Instruction manual

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5.1 Hardware
5.1.1 Monitor
As a minimum, use a 17" color monitor set for 24-bit color. As long as you
use a late model, it doesn’t matter if you go with a CRT or LCD screen.
5.1.2 RAM
Digital image editing makes demands on your computer's RAM. As an
absolute minimum, you need 256 MB if you’re running Microsoft Windows XP;
however, upgrading to 512 MB or 1 GB will allow you to edit photos must faster,
even on a slower processor. If you are using Microsoft Vista, you’ll need a
minimum of 1 GB of RAM (2 GB is preferable).
If you must make a choice, go for a less-expensive CPU and put your money
in extra memory (RAM).
5.1.3 Processor
Processor capability is important, but you can get by with systems running at
1 GHz or more. Of course, newer (and faster) processors are preferable as
working with images uses lots of processor capacity.
5.1.4 Video Card
For photography and video purposes, the video card's quality and efficiency
can impact performance more than any other component in the PC. Smooth
video depends on a high frame rate (how many times per second the screen is
updated with new information) and so is impacted far more by the choice of video
card than even by the choice of system CPU. Ensure the video card supports
1024x768 pixel resolution.
It is best to have memory on the video card itself; a big advantage of this is
that it provides greater efficiency and doesn’t use regular system RAM. Some
motherboard designs integrate the video chipset into the motherboard itself, and
then use part of the system RAM for the frame buffer; this is called integrated or
unified memory architecture and is done for cost savings. The result is almost
always much lower image manipulation and video performance, because in order
to use higher resolutions and refresh rates the video memory needs to have much
higher performance than the RAM normally used for the system. A similar-
sounding but different system is used by the new Accelerated Graphics Port
(AGP), which lets the video processor access the system memory for doing
graphics calculations, but keeps a dedicated video memory for the frame buffer.
This allows for more flexible memory use without sacrificing performance and is
becoming a new standard.
If you can afford the extra cost, consider using a video card with installed
memory rather than an integrated system.