How to enhance performance (virtual memory, scratch disc)

[RalphSchneider1]

(1) Does it make any difference in performance if I allocate assets of the project to a scratch disc on a new partition on my harddrive?

(2) Is it possible to increase the "virtual memory" of PE7 and allocate the swap file to a dedicated partition as it is in Photoshop? This usually increases performance, in my experience.

Ralph

[Bobby]

Hi Ralph. I have to throw in my standard discussion about partitions here. I don't have any use for 'em myself.

A partition is a software division of the drive - it does not affect the hardware. Thus there is minimal performance improvement of using a partition as the drive still has to rotate and the heads still have to move in and out - it doesn't matter whether you are accessing two files in one partition or one file each in two partitions. The only improvement is that you can manage the partition a bit easier (i.e. get rid of temp files and defragment).

You would be better off having two physical drives and separating the files between them.

[Chuck Engels]

You can set the location of the Scratch Disk in Premiere Elements, where it puts all of the files, cache, etc. It is under Edit.Preferences or Edit/Project Settings, can't remember which right now.

I think one of the best improvements you can make is to have your scratch disks and project files set up on a separate internal drive from where the programs are installed. Two drives working are definitely faster than one

[Bob]

(1) Does it make any difference in performance if I allocate assets of the project to a scratch disc on a new partition on my harddrive?

Yes, it does. You can make the performance worse. Especially if the physical drive is also your system drive as the system partition is very active. But, any drive that has multiple partitions will be degraded if more than one partition is being actively accessed.

Placing the scratch disks and assets on a separate drive away from the system drive will improve your performance. You can assign the locations of the scratch files in edit>preferences>scratch disks. If you use "same as project" and create your projects in a separate folder on the other drive, the scratch files will be placed in subfolders at that same location.

(2) Is it possible to increase the "virtual memory" of PE7 and allocate the swap file to a dedicated partition as it is in Photoshop? This usually increases performance, in my experience.

No. Premiere Elements does not manage its memory usage the same way as Photoshop and there are no memory settings you can change.

[RalphSchneider1]

Thanks Bob, Bobby and Chuck - that was very helpful!

Ralph