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XP System Recommendations?

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Victoria Bampton;135'4 said:
As I understand it, the 64 bit Windows version of Lightroom when 2.' is released should make a substantial difference in the memory management, so which sounds like a good reason to go down that route. I'm not THAT familiar with the whole Win-64 debate though, so perhaps someone would like to comment?

It does support multiple processors, particularly when doing a large export or suchlike.

Hi, victoria :) Just the thing I have been wondering about Lightroom 2.'. The thing with the multiprocessors... Do you know if Lightroom 2.' is able to work with quad cores? As far as I see, it does a good job with dual core (it uses the two cores at their 5'% each and not the 1''% of one core to start using the next one, like does Photoshop).
Keep in mind that After EffectsCS3 doens't support dual cores, that's why I'm asking what about Lightroom 2.' and quad cores :)
I'm also thinking about moving my plataform (XP 32 bits) to 64 bits... :) Should I upgrade to Vista 64 bits? I have heard it's much better than X-64...

Thanks, in advance

Mart :)
 
I've seen it hit 62'% (on an 8 core machine) while running a ridiculous number of exports at the same time (27 I think it was....) so yes, it does use more than 2 cores!
 
Victoria Bampton;19'7' said:
I've seen it hit 62'% (on an 8 core machine) while running a ridiculous number of exports at the same time (27 I think it was....) so yes, it does use more than 2 cores!

That's a nice and useful reply, Victoria. Thank you very much for the data :)

I have another question, hope you don't mind...

Since Lightroom is more like a 'real-time' program than a rendering program (like Photoshop), do you think it's more important having a good multiprocessor than a good amount of RAM, the other way around or both? I have been a musician for long 7 years and it always was about processor speed more than RAM due the real-time edition and such.
Image Editing always was about RAM more than faster processors due that the calculations over an image were made after and not during a particular process. Take into account that Lightroom has almost no delay in the moment of executing an order. At least, that should it be with a good PC. Something knew as 'sound card buffer' in the digital music world and it's measured in milliseconds.
I personally think Lightroom is some kind of hibryd between real-time application and a rendering one. What I'm saying is quite obvious because the way the image is edited in Lightroom: absolutely in real-time, as the power of the PC allows that. However, exporting pictures could be such a mix between RAM and CPU.
I guess that process you mentioned with the octa-core multiprocessor have been pretty fast and maybe, RAM wasn't involved at all. I'm quite confused, as you see. I live in Argentina, and here, it's normal to see mono-core computers, some dual-cores and a bit far of the edge, the core-duo ones. Imagine that a quad-core is not common here so my appreciations and suppositions are most theorical than real.
I would like you to upload some kind of simple, but clarifying examples in this matter, if you don't mind. Or may be, you can adress me to some person here whom be able to answer these questions...

I see I'm clearily before a RAM/Processor bassed program, but, how far?
 
Processor will come into its own when running exports, or other really processor intensive operations, but RAM makes the general running smoother doing everything else. If I had to choose, I'd go with more RAM.
 
Watch this simple test I did with the Windows Task Manager. It's like a brief of what I have answered just some minutes before, taking into account what you have said about how Lightroom uses the octo-core.

I've ran this test over a PC Intel Extreme Edition Dual-Core processor 3.4'GHz with L2 cache of 2 MB and a front side bus of 1'66 MHz; 4GB DDR2 of 533 MHz OS XP-32bits.

I exported 37 photos and the highest peak in the processor was 66% with an amount of RAM used about 921MB. The time took by Lightroom to do such task was about 1 minute and half...

See the snapshot below...

LightroomExportDualCoreRAMInfo.jpg
 
Victoria, I did this tests in order to know your opinion about how Lightroom 2.' handles the PC Resourcers and to know: what do you think Lightroom 2.' was so limited when using the resources I mean, the processors never went more than the 66% of use and it's an old dual-core.
Why Lightroom would been using the 6XX% of CPU Processor in a octo-core multiprocessor system? It doesn't make sense. An old dual-core for one hand and a new octo-core for the other hand being over-used.

Please, drop some of your light over here :)
 
I'm new to using the 64 bit OS and this thread has been a great help. Right now I'm running XP Pro 64 but I'm contemplating loading Vista 64 or hackintoshing a OSX.
Because of my chipset I'm stuck with a 64 bit OS. The lack of offical support for Lr v2 on XP 64 makes me a weeee bit nervous.
 
I'm new to using the 64 bit OS and this thread has been a great help. Right now I'm running XP Pro 64 but I'm contemplating loading Vista 64 or hackintoshing a OSX.
Because of my chipset I'm stuck with a 64 bit OS. The lack of offical support for Lr v2 on XP 64 makes me a weeee bit nervous.

But are you able to work with flowly using the 64 bits OS and Lv2? Becuase I'm thinking to load a 64 bit OS, thinking on Vista, indeed...

Thanks for your support :)
 
But are you able to work with flowly using the 64 bits OS and Lv2? Becuase I'm thinking to load a 64 bit OS, thinking on Vista, indeed...

Thanks for your support :)

After a few tweaks here and there it's running as smooth as I could have asked for. It was running fine before but adjusting some performance settings made it even better. The 64 bit OS allows me to assign much more of the RAM to Photoshop and I can use the rest for Lr. That took away a lot of the lag for me.
 
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