PSP X3 or X4 for Core i7 3.90 GHz

[Jan Shim]

I'm presently running PSP X3 on my dated Dell Studio 17 laptop (Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 4GB RAM Windows 7 32-bits). Editing full size 5D Mark II 22 Megapixel JPEGs is slow and painful. I've put up with this years and recently I came across this Dell powerhouse I'm very interested in. http://www.dell.com/sg/p/xps-one-27-271 ... AndReviews

Question is ... can I continue to use PSP X3 or do I need to upgrade to X4 in order for the app to run optimally on the new platform? In short the new machine will have

3rd gen Intel® Core™ i7-3770S processor 3.10 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.90 GHz
OS: Windows(R) 7 Home Premium SP1 64 bit (English)
Monitor: 27" QHD (2560x1440) Non Touch
Memory: 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM AT 1600MHZ-2x4GB
Hard Drive: 3.5" 2TB 7200RPM SATA + 32GB mSATA SSD(SRT)
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M 2GB DDR5

[Joelle]

With images that size you need a computer with a lot of oomph.
So it's not surprising your old machine is slow.

I prefer X4 over X3 (did install X3 once, but uninstalled it before the trial period was over).

When you have your new machine, download a trial for X4 and see if you like it better.

A nice looking machine with plenty of power:-)

I wonder if any other posters will notice that this is Dell Singapore, so the price is in Sing Dollars...

Joëlle

[Jan Shim]

If/when I get my new machine, it'll only be connected to the web for software updates. All pre-installed anti-virus and other nonsense will be removed. Looking at the X4 threads I'm not confident it's a good idea but I think I'll send a tweet to Corel to get their input.

[df]

Corel will always tell you that you should upgrade. They are in the business of selling product. If they didn't sell product you wouldn't be able to have this very forum as it's hosted by Corel.

With that said X4 is faster to start up for me but that's about where the advantages end. As you I don't use the organizer at all, but others like it. I do like the organizer in X4 over X3. I do like that X4 is less bloated than X3. I do not like that X4 compresses jpegs more than X3, even when you tell the program not to compress files at all. X4 Ultimate came with Nik Color Efex 3.0 (for PSP). That to me was worth the cost of buying it, but I still use X3 for nearly everything, and I have the Nik filters that came with X4 working in X3, so it is an upgrade even if I'm still using X3.

It would be far more helpful if you told us what in X3 doesn't work well that you wish to be fixed in X4. What might be snappy for me may not matter one bit for you. You say that you have a 22mp camera. If you ever try to edit a panorama you'll need to reduce the size of the file for X4 as it's maximum limit is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels, where as X3 is 32,767 x 32,767 pixels. If you ever buy a scanner to scan film you'll run into issues with this as well with the max pixel counts far exceeding what X4 can handle.

[Jan Shim]

I love my X3 and use Nik Viveza 2.0 and Nik Color Efex 3.0 along with a couple of Topaz Filters in my work. There is very little in X3 that I want changed and I had a look at X4 last year ... didn't like the interface much, seemed to require the user to switch tabs from mode to another (if I recall correctly which is rather time wasting in my opinion).

Here's the thing I want/hope/trust to see improve with the new machine from "Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 4GB RAM Windows 7 32-bits" to "Intel® Core™ i7-3770S processor 3.10 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.9 GHz, 27" QHD (2560x1440), 8GB RAM, 3.5" 2TB 7200RPM SATA + 32GB mSATA SSD, Windows 7 64-bits" — in order for me to work efficiently on my slower machine, I batch reduce all my large JPEGs to 2,000 pixels before I begin editing them. At 2000 pixels, applying a Nik or Topaz filter takes approximately 3 seconds .. a full res 5616x3744 pixel takes 13 seconds (not counting the time it takes the entire image to fully appear in a Nik window. What I am really asking is for the new machine to render the large res JPEGs as quickly as the old machine can for the 2,000 pixel files. I don't know if my demands are realistic or not. I'm fairly certainly I'll see massive speed increase.

[df]

Well you can see my specs on my computer at the side of my post. I went from a 3.2ghz 32 bit 2gb ram Windows Vista Home Basic computer to my current dual core 64 bit 8gb of ram machine. While you do see a marked increase in speed for me it was more doubling my speed rather than quadrupling or faster. The Nik Color Efex does take some time, it is it's own program after all. But you will see an improvement.

You may want to make PSP X3 Large Address Aware http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 89#p234089 but do not do this with a 32 bit computer, it will crash the OS. You will want to use this on a 64 bit computer with more than 4gb of RAM.
You may also want to install CleanMem http://www.majorgeeks.com/CleanMem_d5993.html which sets Window's memory management system on a set schedule. It does take some wrangling to get it set up, but once it is it runs in the background. You can install this now and see the benefits if you've ever had PSP run out of memory, this helps to prevent that. In fact it has a bigger affect on underpowered computers than it does on fast computers, but it's more for stability than speed.
Both of these programs are freeware.

[Jan Shim]

Hi Dan,

I'm finally getting back on track to custom building my new PC. Specs at this moment: Intel Core-i7 3770k overclocked to 4.4GHz, 16GB RAM, OCZ Vertex 4 128GB + 256GB SSD and nVidia GeForce GTX 660 GPU.

1) The 'Large Address Aware' switch only lets X3 see up to 4GB of RAM or beyond that?
2) A highly recommended GPU for users of Photoshop is the Quadro series because PS supports it. I wonder if there's a particular GPU that actually help PSP perform better or is the http://techreport.com/review/23527/revi ... ics-card/2GTX 660 plenty

I think eventually I'll have to move to a native 64-bit PSP X5 to take advantage of the new build.


Jan

[AdrianW]

I think eventually I'll have to move to a native 64-bit PSP X5 to take advantage of the new build.

You may have to wait a while - I'm pretty sure X5 is still 32bit only.

[Kathy_9]

That's correct - X5 is only available as 32 bit.

[Jan Shim]

Wow, I'm shocked. So is there any real reason I should upgrade from X3 then with the new PC build. I know for certain I will see a big performance leap with the new specs (from Core2Duo T8300 2.4GHz, 32-bits on a Dell Studio 17" laptop with 3.5GB usable RAM to Intel Core-i7 3770K overclocked to 4.4GHz, 16GB RAM and OCZ SSD) but just won't be as much as a native 64-bit app. I'm not a fan of Photoshop and don't see myself switching out of desperation. I will however try Lightroom to speed up batch processing tasks. I currently use Canon's DPP and even that's not 64-bit I think.

[df]

Hi Dan,

I'm finally getting back on track to custom building my new PC. Specs at this moment: Intel Core-i7 3770k overclocked to 4.4GHz, 16GB RAM, OCZ Vertex 4 128GB + 256GB SSD and nVidia GeForce GTX 660 GPU.

1) The 'Large Address Aware' switch only lets X3 see up to 4GB of RAM or beyond that?
2) A highly recommended GPU for users of Photoshop is the Quadro series because PS supports it. I wonder if there's a particular GPU that actually help PSP perform better or is the http://techreport.com/review/23527/revi ... ics-card/2GTX 660 plenty

I think eventually I'll have to move to a native 64-bit PSP X5 to take advantage of the new build.


Jan

1) the Large Address Aware switch lets a program see up to 4GB of RAM. If it is not LAA it will only see up to 2GB of RAM. There are a lot of programs that are still 32 bit and still only see 2GB of RAM.
2) I haven't gotten into graphics cards very much.

You will see an improvement with the new system just due to the fact that you have more resources. You can multi-task far better, etc... I also run Canon DPP and that doesn't need to be 64 bit. It never uses that much RAM since it's a single layer application and it never actually works on more than one image at a time. PSP would make greater use of being 64 bit than DPP would. Some day I'm sure Corel will come out with a 64 bit program, and if you have a more recent version of the program you'll have a greater chance of being able to upgrade (pricing) or even beta test the new version.

[Jan Shim]

I got my new machine on Christmas day. An Asus Maximus V Gene ROG board, Core i7 3770K overclocked to 4.8GHz, dual Crucial SSD, GeForce GTX 660 2GB GPU, Crucial 16GB 1866MHz RAM. Installed a trial version of X5 with the LMA switch enabled and without an hour of launching and closing, I've already noticed several instances where it wouldn't fire up. Until I CTRL-ALT-DEL to unlock it from memory. Not a good first impression.