Available RAM & scratch disk in Photoshop

[jmhinchey]

I just got a Mac with 8 gigs of RAM. Why would it only show 3072 MB available under performance? Also, I have a 2nd hard drive with 465 G set up as the scratch disk so why does it only show 1.78 G in info?
Thanks for any help.
Mary

[Swampy]

JM, where are you looking when you get this information? Apple System Profiler? Disk Utility? Intel Mac?

BTW, 465GB is overkill for a Photoshop scratch disk. I'd partition that puppy and use the bulk of it as a backup disk. Give PS 50GB for scratch disk and use the rest for storage or backup.

[DWThomp]

In windows you have to set the 3gb switch in the boot.ini for PS to see the extra memory over 2GB. You might try searching to see if Mac has something similar. This may be an entirely stupid suggestion since I know absolutely zilch about a Mac.

[jmhinchey]

Hi Swampy,
You are so right about the scratch disk. Just haven't gotten around to partitioning.
I actually found a great article on Adobe...http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...1089&sliceId=1
for optimizing performance.
Thanks for your input.
Mary

[pixelzombie]

Originally Posted by jmhinchey

I just got a Mac with 8 gigs of RAM. Why would it only show 3072 MB available under performance? Also, I have a 2nd hard drive with 465 G set up as the scratch disk so why does it only show 1.78 G in info?
Thanks for any help.
Mary

until OS X becomes a 64-bit operating system, you'll be limited to about 4 gig of memory as the maximum useable amount....Leopard may change that, but i don't think CS3 is optimized for 10.5 yet...

[Swampy]

I'm quoting from the Apple page about Mac Pros. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

************
Inside each Mac Pro reside either two Quad-Core or two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors. Running at up to 3.0GHz, they bring industry-leading 64-bit performance to every Mac Pro.
Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processor
8-core or quad-core. It's all Xeon.

Based on Intel’s Core microarchitecture and designed for systems with multiple processors, the two 64-bit Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Clovertown” processors in the new 8-core Mac Pro set a blistering 3GHz pace.

And the 64-bit Dual-Core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” processors that power the quad-core Mac Pro run at clock speeds of 2.0GHz, 2.66GHz, or 3.0GHz. That translates to up to 2x the performance of the Power Mac G5 Quad.1

[Photo678]

Originally Posted by jmhinchey

I just got a Mac with 8 gigs of RAM. Why would it only show 3072 MB available under performance? Also, I have a 2nd hard drive with 465 G set up as the scratch disk so why does it only show 1.78 G in info?
Thanks for any help.
Mary

what kind of mac?...it might be limited to only 3gigs of ram, also, what os incarnation are you running?

[jmhinchey]

It's a Mac Pro 2x3 GHz Dual-core Intel Xeon
8 GB 667 MHz DDR2
OS X Version 10.4.10
I was getting tired of my old PC not being able to keep up.

[Photo678]

ok, you might have some funky ram in there then....i would either double check to make sure the ram is seated properly, double check in the activity monitor (under applications>utilities) to make sure there is actually 8 gigs in there, and, if purchased directly from apple....call them up. you get a few weeks of complimentary telephone support with your purchase through them....if you bought from a reseller, call them up instead.


EDIT: now, rereading your op, you asked "....available under performance".....i would think maybe, you are reading the "free" section, but can't imagine your puter using 4gigs of ram for the system and open apps....*see image

http://dznr.org/79i8

[Swampy]

I picked this info up over on Mac Resource..

********


Intel 64 bit support is problematic on low end Macs. Core Duo processors do have support for 64 bit functions but with these processors, the motherboards to not support addressing more than 2 GB of RAM. The current MacBook and mini with Core 2 Duo processors will address only 3.3 GB of RAM even with 4 GB installed. It is the Intel hardware that is at fault and not an Apple design problem.

[jmhinchey]

To Photo 678....When I go to my activity monitor 8.0 GB under the piechart and 5.19 free.
Swampy, are you saying I spent a ton of money on a low end Mac?
I'm soooooo confused.

[Swampy]

JM, I don't understand all the machinations of the new Macs (I'm still on a PPC G5), but apparently there is something in the intel chip that prevents being able to use all the RAM. The "high end" Macs use a different intel chip with the capability of using more RAM. I'm as confused as you are.

I'm waiting for the next release of the Mac Pro along with Lepoard to see what the situation is.

[Photo678]

Originally Posted by jmhinchey

To Photo 678....When I go to my activity monitor 8.0 GB under the piechart and 5.19 free.
Swampy, are you saying I spent a ton of money on a low end Mac?
I'm soooooo confused.

heheh, no no, you are fine.....that is certainly not a low end mac at all. Ok, so all of your ram is there, so, you are good to go. Now, where was this "performance" that you saw that said you only had 3 gigs available?

re your photoshop scratch question.......where did you see the info regarding the 1.75 gb?...what you might have been seeing is the amount being used?

[jmhinchey]

Photo678..
When I go to Photoshop Preferences Performance, in the "memory usage" box, it shows Available RAM: 3072 MB.
When I'm working on a file in Photoshop, the info palette shows
Scratch: 183M/2.02 G. (I guess it showed 1.75 G when I wrote the previous thread) even though in Preferences I have set my extra hard drive as the scratch disk and that has 465 GB. (I know, I need to partition but haven't done it yet.)

[Photo678]

ahhhhh, ok.....this is making sense now.

Photoshop can use up to 3gigs of ram on osx as it's only a 32bit application... hence that.

the scratch info you are seeing is ram/scratch It's showing you the usages, not what is available for each. make sense?