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6914708

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 14, 2003
304
0
What does everyone think I should do... I have a 2GHZ Intel Core Duo MacbookPro and I am trying to get the most speed out of Adobe CS2. Should I run bootcamp, or Parallels with Windows XP and a Windows version of Adobe CS2, or would it be just as fast to run Adobe CS2 on my MacbookPro. I know CS3 won't be coming out until next spring probably, without any help from Adobe on CS2 (seems like a long time to go without any universal aid) but I would like to be able to run CS2 without biting all my nails off waiting for its sluggishness under Rosetta. Same with the Macromedia Suite. There has to be some sort of a workaround available.
 
6914708 said:
What does everyone think I should do... I have a 2GHZ Intel Core Duo MacbookPro and I am trying to get the most speed out of Adobe CS2. Should I run bootcamp, or Parallels with Windows XP and a Windows version of Adobe CS2, or would it be just as fast to run Adobe CS2 on my MacbookPro. I know CS3 won't be coming out until next spring probably, without any help from Adobe on CS2 (seems like a long time to go without any universal aid) but I would like to be able to run CS2 without biting all my nails off waiting for its sluggishness under Rosetta. Same with the Macromedia Suite. There has to be some sort of a workaround available.

well in regards to Macromedia programs...i'm pretty sure you could instal those using windows on you MBP. i know that i had a copy of dreamweaver on my pc and then put it on my mac and it ran just fine. so i think their programs are compatible with both. i hope i'm making since.
 
It will be much faster under bootcamp. Personally I don't want to put up with windows, and I don't work on especially large images, so I'm fine with running it in Mac OS X. But many people have tested Photoshop on Bootcamp, and it screams!
 
If speed was that important for you then why did you buy and Intel Mac NOW? Like you said, CS2 wont be ready until spring 07 at the earliest.

There are a few publishing houses having all sorts of problems with InDesign and installing CS2 on Intel Macs that are running QT 7.1.

Get a PowerBook or PowerMac if you want speed now or wait for the Universal Binary. Its that simple.
 
electronboy said:
Get a PowerBook or PowerMac if you want speed now or wait for the Universal Binary. Its that simple.

Agreed. Having just used a brand-new 20" Intel iMac, I can say it's not really suitable for use in a production environment at this time. BootCamp is not a remotely feasible solution...constantly rebooting is ludicrous, so you'd have to leave it in Windows mode all the time, so you might as well get a PC in that case. Maybe Parallels would work, but I haven't used it, and there's the issue of shelling out the money for Windows versions of everything...I don't think Adobe is in the habit of giving out free cross-grades.

--Eric
 
electronboy said:
If speed was that important for you then why did you buy and Intel Mac NOW? Like you said, CS2 wont be ready until spring 07 at the earliest.

There are a few publishing houses having all sorts of problems with InDesign and installing CS2 on Intel Macs that are running QT 7.1.

Get a PowerBook or PowerMac if you want speed now or wait for the Universal Binary. Its that simple.

I had a powermac G5, and I needed to go mobile, I figured the macbook was leaps ahead of the powerbook. I don't have the money to just buy new machines all the time, and buy and sell. If I had bought a powerbook I would really want to sell it in like 6 months or so and get a macbook pro anyways. Maybe I'm crazy... well theres a good chance of that i suppose. But for now there is no "just buy a powerbook" or just buy a "pc", I have a macbook pro and need to make the most effective use out of it.
 
I think you'd be safe with either bootcamp or parallels. in either case you need your own version of windows, and bootcamp may be a tab bit quicker. but it comes down to the importance of being able to run OS X and windows side by side, or having to reboot. I think that is the biggest issue, and it's different for each person's tasks.
 
Unless you're doing semething hideously complex, I'd say you'll probably be surprised at the performance levels of Photoshop on an Intel Mac really. I've be perfectly happy with it for most of the stuff I do. It'll be fantastic when CS3 comes out, no doubt, but running previous versions of the software through Rosetta isn't half as bad as doomsayers might make out!
 
so you'te saying you run photoshop right on OS X on your mactel? and it moves pretty quick, huh?
 
secondplace said:
so you'te saying you run photoshop right on OS X on your mactel? and it moves pretty quick, huh?

I honestly couldn't say if it's quick, but just yesterday I was working on a file with about 8 layers on it, flipping back and forth with it and generally making a complete mess out of the original photo, and I didn't find myself cursing the slowness of the thing.

The thing is though that I've not had the pleasure of seeing Photoshop run on a full blown Powermac, so I can't give a comparison - I'm sure people who use it on that machine would be swearing and cursing at the lower speed, but for me it's fine!
 
JoeKarame said:
I honestly couldn't say if it's quick, but just yesterday I was working on a file with about 8 layers on it, flipping back and forth with it and generally making a complete mess out of the original photo, and I didn't find myself cursing the slowness of the thing.

The thing is though that I've not had the pleasure of seeing Photoshop run on a full blown Powermac, so I can't give a comparison - I'm sure people who use it on that machine would be swearing and cursing at the lower speed, but for me it's fine!

what about in comparison to running it on a PC?
 
secondplace said:
what about in comparison to running it on a PC?

I haven't used a PC for Photoshop for years, I'm afraid! I think I've still got a demo of Photoshop 3 around though!

With the purchase of the MBP, I decided to forgo a home PC altogether. If ever I do need something for Windows, I've got Bootcamp to sort things out.

To answer your question though - the majority of people have said that PS runs quicker through Bootcamp than on OSX - I honestly wouldn't know whether it's all that though.
 
secondplace said:
so you'te saying you run photoshop right on OS X on your mactel? and it moves pretty quick, huh?

Photoshop on a 20" iMac runs about low-mid G4 range I'd say. It's quite usable, but a G5 is a lot faster right now. (QuarkXPress 6, on the other hand, runs like a dog under Rosetta. A lame, mostly dead dog.)

--Eric
 
Eric5h5 said:
Photoshop on a 20" iMac runs about low-mid G4 range I'd say. It's quite usable, but a G5 is a lot faster right now. (QuarkXPress 6, on the other hand, runs like a dog under Rosetta. A lame, mostly dead dog.)

--Eric

At least Quark 7 is due out very shortly, I suppose.
 
JoeKarame said:
At least Quark 7 is due out very shortly, I suppose.

It's already out. However, it's not a universal binary. Maybe in August....

--Eric
 
Well, this might change your mind...

I ran a suite of tests that I'll be posting probably on Friday on my new MacBook, with configurations of 512MB, 1GB, 1.25GB, and 2GB plus 2GB running Windows via Boot Camp. As part of the test suite I ran the "Photoshop test" linked here on MacRumors. Here's the very surprising results:

512MB, OS X: 14m, 19s
1GB, OS X: 7m, 2s
1.25GB, OS X: 5m, 29s
2GB, OS X: 5m, 8s
2GB, Windows XP: 6m, 29s

Yes, that's right, the Photoshop test in OS X, under Rosetta beat the native Windows Photoshop. Just to be certain I'm going to re-run the tests later this week.

So, in my experience, running both, there's a minimal benefit (if at all) using the Windows version over OS X's non-Universal binary.

[Note] For reference, I still need to run the Photoshop test on my DP G5 as well.

[Edit] One additional wildcard is that OS X is using Photoshop 9.0.1 (CS2) and Windows is Photoshop 8 (CS); a limitation that I don't have access to the CS2 version for Windows. Is there a demo perhaps?
 
Quick update on the previous post:

I re-ran both tests (2GB OS X, 2GB Windows XP) using the demo version of Photoshop CS2 for Windows. The final results were the same:

2GB, OS X: 5m 6s
2GB, Windows XP: 6m 39s

So, based on these results Photoshop emulated through Rosetta provides better performance than Boot Camp Photoshop in Windows.
 
Abulia said:
Quick update on the previous post:

I re-ran both tests (2GB OS X, 2GB Windows XP) using the demo version of Photoshop CS2 for Windows. The final results were the same:

2GB, OS X: 5m 6s
2GB, Windows XP: 6m 39s

So, based on these results Photoshop emulated through Rosetta provides better performance than Boot Camp Photoshop in Windows.

Wow, now thats surprising AND ironic. :D
 
Abulia said:
Well, this might change your mind...

I ran a suite of tests that I'll be posting probably on Friday on my new MacBook, with configurations of 512MB, 1GB, 1.25GB, and 2GB plus 2GB running Windows via Boot Camp. As part of the test suite I ran the "Photoshop test" linked here on MacRumors. Here's the very surprising results:

512MB, OS X: 14m, 19s
1GB, OS X: 7m, 2s
1.25GB, OS X: 5m, 29s
2GB, OS X: 5m, 8s
2GB, Windows XP: 6m, 29s

Yes, that's right, the Photoshop test in OS X, under Rosetta beat the native Windows Photoshop. Just to be certain I'm going to re-run the tests later this week.

So, in my experience, running both, there's a minimal benefit (if at all) using the Windows version over OS X's non-Universal binary.

[Note] For reference, I still need to run the Photoshop test on my DP G5 as well.

[Edit] One additional wildcard is that OS X is using Photoshop 9.0.1 (CS2) and Windows is Photoshop 8 (CS); a limitation that I don't have access to the CS2 version for Windows. Is there a demo perhaps?


I wonder how a regular powermac / powerbook would perform in this test. How did you run the test?
 
plinden said:
There's a 30 day trial.

Didn't CS2 introduce MP-aware actions, or extended its support anyway?
They did, it's a separate update (which I installed) and the latest test results above reflects it.

[Edit] Found the 9.0.1 update. Am re-running test for latest results.
 
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