Running 3220 without C1 or C2 RIP (Postscript)? or PCL?

[maltobello]

My company has 17 Canon IR 3220 devices in our offices. These are all installed with ImagePass C1 and C2 RIP's. We have been having issues deploying Windows Vista because we are not able to get stable, up to date Postscript drivers for the devices. We are also looking at deploying Windows 7, 64 bit and there are no Postscript drivers available for these devices on this platform. At this point our options are:

1.Use PCL drivers which support Vista 32 bit and 64 bit platforms. Presumably these will also work on Windows 7.
2.Bypass/remove the C1 and C2 RIP's on these devices. Windows 7 32 and 64 bit drivers (Postscript) are available for this configuration.

We have tried the PCL drivers in the past, but our graphic designers were not pleased with the output. Not sure if settings could be adjusted to achieve something they would be OK with (I work for a Civil Engineering Consultant, we have 800+ people, probably 25 graphic designers). My understanding if we remove the RIP is that print speed will improve, but quality will suffer.

Can any of you weigh in on what we should expect with each of these options? Is there anything else I'm missing that we could try?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Jeff]

I don't have an answer for you, but I'll be following this thread with interest.

I also would like to upgrade to 64-bit windows 7. However, we have a pair of 3200 and 3220 with C1 and C2 RIP. The lack of 64-bit driver is what prevented me from going with 64-bit when upgrading to Vista a couple of years ago. I would very much like the greater-than-4-GB RAM support that a 64-bit OS provides.

I'm disappointed that canon or efi don't release 64-bit windows drivers for these RIPs. For some reason the PCL driver seems to be updated frequently, but if you pay the noticeable amount of $$$$ for the EFI Fiery RIP, you're stuck with few if any driver updates with canon. It should be the other way around.

I did try the PCL driver when we first got our first IRC 3200 6 years ago, and it might be usable, but I hate to sacrifice what I get with the C1/C2 RIP and postscript driver. I don't like the colors as well from the PCL driver; we never got as good of a punch from blacks, and the output always tended to be a bit cool (in color) with the PCL. The postscript makes a print with a lot more punch for us. Maybe there's a way to better calibrate the PCL, but I haven't found it to date. It seems like giving up too much.

Someone introduced the idea of tricking the older PS drivers to work... I haven't heard of anyone doing this with our specific printer+rip+driver and I don't have a windows 7 x64 test box yet...

Anyway, I'm sorry that I don't have any great advice. But I'll be following this with interest as I'd love to maintain the ability to print to our pair of 3200+C1 and 3220+C2 after upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit.

 

[maltobello]

good news...

Hi Jeff, and thanks for your reply. I didn't have any luck here, but also posted this here: http://www.copytechnet.com/forums/canon/30610-running-3220-without-c1-c2-rip-pcl.html

KenB on the copytechnet board suggested i try the gx-100 and gx-200 as direct replacements for the c1 and c2 drivers. These drivers support xp, vista and windows 7 x86 and x64. they also seem to pick up the trays and features on the 3220's automatically.

so far these seem to be stable and work well. we've done some initial testing and they worked perfectly. we're now working on rolling them out to out office with an eye toward deploying them to all of our servers.

good luck.

Mike

ps - these are the postscript drivers for the gx-100 and gx-200. good discussion on the thread about different options (PCL vs removing the RIP vs gx-100/gx-200)

 

[Jeff]

Thank you very much Mike - I never would have thought of trying to use the gx-100 and gx-200 drivers in place of the c1/c2 drivers. Much appreciated. That takes a major hurdle away from what's stopping me from going 64-bit for the workstations. Much appreciated.

 

[maltobello]

Believe me, I have been feeling that same pain for months. I am grateful for the replies I got, and happy to have the chance to pass that on to someone else. good luck.