Fastest version of photoshop for XP machine w/ about 2GB mem?

[HexiumVII]

I use CS5, but it runs like a dog on a 32bit win7 system. It eats up whatever you have left of the 4GB pretty easy. I don't really have a problem with my main systems that have 12GB. I'm trying to run photoshop on older laptops and remember that one of the CS2 or 3 ran pretty nice. I seem to remember in my transitions that somewhere in the middle it go real nice. Like CS1 ran pretty slow and CS2 ran great, while going to CS3 or CS4 it got bloated again. I can't really remember. So if anyone has any idea lmk. Thanks!

 

[Bryanatkinson]

It's obvious that photoshop 5.5 is the fastest but I don't recommend that.

CS2 is a very nice version. It comes with big change from CS1 with some optimization too.
One of the important feature is that it can use system font while CS1 cannot.

CS3 is a small update with much slower. CS4 is great with miraculous new feature, but slower down a lot. CS5 makes the situation worse.


My system is also 2GB in ram. CS2 is always my favorite. Nice & fast with necessary features.

 

[HexiumVII]

Thanks so much Bryan, i'll stick with CS2 and see how that goes. I found a portable slimmed verion of CS5 that seems to work quite amazingly on systems with lesser ram. When i have even 3-4 2MP pix in regular CS5, it gets so slow its frightening. I think the portable will be good to use when i need to quickly use any of the content aware stuf.

 

[spikespiegal]

PS7 was the last version I recall before the bloat of 'CS' crept into the mix. I still run PS7 on 2gig boxes, and it's like jumping onto a crotch rocket compared to CSx on much newer hardware.

Bridge is a pig regardless of what you run it on.

 

[Lorne]

+1 on PS7, Smaller footprint compared to CS series, Its only limitation is it can only access 1.7Gigs of memory, So have a fast HDD.
If you have an abundant of extra memory that your not using durring editing you can create a ramdrive and use it at as a PS scratch drive, Works awsome.

 

[doan]

PS7 was the last version I recall before the bloat of 'CS' crept into the mix. I still run PS7 on 2gig boxes, and it's like jumping onto a crotch rocket compared to CSx on much newer hardware.

Bridge is a pig regardless of what you run it on.

This

 

[Chiefcrowe]

this site also may help speed up existing installs:

http://makephotoshopfaster.com

 

[spikespiegal]

Hey, any of you Photshop veterans remember when CS1/2 came out, and after installing it on your brand new P4 with two 512meg sticks you could actually watch the screen blocks paint themselves from corner to corner because it was so slow? You then did a slow 'WTF?'

Adobe then responsed to the complaints stating that you needed a video card with at least half a gig of memory or something, which obviouslynever solved the problem. Lets see, I can run Doom 3 at 30fps rendering everything realtime, and Bridge can't pull up a static bitmap without feeling like you're using Java on a 386, and it's the video card's fault because Adobe used some really lousy graphic APIs? Yah...ok.

PS7 and a RAM drive runs like a scalded dog. Just use Infraview or Xnview as file browsers.