CS5 vs CS5 64-bit

Surfdog

I am sure this has been asked & answered, but please bear with me. I just loaded CS5. (I am using windows,) When I went to my programs directory, I now have both CS5 & CS5 64-bit. What is the difference? Do I need both? Thanks!

Richard

It's the same program, but the 64-bit version can use a lot more memory, which gives speed advantages. In order to use it, you must be running a 64 bit version of Windows. Beware that some PS third party plugins are not compatible with 64 bit systems yet. If your machine does not have more than 4GB of RAM, there is very little advantage to 64 bits and if it's 3 or less, there is none.

Surfdog

Richard wrote: »

It's the same program, but the 64-bit version can use a lot more memory, which gives speed advantages. In order to use it, you must be running a 64 bit version of Windows. Beware that some PS third party plugins are not compatible with 64 bit systems yet. If your machine does not have more than 4GB of RAM, there is very little advantage to 64 bits and if it's 3 or less, there is none.

That's what I needed to know. Thanks alot!

pathfinder

To really utilize 64 bit CS5, you really need 8 Gb or more of RAM. Lots more if you got it -> 16 to 32Gbs.

Richard

pathfinder wrote: »

To really utilize 64 bit CS5, you really need 8 Gb or more of RAM. Lots more if you got it -> 16 to 32Gbs.

Why is that, Jim? What happens between 4 and 8?

pathfinder

Hi Richrd,

You can dedicate all that ram (or a lot of it anyway ) to Photoshop's use, otherwise, in 32bit Photoshop, it is limited to a total of 3Gb and has to swap the data out to a virtual hard drive for processing - this is especially more important for large files with multiple layers. Not a big deal if you only work with 50 kb files, but if your image is 2 GB in size, and that is not that hard to do today with 5DMkII panos with several layers. All the extra RAM also allows your 64 bit operating system and other running programs room to work without crashing your system

Or so I have heard.

At 4 Gbs, with 3 for CS5, not much improvement, At 8 Gb now you can have 5 for CS and still have 3Gb for your OS and running programs. The improvement beyond 8 drops off, unless you are doing a lot of data swapping still. In your image frame in CS5, there is a drop down menu at the bottom of the frame that includes size in %, and a little black triangle pointing to the right. Click on that triangle and you see a drop down menu of Adobe drive, Document sizes, Document Profiles, Document Dimensions, Measurement Scale, Scratch Sizes, Efficiency, Timing, Current Tool 32 bit Exposure

If you click on Efficiency you can get an idea of how often you are accessing the hard drive as virtual memory. As long as Efficiency is 100%, you are working within the RAM of your machine and not going out to a Virtual drive. On my desktop, I have a total of 20Gb of RAM in a 3 year old computer, and allow ~ 10Gb to Photoshops use. You can tell when CS is using a swap drive, because you can hear the drive spin up. I rarely ear that. Looking at a B&W image sot with a 40D the Scrach file is 10.9 Gb.

Adobe recommends using a different drive than your C: drive for you swap drive. Mine is a 250Gb partition on a 2nd 2Tb hard drive in my machine.

It is not hard to have a 30Gb swap file on your swap drive if you work with layers or panos. If you fill up your C: drive with your swap file, your machine is really going to complain.

Richard

Wait, maybe I'm confused but I thought we were talking about 64 bit CS5. Unless I am missing something, it should be able to take advantage of RAM between 4 and 8 GB that the 32 bit version cannot. So at 6GB, you would see an improvement.

pathfinder

Yes you will, just not very much.

You could raise your RAM for CS from 3GB max to 5 GB max, and still leave 1Gb for your OS. But that is not really that much of an improvement over 4Gb. At 8 Gb, you can have 6GB for CS, and still have 2 Gb for your OS. Depends on how you parse out your memory.

Also I suspect very few folks stop at 6 GB when they go up from 4Gb. 6Gb is kind of an awkward stopping point, depending on how many slots your machine has, and how much RAM it can support.

Richard

pathfinder wrote: »

Also I suspect very few folks stop at 6 GB when they go up from 4Gb. 6Gb is kind of an awkward stopping point, depending on how many slots your machine has, and how much RAM it can support.

Yes, it probably is an unusual config, unless you are recycling parts from several machines. OTOH, when DDR3 was first introduced, IIRC the hardware geeks insisted that the total amount of RAM should be divisible by three to get the best performance. Perhaps memory controllers have changed since then and it is no longer an issue. Dunno--I'm still using XP and 3GB, so it all sounds great to me.

Sam

I don't know about the bits / bytes, etc. but can tell you that during image processing using CS4 it is not uncommon to get the message that Photoshop can not continue because of insufficient memory.

I have a Mac Pro with 16 GIG of RAM. When using CS5 64 bit this doesn't happen.

So when working with large files 64 bit is far gooder.

Sam

pathfinder

Sam, would you happen to know how large your files are, when this happens?

Richard

Sam wrote: »

So when working with large files 64 bit is far gooder.

Sam

Absolutely. CS4 on a Mac was not a 64 bit application, so most of that RAM went unused. CS5 is 64 bit and should perform much better.

pathfinder

I am sure CS4 had a 2 or 3 Gb limit to the RAM it could access directly.

colourbox

Sam wrote: »

...using CS4 it is not uncommon to get the message that Photoshop can not continue because of insufficient memory...I have a Mac Pro with 16 GIG of RAM. When using CS5 64 bit this doesn't happen.

pathfinder wrote: »

Sam, would you happen to know how large your files are, when this happens?

The difference is that there are some operations Photoshop can page out and get done under 32-bit even though the app itself can't use more than 3GB, but, there are certain features where Photoshop needs it to be all real RAM. The examples I've seen mentioned on the Adobe forums are some plug-ins, including some that are part of the main app.

For example, if you have a file and do something that needs 5GB to process, 32-bit Photoshop might find a way to shuffle VM and get it done. But if you then open a certain plug-in and try to process the same file through that, the plug-in may be written so that it can't use anything but real RAM. When it goes to get a 5GB chunk of RAM, it can't be accessed, even though you have 16GB on board. So you get an error message.

Then when you switch to 64-bit Photoshop and do the same thing, that plug-in (if 64-bit compatible) now asks for 5GB chunk and this time it can have it, no error.

Sam

pathfinder wrote: »

Sam, would you happen to know how large your files are, when this happens?

I don't remember. There may have been other memory uses going on, but typically (from my feeble organic memory) I would have two or more layers, full res 5D II 16 bit files, and attempting to perform a CPU intensive operation. A filter or maybe a plugin.

I never tried to do a detailed analysis, because I could usually shut down all the other programs, save the file, close PS, reopen, and I could then perform the operation.

This doesn't happen with the 64 bit CS5.

Sam

Sam

colourbox wrote: »

The difference is that there are some operations Photoshop can page out and get done under 32-bit even though the app itself can't use more than 3GB, but, there are certain features where Photoshop needs it to be all real RAM. The examples I've seen mentioned on the Adobe forums are some plug-ins, including some that are part of the main app.

For example, if you have a file and do something that needs 5GB to process, 32-bit Photoshop might find a way to shuffle VM and get it done. But if you then open a certain plug-in and try to process the same file through that, the plug-in may be written so that it can't use anything but real RAM. When it goes to get a 5GB chunk of RAM, it can't be accessed, even though you have 16GB on board. So you get an error message.

Then when you switch to 64-bit Photoshop and do the same thing, that plug-in (if 64-bit compatible) now asks for 5GB chunk and this time it can have it, no error.

I should have read your response before answering Jim.

Sam

Eddy

hey Guys.. i had an issue running any topaz software and also running efex pro, in 64 bit having said that they have the 64 bit version drivers out but still runs slow. I am running win7 64bit but can also run 32 bit i gues the best of both worlds helps alot, had some issues until i manuallly dropped the drivers in cs5 and since then it all works. Like pathfinders its all about speed x2

Eddy

pathfinder wrote: »

I am sure CS4 had a 2 or 3 Gb limit to the RAM it could access directly.

Winxp only runs upto 3 gigs no matter how much memmory anything past that it would not recognise, The architecture of winxp ws good but archtecture for memmory sucked,

basflt

Eddy wrote: »

Winxp only runs upto 3 gigs no matter how much memmory anything past that it would not recognise, The architecture of winxp ws good but archtecture for memmory sucked,

XP also has a 64bit edition
if you have that , then you must change memory hole in your BIOS

Richard

The x64 version of XP was a bit of a kludge, and even Microsoft warned people that they were using it at their own risk. Adobe said CS4 64-bit "should run" on it, but did not support it. Real 64-bit support started with CS4 on Vista and CS5 on OS-X. 32-bit Photoshop on a 32-bit OS has a 1.7GB limit to the amount of real RAM it can use, though its virtual memory system extends that limit by swapping to disk.

Eddy

basflt wrote: »

XP also has a 64bit edition
if you have that , then you must change memory hole in your BIOS

Good thinking Basflt...missed the boat on that..one.. Richard sweet explanation...