Working with 48-bit data PROBLEMS

[greenboy]

After spending a few days working with 2560 x 1920 Panasonic FZ20 images I can tell you that between WinXP Pro and PhotoImpact 10, it is frustrating to work with 48-bit data. A week or so I ago I bemoaned not being able to use Plugins in 48-bit mode. But the truth is, it's extremely SLOW and seems to leak memory like a sieve anyway. In spite of having 1.5 GIGAbytes of RAM and a 3.2 MHz Pentium IV I soon get INSUFFICIENT RAM warnings after doing work on several files consecutively.

This occurs no matter how I have virtual memory properties set and how few other things are running. The interfaces of various modules are almost painful to use because they respond so sluggishly, and then the Brick Wall is waiting just down the road anyway. A real shame, because the quality is generally better after a number of operations in the higher bitspace, before converting down to 24-bit space for the final save...

I should reinstall PI 8.5 because it was faster with either type of data, but I bought 10 and I want to USE IT, doggone it! ; } ... time to look at some other photo-oriented programs, I suppose...

EDIT: I should note that this occurs even when running only ONE level of undo.