super slow when saving files in XP6

[zhunter71]

i am working on numerous .psp files, the current one being 147MB in size, not huge, but sometimes when i select File - Save it takes an eternity to save it. Just now it took over 15 minutes!

while i am working on the file the usage seems to be around 1.5-2.0 GB of RAM, but once i select Save, its climbs upto around 6-7GB while it performs the action, and as my PC only has 8GB it grinds to an absolute halt whenever i'm saving any large files using this software

has anyone come across this and know what i can do to speed it up? , i just want it to Save like other programs do...not guzzle my RAM before the green bar even appears at the bottom to show saving is slowly progressing...

[Joelle]

PSP isn't the fastest horse in the race, but I have no problems saving large .PSPimage files in X6 and my computer only has 4GB RAM.

Not a lot of help of course.
Do you have a lot of other programs open at the same time?

Joëlle

[JoeB]

Further to what Joelle said, the next time you save a file and it takes a long time, open Task Manager and check to see what processes are running and how much resources they are using. You may have something hogging ram or cpu and not releasing it even if whatever program it is appears to be closed.

[hartpaul]

I tried to find out what your 147 Mb meant. By itself it does not tell us much. As a jpg it would have to be a very large file. Pixel dimensions are important as well.

I took a jpg that was 5616 x 3744 pixels and it saved as a 6 Mb jpg, a 35 Mb pspimage file and 23 Mb as a tif file. This is a single layer file.

I resized it to 20000 x 13333 pixels and that saved as a 17 Mb jpg , 781 Mb pspfile in 24 seconds, 142 tif file in 52 seconds.

If I had the dimensions of your image and the number of layers then I and other could better do a comparison to let you know if there is a problem with PSP (we all get similar times) or a problem with your computer ( we all get different but much shorter times.)

Resizing to 10000 x 6667 pixls gave a 195 Mb pspimage file in 8 seconds.
Duplicating and saving a 2 layer psp gave a 651 Mb pspimage file in 22 seconds.

As you can see I am not getting 15 minutes on the save, but then I have no real clue as to what size image you have and how many layers are there. Perhaps you could transfer the image to another computer with PSP on it and see if there is the same delay when resaving it there.

[zhunter71]

PSP isn't the fastest horse in the race, but I have no problems saving large .PSPimage files in X6 and my computer only has 4GB RAM.

Not a lot of help of course.
Do you have a lot of other programs open at the same time?

Joëlle

no usually only that, i open Task manager most of the time and close everything i can to speed it up, thats how i see that PSP is using around 6-7GB while its Saving, it usually crawls slowly upto about 6gb from 1.5g of usage before the green save bar even appears at the bottom, its like its thinking about it and using memory up!

[zhunter71]

I tried to find out what your 147 Mb meant. By itself it does not tell us much. As a jpg it would have to be a very large file. Pixel dimensions are important as well.

I took a jpg that was 5616 x 3744 pixels and it saved as a 6 Mb jpg, a 35 Mb pspimage file and 23 Mb as a tif file. This is a single layer file.

I resized it to 20000 x 13333 pixels and that saved as a 17 Mb jpg , 781 Mb pspfile in 24 seconds, 142 tif file in 52 seconds.

If I had the dimensions of your image and the number of layers then I and other could better do a comparison to let you know if there is a problem with PSP (we all get similar times) or a problem with your computer ( we all get different but much shorter times.)

Resizing to 10000 x 6667 pixls gave a 195 Mb pspimage file in 8 seconds.
Duplicating and saving a 2 layer psp gave a 651 Mb pspimage file in 22 seconds.

As you can see I am not getting 15 minutes on the save, but then I have no real clue as to what size image you have and how many layers are there. Perhaps you could transfer the image to another computer with PSP on it and see if there is the same delay when resaving it there.

thanks for the info

the image i saved yesterday that took over 15 mins to save is a .psp file, 147 MB in size, it has 17 layers and is 9250x12906 pixels in size

i work on far bigger files on other software such as Autocad that i use, but none just dawdle and dither when you click Save like PSP does. I have Task manager open when i click save to close everything else down i can to speed it up, and you can see the usage of PSP rise slowly from around 1.5GB to around 6-7GB sometimes BEFORE the green save bar even appears, so its like its planning it or thinking about saving and it just doesnt get on with it straight away... its so frustrating. Can it be HDD settings? the last version of PSP i used was paint Shop Pro 10 on my last PC and it never went as slow when saving files. This new PC is 64-bit, with 8GB of RAM so i expected super fast running

[Rick_R]

You say it's a "new PC", but your profile shows Win 7 Home Premium. If I remember correctly, MS discontinued sales of that version awhile back. Do you know specifically how old your PC is, and what brand/model is it?

You definitely have some other problem than PSP. As others have mentioned, PSP isn't particularly fast, but even with a file that large it should save in at worst maybe a minute.

One thing you might have to do is a full-blown clean install from the ground up of your entire system. (And I hate to recommend that! I've had to do it a few times over the past few years and with the number of programs I have and all the updates that have to be installed manually one at a time, it literally takes me 100 hours.) Many name-brand PC's include loads of "bloatware" and any one program could be the real culprit.

What are your settings for number of Undo/Redo steps and Scratch Disk and Autosave? (File => Preferences => General Program Preferences and Autosave Settings)

Have you defragged any hard disks that the files are saved to? I use PerfectDisk from Raxco and the free Defraggler and find the combination works quite well. (But even a badly fragmented disk wouldn't cause the problem you describe, for just one application.) What are your virtual memory settings?

Although this too won't cause a problem for just a single application, are you using internal or external drives? I was surprised to find out that pretty much all the external USB drives now on the market use 5,400 RPM drives. People assume they will run faster because they're USB 3, but the rotational speed of the platter is the primary limiting factor.

Also, (and, again, this won't cause a problem for just one application) hard disks tend to store date first on the outer sections of the platter and then gradually fill inward. There are more sectors on the outer edge, so data can be written and read faster to outer sectors. If a hard disk is very full, data on the inner sectors (usually newer data, of course) will be read and written more slowly, giving the impression that the drive itself has slowed down.

[hartpaul]

OK I set up an image 12906 x 9250 pixels and saved that as a single layer . It was a complex picture and saved as 349 Mb.
Duplicated that 16 t5imes for 17 layers and tried to save that. In XP and Win 8 I got an error message "Size of the file does not match the expected error"
On Win 7 it attempted to save a temp file and an error "& Freehand Selection"
occurred.
I then started with a transparent backgroung and a filled red square on it and duplicated that to give 17 layers.
It saved as a 40 Mb file in 38 seconds on Win 8 Laptop.
I then painted some lines and patterns on a number of the layers and saved one as 180 Mb in 71 seconds..
In win 7 the same file took 6 min and 19 sec so much slower there.
So nothing like your results. Still slow though with such a large image and number of layers.
Perhaps thecomplexity of the image adds another dimension of saving time, although my image saved as larger than yours.