Need faster computing

[[SiC]]

Hi all!

Background:
I was on parental leave for almost 13 months, during that time I lived on about half my normal salary which meant empty account just a few days after refill and needless to say - no new inputs to my savings account.
Instead I had to drain my savings account during times to keep afloat.

This summer we received the yearly tax refund which we normally spend on renovating the house and so on, but this time we decided to put some money on our interests. I have used my D7D since the last days of 2004 and it has delivered me more than 80k pictures to date, but recently it have started showing signs of aging and the dreaded FFB. I've been keen on the A700 since it's arrival but since years past I was starting to hope for the successor instead. With the release of the A77 spec's though it felt too "much" for me, I don't need 24MP and I don't want to deal with it, I would need super computing and several terabytes of storage

Anyway, I knew there was a store in town still having the A700 so I took the chance and bought one for my tax refund
I knew my Siggy 70-300 was in trouble but I thought that it will last as long as it will... which was not very long! I "had" to have a replacement so I loaned some money from our mutual funds (the wifey was ok with it) and got me a Tamron 70-300, everything sorted then - right?

Well almost, my old computer that I suspected would have a hard time with 24MP is actually struggling with developing my 12MP RAW-files now and it can take an entire night to get a batch done
Loading a 12MP jpeg in IrfanView takes almost 3.5 seconds
I have run out of pocket to dig deeper in, so I'm thinking if there are any possibilities to upgrade my current rig to at least perform better.

It's an ancient Pentium 4 3.2GHz (HT) CPU machine, think it is Prescott 2M ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4#Prescott_2M )
Currently it has 1.5GB DDR PC3200 RAM
It has SATA-1 interface.
Runs XP.
I think graphics card is not important for these applications? It has a ATI Radeon X1650 Series PCI-Express card with 256MB memory.

So, to be able to process RAW-files quicker and speed up jpeg viewing, what would my rig benefit most from?
- Upgrade CPU, try to get hold of a cheap used 3.8GHz?
- Upgrade to more RAM, think I can fit 4 * 1GB (four slots at least)?
- Upgrade with a SATA-2 card, I have a couple of SATA-2 disks in it now and could maybe install XP on one of them?
- Upgrade to SSD-disk (expensive!)?

Or will I process in agony for another year or so... Worth to consider is that a more modern PC like the Acer Predator G3 with Intel® Core™ i3-2100 processor, 6GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB HDD would cost me about 633€ today so all modifications done to my old rig will be put in comparison to that...

So please share any views you might have on my upgrading options!

BR - Zeb!

Ps. I have attached a log-file from CPU-Z if anyone is interested more in the HW-spec'.

[[SiC]]

I "must" at least upgrade to 2GB RAM so I can run the latest version of RawTherapee...

[KevinBarrett]

Hewlett-Packard might have some good deals--and they could get even sweeter if you do a quick google search for coupon codes (which are very plentiful for HP). I've used HP computers pretty happily for about five years now; using a Pavilion Elite desktop and a DM1 netbook currently. Some of the deals available now for just around $600-700 would blow away the $1600 beast I made last year, and this machine eats 40MP panoramas for breakfast.

[Dusty]

Seb, I'd put more memory in it. My ancient work computer has a 3.0 GHz P4, but it's running 3 GB of RAM, and Irfanview loads all my a700 and a350 jpgs in under 600 milliseconds. I'm using the built in Intel 82945G video card, so it's not blazing, either.

Also, d/l MalwareBytes and make sure there aren't gremlins holding you back!

Dusty

[bakubo]

I can understand how it can be frustrating if working on A700 images is slow. In 1998-99 I was using a Pentium II 266mhz, 96mb ram, 5gb hd to work on 8mp scanned images and it was okay. In 2000 I upgraded the machine with a Celeron 466mhz, 256mb ram, 10gb hd and used that for 10mp scanned images. It wasn't all that slow as I recall even if I had a layer or two in an image. I typically didn't have other programs running at the same time though. Oh, and this was with Win95.

Actually, your pc doesn't seem so bad to me. Probably more ram would be the cheapest and best upgrade for you. Until you do that don't run other programs when you are working on images. For example, web browsers often use up a lot of memory. Personally, in your situation with money being tight I wouldn't be spending too much on new stuff. I think ram should be cheap though and that would probably be the way to go. Also, you might check Faststone to see if it is faster than Irfanview.

[InTheSky]

Here is my recommendation:

1- install windows 7
2- Ram minimum 2Gig (most of the software needing more are badly program they this is mostly result of memory leak)
3- Split caching and library on different disk, just not accessing the same IO for each task is better than faster HD. Putting the OS on an another one is good too.
4- GPU from video card are now support for rendering and processing, and the are many many time more power full that CPU, so if you can find a basic one in arround ~100$ it will eat you actual processing power and give you very good performance. (but some PP software cannot be compatible, you have to double verify).

That's it for the moment. SSD are good, only from last generation, before that they are piece of doggie-doo. On used market, if you can find a Western Digital Raptor (not too old) it can be a good compromise VS new SSD. (but OCZ are creating very interesting SSD now not that much expensive).

Regards,

Frank

[bakubo]

Here are some more thoughts. In 2005 I had a WinXP pc with an Athlon (less power than your Pentium 4), 1.5gb ram, and 160gb hd. I worked on images a lot with that pc and it ran fast and well. I am wondering if you have software clogging up your system, virus/adware/etc., not enough space left on your hd, and/or need to degragment your hd?

Do you have lots of software that gets started up when you boot? Lots of software is very sneaky and sets itself up so that it gets loaded into memory and runs even if you didn't really want it to. Maybe take a look using msconfig and disable stuff you don't need to be running all the time.

Is your anti-virus software bogging down your pc? These days I just use the free Microsoft Security Essentials and the Windows firewall. A few years ago I used others, but these days I use those and they seem okay. Some say they also bog your system down less than some others.

Be sure you don't have any bad stuff (viruses, adware, etc.) that is causing your system to be so slow.

Do you have plenty of free space on your hd? Windows needs swap space.

Does your hd need to be defragmented?

You might just need to do a clean install of WinXP if you are having some problems, but that is sort of a last resort since it is a pain in the butt since you then have to download and install all WinXP updates, reinstall software and updates, reconfigure, etc.

It just seems to me based on my experience with my 2005 desktop pc that yours should be fast enough. A bit more ram would be good though, but even with 1.5gb it should be pretty good, I think, unless something is using up lots of ram or the other things I have mentioned.

Maybe a pc guru can step in with some ideas. I have found that it is very easy to waste time and money if you just go out and buy new stuff hoping to fix a problem unless you know what the real cause of your problem is.

[[SiC]]

Hewlett-Packard might have some good deals--and they could get even sweeter if you do a quick google search for coupon codes (which are very plentiful for HP). I've used HP computers pretty happily for about five years now; using a Pavilion Elite desktop and a DM1 netbook currently. Some of the deals available now for just around $600-700 would blow away the $1600 beast I made last year, and this machine eats 40MP panoramas for breakfast.

Thanks Kevin, they have some pretty good deals. For about 490€ ($669) I would get a Intel® Core™ i3-2100
• 3,1 GHz, 6 GB DDR3, 1 TB SATA 3G (7200 rpm), AMD Radeon HD 6450 (1 GB)
But unfortunately I have about $0 right now
Guess I'll have to wait a year or so.

Seb, I'd put more memory in it. My ancient work computer has a 3.0 GHz P4, but it's running 3 GB of RAM, and Irfanview loads all my a700 and a350 jpgs in under 600 milliseconds. I'm using the built in Intel 82945G video card, so it's not blazing, either.

Also, d/l MalwareBytes and make sure there aren't gremlins holding you back!

Dusty

Ok Dusty, I'll try to find some more memory cheap/free. I have a colleague who possibly can help me reach the 2GB mark at least, let's see.
Your ancient computer seems damn fast, my ~18 months old work computer loads 12MP-files from my A700 and Satio in the range 140-280ms, guessing it depends on subject (lots of busy areas or not?) and maybe jpeg compression. Would you mind posting a log file from CPU-Z?

There were a few gremlins on my system, but cleaning them up did nothing to processing speed I'm afraid...

Thanks!

Actually, your pc doesn't seem so bad to me. Probably more ram would be the cheapest and best upgrade for you. Until you do that don't run other programs when you are working on images. For example, web browsers often use up a lot of memory. Personally, in your situation with money being tight I wouldn't be spending too much on new stuff. I think ram should be cheap though and that would probably be the way to go. Also, you might check Faststone to see if it is faster than Irfanview.

Ok Henry, I'll try some more memory first.

Here is my recommendation:

1- install windows 7 - I think the computer is too old and Win 7 is maybe 1/3 or 1/4 the price of a new computer with Win 7 included...
2- Ram minimum 2Gig (most of the software needing more are badly program they this is mostly result of memory leak) - I will try this
3- Split caching and library on different disk, just not accessing the same IO for each task is better than faster HD. Putting the OS on an another one is good too.
How do you mean? I have OS on C: and swap space on another disk...
4- GPU from video card are now support for rendering and processing, and the are many many time more power full that CPU, so if you can find a basic one in arround ~100$ it will eat you actual processing power and give you very good performance. (but some PP software cannot be compatible, you have to double verify).
I don't think I have any PP software that will use the GPU instead of CPU.

Here are some more thoughts. In 2005 I had a WinXP pc with an Athlon (less power than your Pentium 4), 1.5gb ram, and 160gb hd. I worked on images a lot with that pc and it ran fast and well. I am wondering if you have software clogging up your system, virus/adware/etc., not enough space left on your hd, and/or need to degragment your hd?

I am using Avast! AV, and have tried LavaSoft Ad-Aware as well as MalWareBytes now to clean my system but no improvement yet. There are plenty of GB's free on most of my disks. Maybe I would defrag C: some night.

Do you have lots of software that gets started up when you boot? Lots of software is very sneaky and sets itself up so that it gets loaded into memory and runs even if you didn't really want it to. Maybe take a look using msconfig and disable stuff you don't need to be running all the time.

This is one thing that concerns me, being such an old Win installation I have had tons of SW installed, and I have probably too much doggie-doo installed now as well... I will check msconfig and also try to get hold of some memory analyzer to see what is running and eating my memory.

Is your anti-virus software bogging down your pc? These days I just use the free Microsoft Security Essentials and the Windows firewall. A few years ago I used others, but these days I use those and they seem okay. Some say they also bog your system down less than some others.

Could be, running Avast! as I said - maybe I will try and pause it to see if it speeds up anything. If so, maybe it is possible to exclude the places where I store my image files.

Be sure you don't have any bad stuff (viruses, adware, etc.) that is causing your system to be so slow.

Seems to be in order, but you never know...

Do you have plenty of free space on your hd? Windows needs swap space.

Yes, there is space. I have "locked" swap space on another disk than the OS resides on. I don't let windows decide swap size either, I have heard at some point that this will speed up things a bit.

Does your hd need to be defragmented?

Possibly, I'll certainly try it.

You might just need to do a clean install of WinXP if you are having some problems, but that is sort of a last resort since it is a pain in the butt since you then have to download and install all WinXP updates, reinstall software and updates, reconfigure, etc.

I think it would be good but a real pain as you say to get all my SW installed and configured... In that case best thing would be to put a fresh disk so that I have a backup of all my stuff on the old disk.

It just seems to me based on my experience with my 2005 desktop pc that yours should be fast enough. A bit more ram would be good though, but even with 1.5gb it should be pretty good, I think, unless something is using up lots of ram or the other things I have mentioned.

Maybe a pc guru can step in with some ideas. I have found that it is very easy to waste time and money if you just go out and buy new stuff hoping to fix a problem unless you know what the real cause of your problem is.

Thanks again Henry

BR,
/Zeb!

[[SiC]]

This seems like a nice place to start: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... s/bb795533

[[SiC]]

I found the culprit in IrfanView - "Enable color management", disabled it and now files typically load in 2-400ms

As far as developing RAW files in Image Data Lightbox SR then - they average ~16 sec per file which means 225 files takes an hour to develop

Lets see later on if more memory and defragmenting a.s.o helps.

Thanks for all input!

BR,
Zeb!

[bakubo]

I found the culprit in IrfanView - "Enable color management", disabled it and now files typically load in 2-400ms

Great!

As far as developing RAW files in Image Data Lightbox SR then - they average ~16 sec per file which means 225 files takes an hour to develop

I think I have heard that it is a slow raw processing program. I use ACR in PSE 9 and it is pretty quick. I never do batch processing though. I remember I tried RawTherapee (freebie) one time and it was painfully slow, but maybe it has speeded up by now. Anyway, maybe you should create a new thread asking what is a good, fast raw processor.

[Dr. Harout]

Try Zoner photo studio http://www.zoner.com/
It's much better than Irfanview. I've tried both.