Graphic Cards Is there any need for a Graphics card for a Photoshop user ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

SledgeHammer

Contributor
One of my friends is a graphics artist and he mainly uses Illustrator/Photoshop for his work and nothing like 3d Studio Max/Maya. Currently he is planning to assemble a new desktop.

Is it better to have a well configured machine with the right processor + MB + RAM(devoid of Graphics card) ?



My question is that does he need a Graphics card for his job ? Is that a waste of money since he is not into gaming/video editing/SFX work etc. ? :huh:
 
Sorry but changing your graphics card will not affect the speed of Photoshop one Iota. Photoshop does not use a 3D API, nor does it transfer any processing to the graphics card. Photoshop is CPU and RAM limited ONLY. You have a HEAP of RAM (far more than you really need I suspect - and unused RAM might as well be in the top drawer of your desk for all the good it does you.) so the only thing to hasten PS performance is a new/faster CPU.

Moreover Memory on a graphics card is only used for storing textures. True, the front and back buffers are there too, as well as a limited amount which is used for anti-aliasing and other 3D effects, but the vast majority is there to store textures in OpenGL or DirectX. So - the amount of memory on your GFx card HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH PC PERFORMANCE OUTSIDE OF 3D APPLICATIONS.

Same thing for Illustrator also

Hope this saves you wasting your money.

If you aren't a 3D gamer, then you most definitely DO NOT NEED A NEW GFX CARD
 
Anubis : Thanks for the quick reply.

But I've heard that Photoshop does use GPU acceleration to enhance performance of graphics display and rendering. Photoshop Extended uses the GPU for 3D layers.

Instead of relying on the Central Processor Unit (CPU) for the graphics processing, some Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) are capable of providing faster graphics rendering. Where a GPU type card is detected, checking the Enable 3D Acceleration box will improve the image display performance.

The 3D support will also improve the performance of the brushes. When using a pressure sensitive pen, the brushes response will feel much more sensitive and responsive.
 
Actually CS4 definitely uses the graphic card since photoshop uses opengl... It can use software gl, but it isn't really very good.
 
stalker said:
you should probably add a disclaimer to those links :P
:rofl:
Click to expand...

Fixed it now :P

Updated previous post with the only ATI relevant article in the 1st page of results, when I searched for ATI+Photoshop+CS4 in google. Found 0 articles on ATIs site when I searched for "Photoshop".

PiXeLpUsHeR said:
Actually CS4 definitely uses the graphic card since photoshop uses opengl... It can use software gl, but it isn't really very good.
Click to expand...

Apart from the OpenGL rendering, there are also quite a few plugins that use CUDA/Stream to accelerate filters, effects, etc.
 
Raghunandan said:
Fixed it now :P

Updated previous post with the only ATI relevant article in the 1st page of results, when I searched for ATI+Photoshop+CS4 in google. Found 0 articles on ATIs site when I searched for "Photoshop".

Apart from the OpenGL rendering, there are also quite a few plugins that use CUDA/Stream to accelerate filters, effects, etc.
Click to expand...

wow. you went the whole hog din't you :P

I was kidding man:tongue:
 
Some kind of a graphics card definitely helps in PS, even if you're not using accelerated effects. Sharing your main memory bus slows down memory access, and when rendering large (50MB+) images on screen you don't want to slow PS down by using the same memory bank for rendering in software as well as hardware. That said, even a cheap graphics card is good enough, there's not much need for a high-power card. Just one that will take the load off the memory bus.
 
Thanks for everyone's advice.

But some of my friends are of the opinion that since 3D application programming interface is not used by PS, there is no need for a GFX card.
 
PS can use discreet graphics on occasions, but the whole thing is still crappy. For the most part you really dont need it.

No harm in getting a cheap but decent 4670 though .
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom