9 Replies Latest reply: Oct 29, 2008 4:45 AM by (Redgum) RSS

    CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?

    Mediadude8 Community Member
      Hi, I'm currently using XP SP2 and CS3 and planning to upgrade to CS4 and possibly Vista so that I could take advantage of my 4gb of Ram. So the first question is, is that a wise move and the second question is, can Vista/CS4 take advantage of more than 4gb of Ram? And lastly, should I do a clean install of Vista or is an upgrade from XP sufficient. I'm running a duo core. Thanks for any direction.
        • 1. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
          Community Member
          More Ram is always a good thing. That said, only a 64 bit OS will allow you to access more than 3 Gigs, so if you're considering moving to Vista, make sure you're thinking Vista 64, not 32.

          Generally speaking, I always wipe a system clean rather than doing an OS upgrade. Operating Systems tend to suffer software rot, ie the longer you've been running & installing things on them, the more junk they accumulate. Unneeded registry entries, old drivers, orphaned files, etc. It generally leads to performance degradation. I like to clean house now & then...
          • 2. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
            Curt Wrigley Community Member
            I agree with Will on the OS clean install. upgrades generally cause problems. Ill take it even further and say if you are installing vista 64, dont do it on an old pc. you will have problems getting drivers and such.
            • 3. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
              Mediadude8 Community Member
              Thank you guys. I thought Vista "saw" 4gb's of Ram? I also failed to mention that I use a Matrox RTX2 system with Premiere and they have no plans to support Vista 64bit. So putting that aside, is it really worth it to upgrade to Vista from XP?
              • 4. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
                Curt Wrigley Community Member
                IMHO; only if you go 64
                • 5. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
                  (Africanada) Community Member
                  Jeffrey with Vista 64 and a good system you will not see the use the the matrox. You will have the power in your own hands. Pppro relies on the power of your system. Two quads and 16gb Ram will do all what the Matrox will do ten times. The good thing is you would not have to look for Matrox drivers here and there. That is freedom and almost real time for all edits. Just get an AJA card or Any Deckilink card.
                  Let's hope CS4 is really made for Vista 64.
                  • 6. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
                    Curt Wrigley Community Member
                    Pr is not a 64 bit native ap. But it is designed to run in vista 64 environment. If you use DL and have say Pr, En, Ae open at the same time, the extra ram usage in vista 64 is very helpful.
                    • 7. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
                      Mark Morreau CommunityMVP
                      @ jeffrey gould: I don't know where you get the idea that Matrox aren't going to support Vista 64bit. They've publicly announced that they are working on drivers for CS4 and Vista 64.
                      • 8. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
                        Mediadude8 Community Member
                        I got the idea from the technician who builds RTX2 machines at Safe Harbour from an email this morning: "Vista 64-Bit is not supported by Matrox at this time. You can post on their forum to request the 64-bit drivers, but they have no plans to release any that I am aware of." But I also read on the Matrox site that they are working on them.

                        To Africanada, Since the Matrox machine is only a year old, I hate to just toss it and start all over again, but I understand what you're saying.
                        • 9. Re: CS4 and Vista...How much Ram?
                          (Redgum) Community Member
                          Two things to remember. Most motherboards only support up to 8Gb of RAM (4 x 2Gb) and already there are double the number of Vista drivers over XP and XP has been around since 2002. Oh! and the Vista drivers are more reliable.