How much RAM is for CS4

[james...@adobeforums.com]

I have been using CS2 for a few years without any problem. Recently, I updated CS4. It appears that my computer (2 GB RAM with WinXP Pro SP3)is a little hard. Sometime, cursor is crawling for a few seconds intermittently. It could be caused by other factors, though. I wonder whether 2 GB is not enough for CS4 or not. With CS2, I did not notice similar problems at all. What do you think? James

[boblevine]

Have you updated to 11.0.1?

Bob

[semoi]

Presuming you have a modern DDR motherboard with four RAM slots doubling the
memory to 4 gbs will allow more memory to Photoshop but really only 3 gbs
will be seen by the OS.
There is a command line switch that makes more memory available for programs
that is usually reserved for the OS but it makes little practical difference
to everyday use.
Going to 4gbs of RAM is a reasonable option.
In truth the speed at which Photoshop runs is primarily dependent on
Processor speed. Two or 4 cores are better than one, not because of
multithreading, which is limited in Photoshop, but because the OS can
offload background processes to other cores.
Most benchmarks I have seen do not show great practical differences running
Photoshop on a 64 bit OS, which allows for more RAM. The most likely reason
is that single threaded processes still have to shovel all their data
through one processing core regardless of how much physical ram is
available.