[slvale07]

Hello! I'm new here, but I have a problem and I'm really confused.

I will be taking a Graphic Design class in the fall that requires Photoshop but I have a 32-bit version of Vista Home Basic (i don't know if that matters) and only 2 gig of RAM, which is the max my computer can support (It's a Dell Inspiron 1501). I have a really old Photoshop Elements (3.0) installed now and it has lots of display bugs. I am pretty sure that has something to do with a lack of RAM, but I'm not sure.

In order to run Photoshop CS3, I know that I'd need to upgrade to at least Vista Home Premium.

But beyond that, I'm lost. The solutions I've come up with I'll post, but I don't know if they're sensible.

1.) I would need to expand my ram - from 2 gig to some amount greater than 2. But there's the problem with 2 gig being the max amount allowed by my Inspiron. From my readings (that I don't entirely understand), it might help to upgrade to a 64-bit version of Vista. This solution really doesn't make any sense to me, so if it is the right decision, please, please, explain to me what it means.

2.) I could format my hard drive - remove Vista - and install XP. XP would run a lot faster with my 2 gig of ram, and all of my programs would still work. But there's a lot of issues with the downgrade (because of something called a SATA drive (????)). I also know that it's frowned upon by lots of people that support the "You'll-need-to-deal-with-it-sooner-or-later" principle, which I agree with, but I don't know how to get around it.

3.) This is totally unresearched, but I thought maybe I could buy an external hard drive and run Photoshop from it, rather than my current hard drive. Would that help my RAM situation? Can I have the external hard drive run XP, while my main hard drive runs Vista?


I apologize for my cluelessness! Please help me! Is there a better solution than my 3?

Help!
S. Valentine

 

[sobeit]

I will be confusing you some more. If you downgrade to xp, you will have to purchase the full retail version. But then you will run in to the problems of getting xp drivers. The help forums are full of individuals who are trying to downgrade and cannot find drivers.

If the max ram for your computer is 2 gigs, then that is all you can use for that system, no matter the operating system.

As far as the drive being sata, nothing to worry about, just need a sata driver though it may be a pain to get working at times.

As far as having problems with photoshop elements 3, I am running photoshop elements 2 with no problems on my vista computer. Running photoshop from an external drive will actually slow things down.
External drives + usb cables are not near as fast as internal drives. That option should not be considered.

You can dual boot vista with xp but not with external drive.

 

[slvale07]

What all will I need drivers for? Is there a checklist or something?

Is the downgrade the best option?

 

[Niniel]

I have a really old Photoshop Elements (3.0) installed now and it has lots of display bugs.

I think this might be the issue more then anything you mentioned.

I've run Photoshop 7, CS and CS2 quite successfully on 512 mb of ram for years (OS was Windows 2000... Finally switched to Vista because it was no longer a supported OS for CS3). Photoshop would get sluggish, especially on large files but would not display bugs. So 2 gigs of ram should be enough :wink:

Other then that have you tried seeing if the issue might be with your video card? (Coming back to the display bugs).

 

[philnolan3d]

2GB of RAM should be plenty. I have 2GB on my laptop and Photoshop CS3 Extended works great. If you're having display issues it most likely your video card drivers. Whether you have nVidia or ATI they both make it very simple, just visit ATI.com or nVidia.com and look for the drivers link at the top of the page. In fact here's links to make it simpler:

ATI
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

nVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

nVidia makes it even easier with their "Automatically find drivers for my NVIDIA products" option, which works fine for me, though it's still testing so if it doesn't find yours you'll just have to manually pick which card you have.

Then just install it like any other software and reboot your computer when done.

 

[slvale07]

I think you guys are probably right. 2 gig should be enough, but it doesn't seem to be. I know that the video card (or lack-thereof i should say) is using way more memory than it should. according to the directX diagnostic window, the display and video category is using approximately 830 MB, which is huge. And i've done everything i can think of to remedy it. I'm at the most basic windows display offered, i disabled almost all of the startup programs, i reinstalled the ati graphics drivers... is there something i'm missing?