Hi there,

I have an Acer Aspire 9423WSMi a bit old, with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 @ 1,66 MHz and 1 GB of RAM, and also an nVidia GeForce Go 7300.

Things with The Gimp goes fast enough for my work, since effects are not applied in real time. But with Inkscape, and complex SVG in general, is slower than a lame snail.

When I work on a document with several effects, or just with some translucid surface over a bitmap pattern, it is just unusable. I need to change view mode every time to without-effects, do my tasks, and then re-enable effects again to see the results. Or put objects with bitmap in a lower layer and hide them for working, and then show them again to see the effect.

This slows me down a lot, so I am considering to buy a new computer, not a laptop but a desktop one. I rather like not to spent too much money, so the options are narrow.

The main question is about what is more important to have a faster/better Inkscape experience: RAM, CPU or graphics card?

Thanks a lot in advance,

I would say that RAM is the most important consideration. 2 gb is on the low side these days. I have only 4 gb, and for the most part, I do ok. I would say that whatever kind of processor or graphics card that comes with any new computer, will probably be fine....unless you plan to be working on really huge Inkscape files with a lot of filters, etc. I think any setup that has strong graphics support should be fine. Although I suspect there may be some "power users" around who could tell you what specific products or specs to look for. Also, as far as Inkscape, laptops perform as well as desktops, in my experience.

Also, when version 0.49 comes out, it will have a new faster renderer. That will solve a lot of the problems that we all experience with Inkscape, from time to time. But then I expect it won't be long before someone tries to do something so crazy it even challenges that renderer, lol.