Amount of Memory to have

[Sondzin]

We are running two PC machines that both have 2 GB of memory. They are both 3.2 GHz Pentium D. We are experiencing significant delays in things being redrawn and just a general lag in response. We both have Nvidia GeForce 7600 cards. We do mostly one and two page documents--ads and direct mail, but they are always graphics heavy.

The question is whether or not more memory would help this situation.
One guy runs his machine at typical display performance instead of high quality and has to switch back and forth a lot to check things.

Any suggestions? More memory?

Thanks,
David

[Len Zigante]

Its probably because of your "Display Performance" settings. You should only use High Quality mode when you absolutely must, to check details. I highly recommend using Typical Display or alternatively (if you do not need to actually see the images, just their bounding boxes) Optimized Display for your primary layout functions.

Other considerations will be the number of fonts installed and the actual size of your graphics. If you are using images that are 8"x8" at 300dpi but on the page are only 2"x2", then this will definitely bog you down. I would highly suggest resizing your graphics if this is the case. If you are making big use of transparencies, drop shadows, clip paths, complicated vector files, etc. this will also slow you. Basically anything that Indesign has to calculate & figure out will be a drain on your speed. To remedy this, I would try to have these effects applied in your graphics program so Indesign only needs to display the image, not process it.

Hope this helps.
Len

FYI - I have a 1.8ghz dual processor mac with 1.25 gigs ram and regularly am working on huge catalog files (10-30 pages) loaded with graphics. I usually only experience speed issues when most of my graphics are vector files since all the lines must be individually drawn. If you are making heavy use of vector files, consider converting them to raster... this will help alot.

[Lou Wrench]

I am not a "PC" person so bear with me, you defininatly should not be working High Res, but you could if you want a better preview of your pics modify your "Typical" specs in your preferences. and right click pictures you want to see at high res when you need to
Lou