I hear that Herb. I just e-mailed a blurb on my set-up, which is not that different from yours really (apart from you running double the RAM). I have kept my machines stable by avoiding unnecessary third party software installations and using good to very good quality components. Occasionally I generate shape files or 3D images in the 100mb range, but not very often. I too mainly use ArcView, and would sometimes prefer to just use Illustrator. Who have you been mapping for?
Cheers Shaun Canning PhD Student Department of Archaeology School of European and Historical Studies La Trobe University, Bundoora, Vic, 3086. Phone: 0414-967644 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Herb Chong [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, 14 October 2002 12:51 PM To: INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Dumb computer question Message text written by INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Well Herb, you are running a damn site better Win 98 install than I have ever seen. Either that or you are amazingly patient. What GIS are you using incidentally? As for keeping several 100m files in memory at the one time, this implies that you have at least several hundred MB of RAM. I too run plenty of RAM (512mb) but can still run out occasionally. As for a 500 mb Photoshop file, that's huge. What could you use that is that big? Map scans? Shaun Canning< the GIS program i usually use is ArcView, although i work mostly in Adobe Illustrator for day to day stuff because that is where i do my cartography. i run 1G of ECC RIMM memory on my Pentium 4 system and it's not really enough, but about all that can be easily supported on Win98. much more and there are stupid configuration problems in Win98. i run ArcView on my #2 system which is a Win 2K or Linux dual Pentium 750 system with 768M of ECC DIMM memory. the really large files are when i do high resolution shaded relief rendering of large areas. i end up with files that are about 10K x 8K pixel images a fair bit. at least once, i had to work with a 700+ MB file. 100+ MB files are when i am scanning my photos from my slides. 4000 dpi at 48-bit mode means about 110MB for a normal scan because i scan mounted slides. unmounted and they would be bigger. sometimes, for special effects, i layer these images. the key words for stability are reliable hardware first and controlled installation of trusted software. ECC RAM is critical for stability over 128MB and so is a stable power supply with ample power reserve. there are a few people who run Win98 systems as reliable as mine, but not many. Herb....
