I have a 1.3GB Draw file open with a good deal of artistic text, multiple large transparencies as well as 5 other programs open for a total of 6.5 GB in memory.
Selecting a 20" x 40" image at 200 DPI and using the edit bitmap feature transferred the image to Photo-PAINT for editing in 6 seconds. All edits went well.
I'm not so lucky. 8x10 photo at 300 DPI, when clicking Edit Bitmap, I got the dreaded error FAILED TO LAUNCH SERVER APPLICATION. A smaller image worked after I killed Photo-Paint in Task Manager.
Here is a 17.25" x 11.25" CMYK image in Draw at 400 DP, 118 MB. I right click and select edit bitmap, in 7 seconds it is ready for editing in Photo-PAINT 2024. The file is an image of a Cardinal from a photo shoot a week or so ago. I used 17.25 x 11.25 at 400 DPI as that is the resolution that I use for high end FM and AM press printing work.
My system runs like this all the time and has so for I believe nearly 4 years, at least 3 years..
Computers can be odd, I have an i5 laptop I use for remote service for clients and CorelDRAW at client locations. When I first got it, it ran just awful, CorelDRAW would barely run. The hard drive crapped out and an exact replacement was $15. WTF! I spent $100 on a Western digital and the wired performance improved significantly.
In warm weather my dog and I like to work from my deck which requires a wireless connection. Performance was awful so I replaced the wireless on the laptop and it significantly improved, not as good as hard wired but much better. Same thing with my wife's POS HP with an AMD processor and video, I swopped out the wireless and her machine worked better.
Now my unit is an i5 laptop so I don't do large CorelDRAW files on it, I can open them but edits are sloooow and I don't have the temperament for that.
My only issue is with the CorelDraw "Edit Bitmap" function. Painter, VideoStudio, Portrait Pro, CorelCAD, DxO Photolab, all run great on it. Draw and Photo-Paint run fine as individual apps. The laptop was built to run these type of applications, and it does it well. I'm just confused as to why the ONE thing that I cannot accomplish on it is editing a larger bitmap from the Draw menu. I've just given up on it, most of my larger photos or digital raster works I just don't bother with Draw.
I've used the CDR graphics suite for over a decade, and have done some serious work in it. I've given this a lot of thought for the past few days. For the path I'm taking now, I won't renew next year. The 2023 version was working fine, and I'll just revert to that. Or get something a bit more lightweight, like Affinity Designer.
I tried Affinity Designer and it was waaay to light weight for my work. Trying to produce a 72" x 48" menu boardwalk serious issue.
I wouldn't doubt that it is too light for your purposes! For mine, maybe it will work. I'm not sure.
I haven't tested the 2.4 version I do know that many are voicing the opinion that the new release was way short of expectations.
I did download Affinity Photo 2 twice, V2 and V2.4, since the only feature version 1 had of any value to me was noise reduction and they screwed up zooming and scrolling in V2 I unistalled version 2.
Affinity Photo and PaintShop Pro web sites seem more geared toward digital art rather than photography so there's not a great deal of discussion of relevance technically for me.