI hard drives with a fast controller and a
dual processor NT machine would be quite fast, but very expensive.  You
could also go for a high end Mac as well if you were going to spend lots of
money.  The key point is that you get what you pay for in life.  

Regards,

Robert

At 09:54 AM 8/3/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I'm using a homebrew system: Celeron 333 overclocked to 502 mHz, 128mb RAM, 
>4.5 gig. hard-drive, dual monitors (use a 17" Trinitron w/ Matrox 
>Millennium PCI card for image editing).  I place all the pallets, etc. on a 
>17" Viewsonic.
>
>I'd like another 128mb RAM and a few more gig.  I constantly move finished 
>images onto a CD to clear up space for editing, otherwise PS5 let's me know 
>that it's unhappy.
>
>Chandos
>
>
>At 09:33 AM 8/3/1999 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
>> >>>>
>> > From the various posts I have a good idea of the
>> >scanners and printers to look at, but can anybody post some advice about a
>> >minimum specification PC for doing the work.
>> ><<<
>> >
>> >I'm using an early 233MHz G3 Mac with 96 MB RAM and a 2 Gigabyte hard
>> >drive.  At times Photoshop complains the drive space is too small.  I've
>> >also used the Photo Deluxe software that was supplied with the printer
on a
>> >166 MHz Pentium (32MB RAM).  This was painfully slow.
>> >
>> >Doug Herr
>> >Sacramento
>> >http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/telyt
>>
>>Doug - I'm using a Compaq DeskPro with a 166MMX processor - a real Model T
>>by today's standards. I have 96 Meg of ram in in (Ram is really cheap now,
>>as you know) and two hard drives, one 3.2 and one 6.4 which I devote to
>>photo work. I'm using PhotoShop 5 and while I wouldn't call the set up
>>speedy, it does the job. My advice though is that for any kind of serious
>>photo work, the minimum system is the maximum system which you can
>>afford....And above all, make sure you have plenty of Ram and disk space -
>>and both are now pretty inexpensive...
>>
>>B. D.
>
>
>
>Chandos Michael Brown
>Assoc. Prof., History and American Studies
>College of William and Mary
>
>http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown
>
>