What does printer memory do?

[mikef07]

I currently have 8MB in my printer. I was thinking about upgrading to 72MB. What will the benefit of this be? Will it matter if I print no file bigger than 8MB?

 

[Confused]

It will allow the printer to store more of the thing to be printed in it's internal memory, without having to keep coming back to the PC. Also, if you print a lot, it may help with being able to store more than just 1-2 documents waiting to be printed.


Unless you're in a position where you're printing a lot, then it *may* be worth it


Confused

 

[mikef07]

Everything I print is 200K or less and I print maybe 5 things at once totaling 1MB. I guess this isn't necessary then?

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: mikef07
Everything I print is 200K or less and I print maybe 5 things at once totaling 1MB. I guess this isn't necessary then?

More than likely not! Save the money, and take your GF out for a meal or something!


Confused

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: mikef07
I currently have 8MB in my printer. I was thinking about upgrading to 72MB. What will the benefit of this be? Will it matter if I print no file bigger than 8MB?

Do you print multiple files larger then 8MB? Basically it just means that all the information can be sent directly to the printer instead of sending it in chunks. Or jobs having to wait for other jobs to complete before they can be sent.

Thorin

 

[mikef07]

Thank you all I will stick with the 8MB. I picked up that deal for the 1200se for $160. Normal Price was $400.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: mikef07
Thank you all I will stick with the 8MB. I picked up that deal for the 1200se for $160. Normal Price was $400.

SWEET!

Thorin

 

[zephyrprime]

There are a lot of incorrect information here. The memory on a laser printer is not sumply used to buffer prints. The memory on a laser printer is used to buffer the image rasterization of your printout. Many laser printers, including yours, have their own processor and ram to reduce the load on your computer and netowrk. The reason they do this has a lot to do with history. Floating point math is necessary to produce a rasterization of a vector fonts and back in the old days FPUs were super expensive. What's more, the amount of memory needed to buffer an entire page @ 300dpi is 1MB which was all the memory a computer had once upon a time. I remember producing a printout on a 386sx back in the old days on a inkjet printer with only 4MB of ram and it horrible. It tooks hours to compute and the swap file was going nonstop on the computer.

With only 8mb on memory, your printer will only be able to buffer a 600x1200 dpi image. So in order to print at your printers max resolution, you need more memory. Also, since you only have enough memory for one 600x1200 page right now, you may be experiencing a slight interpage delay as the your printers processor rasterizes a new page after a page has just been printed.

Nowadays, having processors on laser printers doesn't speed up prints since every computer now has an onboard FPU that's far more powerful than printer manufacturers put into printers. However, it still reduces network traffic.

Inkjet printers don't have onboard processors. They only have a very small amount of ram that is basically only a buffer for the USB or parallel port. Keep in mind though that the file size of the printout you may send to a inkjet is not the true size of the data sent to the printer. The file size shown by the spooler is the not-yet-rasterized printout. (however, it's of course possible for there to be embedded raster images in the spool file. )

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
There are a lot of incorrect information here. The memory on a laser printer is not sumply used to buffer prints. The memory on a laser printer is used to buffer the image rasterization of your printout. Many laser printers, including yours, have their own processor and ram to reduce the load on your computer and netowrk. The reason they do this has a lot to do with history. Floating point math is necessary to produce a rasterization of a vector fonts and back in the old days FPUs were super expensive. What's more, the amount of memory needed to buffer an entire page @ 300dpi is 1MB which was all the memory a computer had once upon a time. I remember producing a printout on a 386sx back in the old days on a inkjet printer with only 4MB of ram and it horrible. It tooks hours to compute and the swap file was going nonstop on the computer.

With only 8mb on memory, your printer will only be able to buffer a 600x1200 dpi image. So in order to print at your printers max resolution, you need more memory. Also, since you only have enough memory for one 600x1200 page right now, you may be experiencing a slight interpage delay as the your printers processor rasterizes a new page after a page has just been printed.

Nowadays, having processors on laser printers doesn't speed up prints since every computer now has an onboard FPU that's far more powerful than printer manufacturers put into printers. However, it still reduces network traffic.

Inkjet printers don't have onboard processors. They only have a very small amount of ram that is basically only a buffer for the USB or parallel port. Keep in mind though that the file size of the printout you may send to a inkjet is not the true size of the data sent to the printer. The file size shown by the spooler is the not-yet-rasterized printout. (however, it's of course possible for there to be embedded raster images in the spool file. )

To summarize: a laser printer without enough memory will print half of the image on one page, then spit it out and print the other half on a second page. You end up with cut off crap. However with compression I've never needed more than 4 MB per page - so your 8 MB is plenty for the vast majority of people (I have that same printer and I've had lasers with less than 4 MB doing exactly what I've described).

 

[zephyrprime]

So do all laser printers use memory compression now?

 

[zephyrprime]

Wait a second, I have a minolta 2200dl color laser and it doesn't support 1200x600 printing without 96MB of ram. It comes with 32mb of ram by default. So it seems that this printer doesn't use compression or perhaps it's driver has no ability to handle a situation where an image was incompressible so it just doesn't bother supporting 1200x600 with only 32mb of memory.

To summarize: a laser printer without enough memory will print half of the image on one page, then spit it out and print the other half on a second page. You end up with cut off crap

That's not what I meant. I meant a laser printer without enough memory will not support high resolutions. Have you actually encountered a laser printer that does what you describe?

 

[dullard]

[/quote]That's not what I meant. I meant a laser printer without enough memory will not support high resolutions. Have you actually encountered a laser printer that does what you describe?[/quote]
Yes quite frequently. Take engineering reports for example. Combine several complex Excel graphs onto one Word page and you get one page requiring several megabytes of memory. Hit print on a laser printer without enough memory and every printer I've seen does that - at home or at school. You might get the grid on one page and the actual graph on another - or the top half of the page printed on page one, and the bottom half printed on page 2. I've seen it happen again and again with different laser printers. If you can, one solution is to drop the dpi. But if you have a complex graph where fine detail is important you just lost all that in the print. It becomes an even greater nightmare if that is in the middle of a 100 page report. It will print just fine and then it hits the page requireing too much memory and suddenly the whole rest of your document is printed as gibberish.

 

[PrinceXizor]

I've used a color laser printer that came standard with 32 MB before we upgraded it with a module my partner bought (not a comp expert by any stretch) that wasn't compatable with his rig. We couldn't print high-res color proofs of our packaging graphics on 8.5X11 paper until we upgraded the memory. The buffer would get full, the queue would time out and the printer would hang and I'd have to do a reset and buffer dump.

After we added the memory, no problems. So it all depends upon your application. If you are going to be printing high-resolution color graphics on your laser printer, you can and will run into the memory problem. If you aren't, then you more than likely won't need it.

 

[thorin]

With only 8mb on memory, your printer will only be able to buffer a 600x1200 dpi image

Ummm 600x1200 is not DPI. 600x1200 is resolution. You can have a 600x1200 image at 72 DPI, 150 DPI, 300 DPI, 600 DPI, etc etc....... You are also making an assumption about the color depth of the image. If the image is black and white, or grey scale it's going to use alot less memory then a full colour image at 32bpp.

Thorin

 

[Goopster]

You guys seems to know a lot about printers. I Know this is probably not the right topic to post my message but you guys may be able to answer it. I am going to buy same HP Laserjet 1200SE with 8 MB of RAM and i have 2 questions before i buy it.
1) How much will it cost me to upgrade it to 32 or 64 MB of ram and what kind should i buy? is it any different than the one for PC.
2) What is a network printer. I have two computers at home and i will be attaching one with this printer, will I be able to print my documents from other computer on this printer, if i leave the computer w/ printer on all the time.
Currently i have a peer to peer network and soon i will be using my wireless router to link two computers.

 

[thorin]

2) What is a network printer. I have two computers at home and i will be attaching one with this printer, will I be able to print my documents from other computer on this printer, if i leave the computer w/ printer on all the time.

A Network Printer is a printer that contains a network interface (likely a ethernet card/interface). However if you have a printer attached to a computer that is always on you can use Windows Printer/File Sharing to share it.

Thorin

 

[dullard]

1) How much will it cost me to upgrade it to 32 or 64 MB of ram and what kind should i buy? is it any different than the one for PC.
2) What is a network printer. I have two computers at home and i will be attaching one with this printer, will I be able to print my documents from other computer on this printer, if i leave the computer w/ printer on all the time.

If you buy from HP it will cost you an arm and a leg to do the upgrading (I own that printer). I think last time I looked it was $100 or so to add 32 MB for that model. I haven't done this myself, but I have read on these forums that the HP printers will take generic memory without problem. But with 8 MB I have yet to find anything that won't print. So you probably don't need to upgrade. Tons of people here swear on some of the low end laser printers that come with 2 MB (4 MB max memory). So if they are fine with 2 MB, you will most likely be fine with 8 MB.

Like Thrin said a network printer has its own NIC so you don't need to hook it up to a computer via a USB or parallel cable. Just hook it up to your network and you are done - and can print from any computer on the network at any time. For most homes and small offices this expense is overkill - just hook it up to the computer that will be on most often.

 

[Goopster]

Thanks a lot guys. I am going to get HP Laserjet 1200SE today.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Goopster
Thanks a lot guys. I am going to get HP Laserjet 1200SE today.

It is a great printer, and very fast. However the paper tray is flimsy and sticks out quite a bit (it isn't easilly removed). So you will love the printing but dislike the loss of deskspace.