I just did some Raw work for the first time in a while and it took forever for things to happen which I don't recall happening before. My computer has 512 in the RAM but could use some file cleaning as well.
Are there good programs that handle things faster? Aperture, Phase One, Rawshooter Ess., Nikon Capture? Or is the process simply a drag on lesser computers?
I use the Photo Professional software that came with the camera as well as PhotoImpact 11 and on the computer where I do my processing it is very fast.
What processor do you have? I run a Dell dual 4.0 processors with 1 Gb ram and there is no delay in anything .... unless the disk starts to fragment or memory starts not to be released as it should. I would recomment getting 1 Gb ram. The new windows next year will need every bit of it anyway.
Are you copying the images to your HD first or converting them from the CF card. I've noticed that CS2 gets real sluggish if I try to work from the CF card, but does ok from the HD.
My computer is 1.7ghz, and 512mb RAM, and yeah, it stinks. Everything is fine until I go to batch things in RSE, then it takes a few minutes for each picture to process.
Nikon's software, Capture 4, is notorious for sucking up large amounts of memory and generally being a pain in the a$$ to run. It does do a good job, mostly because Nikon encrypts their WB info and the only program that can legally read it is from Nikon. I use Phase One Capture One not because it is the best out there but because it is damn fast and gets me 95% percent of the way there.
In general, I'd say 512MB is the bare bones minimum to run RAW processing programs. You can go down to the task bar and turn off any unused programs on the bottom right, but I'd recommend more RAM. I think about 2GB is the minimum RAM.
Good luck.
