cem@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Malloy) (04/21/89)
> For a drawing package, I have two that use bezier curves, etc. > Adobe Illustrator and Arts & Letters Graphic Editor. Of the two, > Illustrator runs like a pig. You must have at least a 286 machine > and at least 2Mb of LIM Spec memory. I can also find nothing about > it running better with a math co-processor. Arts & Letters, on the > other hand, runs great. It is faster, has a math co-processor > version, runs on any PC, and the new version has every feature that > Adobe Illustrator 88 for the Mac has. That is something the Adobe > has not done for the PC version. Boy! Do I feel like a total fool! Yesterday, after using Adobe Illustrator for only a few days, I slammed it. [Conscience: Slammed? That's putting it mildly!] [Me: Okay! You're right! I'm sorry! I shot off my mouth and now I regret it! So sue me!] [Conscience: I might!] Well, last night I called Adobe Technical Support. I talked to a very nice lady named Kathy. She worked with me for about an hour trying to fix my problem. And guess what? She did. Not only does Adobe Illustrator run better, but the whole system works better. As it turns out, Adobe Illustrator must have massive amounts of conventional memory to run. Not extended/expanded. You should have 200K+ of memory free for Adobe Illustrator to run in real time. I know that 200K doesn't sound like alot, but remember it runs UNDER Windows, and Windows uses a great deal of memory. Before I called I had only 65K of conventional memory free. With QEMM configured correctly (thanks to Kathy), I have 123K of conventional memory free. And with my WIN.INI file stripped of all of my softfonts and other things (also thanks to Kathy), I have 191K of conventional memory free. I miss the fonts, but I now have three different WIN.INI files. One for everything except Adobe Illustrator (WIN.ALL), one for Adobe Illustrator without the softfonts (WIN.AI), and one for Adobe Illustrator with the softfonts (WIN.AIF). Now, I just have to copy the correct WIN.XXX file to WIN.INI before I start Windows to get the correct results. But what about the botttom line? Would I recommend Adobe Illustrator? What about Arts & Letters Graphic Editor? Well... The current version of Arts & Letters doesn't have the autotrace tool, Adobe Illustrator does. Arts & Letters has color support, Adobe Illustrator doesn't. Arts & Letters has a math co-processor version, Adobe Illustrator doesn't. And probably never will. (Too bad. Aren't bezier curves created with math? Wouldn't a math co-processor help?) The answer is yes, I would recommend them both. Compare the features and then decide. Clancy Malloy AT&T Bell Labs PostScript\(tm: I am cross posting this to comp.lang.postscript. Glenn, if you see this, please let Kathy's boss know what a wonderful job she is doing. You can tell Kathy too.
kemp@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (04/23/89)
I am looking for the following packages to run under the windows environment: - High performance word processor - Drawing package, with full-color support; supports bezier curves, free-hand drawing, accepts scanned images Both using hi-res fonts. Alternatively, above packages without windows environment, but which support 1024 x 768 x 16, or 800 x 600 x 256 graphics modes for Video7 VRAM 512k card. If you have any info on these, please send me email. Thanks, -Stuart Kemp kemp@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu