From: d88-jwa@dront.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte)
Subject: Re: Ideal Photoshop Setup?
Originator: d88-jwa@dront.nada.kth.se
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
	<1992Sep11.223442.1424@amhux2.amherst.edu>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 10:53:33 GMT

> cgarnett@amhux1.amherst.edu (Craig Garnett '87) writes:

   : that he needs a Quadra 950 but is unsure about the video and memory
   : needs of the system. He is willing to fork out the $ to get a 21"
   : color monitor, but is unsure about any of the details. 

Obviously professional requirements.

   : 1) Is the internal video on a 950 able to drive a 21" monitor
   : to 24 bit color (w/2mb vram)? If so, which monitors (Apple, Nec, etc.?)

   No. It will only drive it to "thousands", which is 16-bit color, even
   with 2mb of VRAM.

He could buy a 16" for the internal video and get 24 bits. Or
just a cheap b/w monitor; having an extra monitor always comes
in handy!

Note that on a Q950, the internal video is going to be BLAZING,
and faster than many accellerated NuBus cards ! But see below.

   : 2) If not, is an accelerated video card necessary? Nec sells a
   : non-accelerated card, but would it be fast?  If a card is
   : necessary (accelerated or not) for 24bit color, what do you
   : recommend?

   If you are going to be running a 21" monitor at 24-bit color, you're
   going to HAVE to have an accelerated video card, or it's going to be
   unbearably slow. Both Radius and RasterOps make decent cards. Do NOT buy
   an Apple 8*24 GC card! NOT! First, the software in general is bad and
   will make your Mac crash. Second, it does NOT work with Quadras. 

Let me put in a plug. The SuperMac Thunder/24. Okay, it costs
some dough, but if you're a professional you'll want the best.
This card is faster than any other accellerated card I've seen.

I have heard but not seen that SuperMac also has an add-on called
the ThunderBolt, a R3000 card that piggybacks on the Thunder, and
comes with filters and plug-ins for PhotoShop and Quark Xpress,
and makes these operations MUCH faster, by using the R3000 chip
instead of the main CPU.

   : 3) What is the best 21" Color monitor? He can get a good price on
   : a Nec or on an Apple, what do you recommend?

   Something like a NEC 5FG would probably be a good move. While the Apple
   monitor is not bad at all, i'm not certain that you'd have a good time
   finding a video card to drive it at 24 bits. And I think that the NEC
   monitor is a flat screen, which is really nice for photo work.

Huh, almost all cards drive it if they're 24 bit and 21". I use
the Thunder, I'm sure there are others. However, my particular
specimen has gone poof-smoking twice :-(

   As an aside, tell your friend to buy armloads of memory. A single page
   of 300 dpi 24-bit color will be around 25MB in size. And that's for 8
   1/2" x 11". Photoshop will run a lot faster if it doesn't have to do the

Yes. Either buy 16 4MB modules (64 MB) or buy 4 16MB modules
and keep the other 12 slots for future expansion.

   virtual memory thing, and since it keeps an undo buffer and crap like
   that, 64mb is probably the minimum amount of RAM he's going to want. And
   as for hard disk space....Apple doesn't sell one big enough.    

Of course not, but you didn't buy memory from Apple either,
right? Buy a 0/0 machine and put a 1.2GB disk and 64 MB RAM
in it. APS sells good drives at good prices (with very good
service)

Oh, and an optical drive would be cool for backups and storage.
Wither a 600 MB optical, though they cost money, or a 128 MB
once for sending off files (as long as the destination has a
similar drive)

-- 
Jon W{tte, h+@nada.kth.se, Sweden, Phone +46-8-107069

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