What do I need on my computer to run Photoshop 5.0 faster?

[Mich]

My computer is running so painfully slow in photoshop. I was wondering what the minimum upgade I would need to do to get the speed up on my computer or do I need to buy the latest greatest. I currently have a AMD Athlon XP2700 with 223 mb Ram. Slow!!!! If anyone has any suggestions that would be great.

[Keith]

Get more RAM. Windows recoments 128 minimun to run windows alone. So most of what you have is being used just to keep windows working. Then Adobe recomends 384 MB for photoshop. Because you don't have enough RAM your computer is working double time trying to keep up and "fake" that you have enough RAM.

The good news is that RAM if fairly inexpensive, and simple to install. You will need to find out what type your computer needs, but you can probably get 1G (that is 1000 MB) of RAM for $70 if it is the common type.

What make/model of computer do you have and I can try to help you find the right type. Or check www.newegg.com for a good selection and good pricing too.

FYI - your processor should be plenty fast. Also make sure you have some hard drive space free. Here is a link to adobe's website for photoshop requirements. This is for CS2, but the specs for 5.0 will be very similar

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/systemreqs.html

[April]

Thanks Keith.

[Cory]

We added RAM to my computer and it made it all much faster!! Also make sure that you save your work frequently and don't keep too many files open in PSE at once.

[April]

Oh that reminds me. I teach that you can change your history states to 999 verses the standard 20 but I have just learned that doing this can cause your computer to run much slower once your computer starts storing tons of steps.