How to Make CS4 Run Faster
- 1). Open the performance menu. With CS4 running on a Mac, click on the "Photoshop" menu head at the top of the screen and scroll down to "Preferences." Click on "Performance" to bring up the menu. On a PC, click on the "Edit" menu head at the top of the screen, then scroll down to "Preferences" and click on "Performance."
- 2). Set the memory usage higher. In the performance menu, look for the "Memory Usage" box, which includes RAM and is set at a lower level by default. Use the sliding bar to raise the amount, while keeping it the recommended range that it states for your computer. Do not take all available RAM, or you will detract from any other programs simultaneously running.
- 3). Set up the scratch disk to another hard drive. The scratch disk is where information is stored on the fly after the RAM has been used up. By default the scratch disk is set up to the computer's main hard drive. If you have another internal hard drive, set it to the other one. You can also assign an external hard drive as the scratch disk, which will be an option here as long as you attach the hard drive before CS4 is opened.
- 4). Reassign the cache to a higher level. The default cache level is "4," which you can raise up to an "8" by clicking the "Up" arrow to the right of the cache number. The higher the cache level, the slower the load time will be when opening the program, but the faster it will operate while you are working on it.
- 5). Lower the history level. Click on the "Down" arrow to the right of the history, lowering it from the default level "20." The higher the history level, the more disk space that it will use, causing the program to run slower.
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