Re: filmscanners: Computer System Recommendations

["Steve Greenbank" <steve@gccl.fsbusiness.co.uk>]

Memory has the largest affect on processing speed.
To hit the the real comfort zone you need approx:

   3 x scan size (16bit 4000dpi 35mm is 110Mb) for PS (and most other image
software) = 330MB
   64Mb for PS itself
   64Mb for Win 9x/ME 128 for 2000/XP
   scan size + 20Mb for disk cache = 130MB

So that's 330+130+64+64=588MB win9x/me or 642Mb 2000/XP.
Upto 50% more will make small improvements.
A little less isn't too bad (I use 512MB on 98SE and it's not much of a
bottleneck). 50% less will start to be irritatingly slow.

Currently memory is cheap so I would personally get 768MB to allow for
bigger file cache. With 768Mb you will need to set a value lower than 512000
for MAXFILECACHE in the vcache section of WIN.INI if you are using Win
9x/ME. Personally, on win 9x/ME with 768MB, I'd set MINFILECACHE and
MAXFILECACHE to the same value and try 130000 (1 16bit image + a bit cached)
and 230000 (2 images cached) and see which worked best.

Obviously faster memory is better hence rambus/ddr preferred, PC133 is ok
but not with PIV. Pricewise DDR with Athlon is probably best.

I would say disk speed is next important. SCSI best but very expensive,
followed by IDE RAID, but with a large cache a decent sized 7200rpm disk
would be adequate.

Clearly faster CPU's are better but only proportional to 70% of clock speed.
So a 2Ghz PIV is not 33% faster than 1.5GHz but around 20-25% faster - costs
hell of a lot more though. Also remember that 1.4GHz Athlon is generally
significantly faster than 1.4GHz PIV.

No matter how big your hard drive you will need somewhere to archive scans
CD-Writers are cheapest and most universally compatible. DVD's hold more.

The bigger the monitor the more of a scan you will be able to see.

You need a graphics card appropriate for your monitor (resolution and
refresh). Matrox are generally well liked for this sort of work, I prefer
the Nvidia Geforce as they are great for games. You may wish to consider a
dual monitor graphics card allowing you to display the picture full screen
on the large monitor and use a smaller monitor for the tool pallettes and
perhaps another background process. This is possible with the matrox not
sure if the Geforce 2MX driver is quite so clever, any body know?

Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: <GNUNEMAKER@aol.com>
To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 12:14 PM
Subject: filmscanners: Computer System Recommendations


> Looking to upgrade our current system and would appreciate specifications
> from the list.  Need typical PC based business machine (Microsoft
Products)
> and the strongest possible system to support our scanning and photography
> habit.  Would greatly appreciate input on specifications.
>
> Will use Polaroid Sprintscan 4000, Epson 1280, Photoshop, and Silverfast
for
> photo based work.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Glenn
>