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how good a graphics card for Photoshop CS?



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 27th 04, 01:13 PM
Nobody Nowhere
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Default how good a graphics card for Photoshop CS?


Can a graphics card be "too good" for PS? (For example, a very
expensive graphics card might be required for video but not for photo
processing). What graphics card would do justice to CS? Should I get
"the best money can buy"? (Within reason :-)!!). I have recently got a
new computer, with a better graphics card, and this seems to improve not
only the image on the monitor, but also the printed image. Am I right
in saying this, or could this be due to other factors? Incidentally,
my new PC uses a 64 bit processor. Thanks in advance for your comments.





--
nobody
  #2  
Old October 27th 04, 02:09 PM
Linda_N
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"Nobody Nowhere" wrote in message
...

Can a graphics card be "too good" for PS? (For example, a very expensive
graphics card might be required for video but not for photo processing).
What graphics card would do justice to CS? Should I get "the best money
can buy"? (Within reason :-)!!). I have recently got a new computer, with
a better graphics card, and this seems to improve not only the image on
the monitor, but also the printed image. Am I right in saying this, or
could this be due to other factors? Incidentally, my new PC uses a 64
bit processor. Thanks in advance for your comments.

Unless you plan on doing 3D rendering or are going to be doing 3D gaming in
a big way you're wasting your money buying the best graphics card to render
2D graphics (which is what PS was designed for). 2D graphics require very
few resources from the graphics card to render on screen, and anyone who
tells you differently has bought into 'outsider hype", meaning they are full
of it. Way back when (early to mid 1980s) the demand 2D graphics placed on a
system often exceeded the output of typical consumer graphic card adapters
(and monitors of the time). The exception were industrial (non-consumer)
cards like the Hercules series that ranged from $2000+, along with
industrial monitors (again far above the cost of consumer level monitors at
the time). It made sense back then to keep buying better consumer graphics
cards as they became available to the consumer market. That has long since
stopped being the case with newer technology and the graphics card industry
is now surviving on consumer ignorance of 2D graphics rendering and how few
resources are needed for the same. Buy an average consumer card (check
reviews), and use the remainder of your money for a better monitor or larger
and faster harddrive or more memory or faster processor. You'll reap far
more benefits that way.

Linda


  #3  
Old October 27th 04, 02:19 PM
Nobody Nowhere
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Thank you Linda, presumably others will agree with you. I was told this
before, however, it may be that my previous card was not up to today's
standards, hence the improvement I am experiencing with my new card.

In message , Linda_N
writes

"Nobody Nowhere" wrote in message
...

Can a graphics card be "too good" for PS?


Unless you plan on doing 3D rendering or are going to be doing 3D gaming in
a big way you're wasting your money buying the best graphics card to render
2D graphics (which is what PS was designed for).



--
nobody
  #4  
Old October 27th 04, 02:23 PM
Gadgets
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A good card for PS is not necessarily the latest greatest 3D gaming card...
for pro use there are much better cards out for 2D speed. For the general
consumer though, stick with a name brand for stability and buy what you can
afford. ATI and nVidia are similar enough in the 2D world, so it comes down
to price, availability and features. Image quality can vary between driver
versions, but most of the time, the limitation is your monitor.

So you have a recent mobo, probably AGP 8x. The card memory will have no
influence on PS, so 64MB is just as good as 256MB. GPU and card memory
speeds, and overclockability will have an effect. If you're editing small
pics, you don't need much. If they're 500MB files then you'll need to
consider RAM and hard drive speeds as well........

Cheers, Jason (remove ... to reply)
Video & Gaming: http://gadgetaus.com
  #5  
Old October 27th 04, 02:40 PM
David J Taylor
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Nobody Nowhere wrote:
Can a graphics card be "too good" for [photography]?


Get Matrox - 32-bit colour by whatever resolution your monitor can
comfortably handle. If you have an LCD monitor, you might want "DVI
output" as a feature on the card.

The high-end cards have 3D graphics functions accelerated in hardware
which do nothing for photo processing except make the card hot, noisy and
unreliable!

Of course, if your PC is shared with junior users....

Cheers,
David


  #6  
Old October 27th 04, 03:03 PM
swingman
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There are different aspects to video card performance, such as the =
clarity of text and images at high resolutions, highest resolution and =
refresh rates supported, and screen re-draw speed. The graphics card =
that came with your new computer may indeed improve the displayed image =
quality, though there's no way it could effect print quality that I know =
of. Many expensive graphics cards focus on 3D acceleration which won't =
have any impact on 2D image editing in Photoshop, so Yes, you could buy =
a card which is "too good" for Photoshop in that sense. For 2D editing =
the Matrox cards, such as the G450 dual head 16mb card, used to be =
considered the best. These are quite inexpensive on EBay, but be aware =
that they are terrible for games.


"Nobody Nowhere" wrote in message =
...
=20
Can a graphics card be "too good" for PS? (For example, a very=20
expensive graphics card might be required for video but not for photo =


processing). What graphics card would do justice to CS? Should I get=20
"the best money can buy"? (Within reason :-)!!). I have recently got =

a=20
new computer, with a better graphics card, and this seems to improve =

not=20
only the image on the monitor, but also the printed image. Am I right =


in saying this, or could this be due to other factors? Incidentally, =


my new PC uses a 64 bit processor. Thanks in advance for your =

comments.
=20
=20
=20
=20
=20
--=20
nobody

  #7  
Old October 27th 04, 06:10 PM
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Posts: n/a
Default

Nobody Nowhere wrote:

Can a graphics card be "too good" for PS? (For example, a very
expensive graphics card might be required for video but not for photo
processing). What graphics card would do justice to CS? Should I get
"the best money can buy"? (Within reason :-)!!).


It depends on your minitor. For example, the monitor I'm using right
now displays its full resolution with a 400 MHz dot clock. Many video
cards aren't fast enough to do that, so they will flicker or they
won't display at the highest resolution. And you need a lot of
resolution for Photoshop.

Andrew.
  #8  
Old October 27th 04, 06:16 PM
Tony
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Photoshop will work jes'fine on any current consumer graphics card. If
you are doing something else simply get the card you need for that and
Photoshop will be happy happy happy.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist's Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from "Haight-Ashbury" is at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html

"Nobody Nowhere" wrote in message
...

Can a graphics card be "too good" for PS? (For example, a very
expensive graphics card might be required for video but not for photo
processing). What graphics card would do justice to CS? Should I get
"the best money can buy"? (Within reason :-)!!). I have recently got a
new computer, with a better graphics card, and this seems to improve not
only the image on the monitor, but also the printed image. Am I right
in saying this, or could this be due to other factors? Incidentally,
my new PC uses a 64 bit processor. Thanks in advance for your comments.





--
nobody



  #10  
Old October 30th 04, 09:21 PM
KBob
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On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 13:13:52 +0100, Nobody Nowhere
wrote:


Can a graphics card be "too good" for PS? (For example, a very
expensive graphics card might be required for video but not for photo
processing). What graphics card would do justice to CS? Should I get
"the best money can buy"? (Within reason :-)!!). I have recently got a
new computer, with a better graphics card, and this seems to improve not
only the image on the monitor, but also the printed image. Am I right
in saying this, or could this be due to other factors? Incidentally,
my new PC uses a 64 bit processor. Thanks in advance for your comments.


Well, too good--maybe. I've always used Matrox cards with good
success for Photoshop work, and apart from occasional driver-related
problems am quite satisfied with their performance (G450, G550). The
more recent versions of these dual-head cards also have digital (DVI)
output. You can usually find these cards on eBay for about $50 or so,
and they easily outperform the high-memory gamer's cards in purely
graphic applications.

The gamer's cards can have problems of their own. If risetimes are
too fast (with analog), they become fussy about the cable used, and
work poorly with video cables over about 4-5 feet in length,
generating visible artifacts in the form of multiple echos. ATI-brand
cards are also notorious for poor stability, and this renders them
unsuitable for LCD use, at least if you expect to have your screen
properly adjusted each time you fire up (3 samples of different ATI
cards had the same problem with 2 different LCD monitors). Some of
the gamer's cards will specify that LCDs are supported only up to a
certain resolution.

Problems with wigglies and ghosting disappear when using digital I/O,
so I highly recommend getting a monitor and card that supports DVI.
Even gamer cards work OK with the DVI interface.
-KBob



 




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