Consider that Rosetta is VERY hungry of RAM

[dambro1978]

I played with a imac core duo 20" 512 Ram yesterday in a shop.
It is very fast with native apps. Dashboard loads in a nanosecond, iphoto and garageband as well.
I found frontrow a little bit slower than on a G5.
The thing that is striking to me is the Ram consumption under Rosetta.
I tried running Safari natively and activity monitor showed 16 Mb Physical Ram required after loading the main Apple page on www.Apple.com.
Then I run it under Rosetta (you can do it by clicking the checkbox if you open the info panel) and the Ram requirement was 35!!!!!!!

MORE THAN DOUBLE!!

Speed was comparable between the two.

BUT: The machine was running only that app in that moment. Consider that you have Safari (under Rosetta for Flash content), Photoshop, Office (open at the same time). Ram needed for the apps will be much more than if the apps run natively. I don't know if in this case speed would be affected.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE:
If you use Office , Adobe things (both becoming UNIVERSAL in 2007) or other Rosetta driven apps, G5 is still perfect or at least you have to max the RAM at maximum.

That's why today I place my order for a good Powerbook 12" SuperDrive, tiny and if I need it on the desk I link it to a 20 inch Cinema.
For 2-3 years it will be perfect for me.
MacBook Pro is too expensive, considering that you have to max out Ram.

ANdrea, Trieste, Italy.

 

[dambro1978]

edited:

a firend of mine confirms, Photoshop under Rosetta, 512 Ram is SLOW!!!
I would be nice to have that Photoshop test (other thread)

A.

 

[Platform]

Even Apple has said that Rosetta likes RAM....and so does OS X in general.

1GB is a good point....1.5GB here and works great..

There is a reason why all the Macs at MW had 2GB RAM...hehe

 

[arcsbite]

I played with a imac core duo 20" 512 Ram yesterday in a shop.
It is very fast with native apps. Dashboard loads in a nanosecond, iphoto and garageband as well.
I found frontrow a little bit slower than on a G5.
The thing that is striking to me is the Ram consumption under Rosetta.
I tried running Safari natively and activity monitor showed 16 Mb Physical Ram required after loading the main Apple page on www.Apple.com.
Then I run it under Rosetta (you can do it by clicking the checkbox if you open the info panel) and the Ram requirement was 35!!!!!!!

MORE THAN DOUBLE!!

Speed was comparable between the two.

BUT: The machine was running only that app in that moment. Consider that you have Safari (under Rosetta for Flash content), Photoshop, Office (open at the same time). Ram needed for the apps will be much more than if the apps run natively. I don't know if in this case speed would be affected.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE:
If you use Office , Adobe things (both becoming UNIVERSAL in 2007) or other Rosetta driven apps, G5 is still perfect or at least you have to max the RAM at maximum.

That's why today I place my order for a good Powerbook 12" SuperDrive, tiny and if I need it on the desk I link it to a 20 inch Cinema.
For 2-3 years it will be perfect for me.
MacBook Pro is too expensive, considering that you have to max out Ram.

ANdrea, Trieste, Italy.

Not the newest info.
but Rosetta handles things fine as long as it's fed. on 1.5GB of RAM i've not noticed any kind of slowdown usinf office and adobe CS.
this is after using a PPC G5 on 1.5GB of RAM, so I'm more than happy with it till CS3 comes along.

 

[dambro1978]

I'm only trying to justify to myself that buying a 12" Powerbook I'll be ok for a couple of years still!!!

If you think at power/cost and not power/consumption (as Steve seems to do!) PowerPc is still a good deal for the Laptop line.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

The other fact is that I nedd the new laptop now, I can't wait till Macbook Pro 12/13" is released.

My iBook G3 600 mhz 384 Ram, 8Mb Video is suffering too much.
If I put some video in PowerPoint presentations I can see them smoothly in the screen but not if projected.
I definetely need a step forward. (not a Leap Ahead!).

 

[dornoforpyros]

I'm only trying to justify to myself that buying a 12" Powerbook I'll be ok for a couple of years still!!!

I'm currently in the same boat, want a laptop, need photoshop. Tempted to go with an 12" powerbook and external display.

 

[nutmac]

BUT: The machine was running only that app in that moment. Consider that you have Safari (under Rosetta for Flash content), Photoshop, Office (open at the same time). Ram needed for the apps will be much more than if the apps run natively. I don't know if in this case speed would be affected.

You do not need to run Safari in PowerPC/Rosetta mode to get Flash working. Out of the box, Safari on iMac is pre-configured with Universal Binary Flash Player (8,0,22,0).

 

[typewriterchimp]

I'm currently in the same boat, want a laptop, need photoshop. Tempted to go with an 12" powerbook and external display.

my university apple store is selling new 12" ibooks for 850 tax included. this is obviously a ploy to clear inventory before the new ones come out, but like other here, I am torn. the more and more I think about it, the less and less sense it makes to put a lot of money in a ppc machine that will be obsoleted with the greatest of hurry (3 years). 850 is mighty cheap for a new laptop that does everything I want it to.

Getting back to the thread topic, I guess a big factor in my decision will be whether or not the new core solos suffer much of a performance lag under rosetta. Or, for that matter, how buggy rosetta is when emulating things like endnote or office (plus, we can add an extra 100 bucks to the price for extra ram to make sure that rosetta works like it is supposed to). If it crashes or acts buggy, I might as well buy an xp pc.

-c

 

[AJBMatrix]

That is why you should upgrade and get as much RAM as you can in one now. RAM is going to be more and more important as time goes on. Of course that has always been the case. New applications will require more from the systems and that is why we have to upgrade our systems. So get the RAM now and save yourself the trouble later.

 

[agent76]

my university apple store is selling new 12" ibooks for 850 tax included. this is obviously a ploy to clear inventory before the new ones come out, but like other here, I am torn. the more and more I think about it, the less and less sense it makes to put a lot of money in a ppc machine that will be obsoleted with the greatest of hurry (3 years). 850 is mighty cheap for a new laptop that does everything I want it to.

Getting back to the thread topic, I guess a big factor in my decision will be whether or not the new core solos suffer much of a performance lag under rosetta. Or, for that matter, how buggy rosetta is when emulating things like endnote or office (plus, we can add an extra 100 bucks to the price for extra ram to make sure that rosetta works like it is supposed to). If it crashes or acts buggy, I might as well buy an xp pc.

-c

I'd wait because that's $850 towards a machine that's going to last you a VERY long time with an intel chip and be far faster. By the time the intel core solos come out a lot more apps will be universal.

 

[negz]

I'm currently in the same boat, want a laptop, need photoshop. Tempted to go with an 12" powerbook and external display.

Just to clarify, while the G5 obviously still trumps Intel with regards to non-universal apps such as Photoshop, results from the Photoshop benchmark thread seem to indicate that Photoshop on the MacBook with sufficient RAM (based on 1.83 iMac results) should perform at least as well as the current 12" (1.5GHz G4) Powerbook. Of course, if Photoshop is all that matters to you, there is the fact that the MacBook is half again as expensive as the 12" Powerbook.

You may realise all this - I just wanted to point it out because people could get the impression from this thread that the Powerbook would perform significantly faster in Photoshop than a MacBook.

 

[japasneezemonk]

I'm currently using a 12" PB 1.5 with an external display, it's okay, not too fast, but running multiple filters at a time (photoshop, illustrator) will always slow g4 down. If the speeds of photoshop under emulation are similar to those of native PPC G4, i would consider buying the MacBook Pro.

 

[dornoforpyros]

Of course, if Photoshop is all that matters to you, there is the fact that the MacBook is half again as expensive as the 12" Powerbook.

Yup! I'm not gonna spend $2,000+ to run photoshop through an emulator.

 

[AJBMatrix]

Who cares what you are currently running photoshop through. What really matters is overall performance. Are any of you doing Pro Photo Editing for money? Then why does it matter all that much about Photoshop. I really do not get why people are up in arms about Photoshop. I have messed with it on a 1.83 Intel iMac and it is not bad. A little while to load but that is usual for an Adobe program. It was on par with the 15" PB that we had there. But once it was running it was a lot faster. I can say that I have no complaints and am actually getting a MBP. Rossetta may be an emulator but it is the best emulator available for anything. It works very well.

PS: Thought my 2 cents was worth something considering I am doing some photo editing for extra cash and stuff. Shoot my next photoshoot coming up in March is going to pay for the upgrades to the MBP

 

[EricChunky]

foto

PS: Thought my 2 cents was worth something considering I am doing some photo editing for extra cash and stuff. Shoot my next photoshoot coming up in March is going to pay for the upgrades to the MBP

i took loads of pics n do the editings in Aperture and CS2

two questions:

1. can aperture run in rosseta? or i'll hv to wait till the march ub update
2. u think fotoshop + rosseta can edit 8MP images smoothly? (Sharpen levels contras etc)

 

[arcsbite]

i took loads of pics n do the editings in Aperture and CS2

two questions:

1. can aperture run in rosseta? or i'll hv to wait till the march ub update
2. u think fotoshop + rosseta can edit 8MP images smoothly? (Sharpen levels contras etc)

Aperture will not instal on an intel iMac at all.
throw enough RAM at it and Photoshop will do anything just the same as PPC machines.

 

[AJBMatrix]

Yeah, unfortunately the Pro Apps do not like intel and will have to be UB first. But Photoshop is really nice. I think it runs faster "Once it opens" in a 17" Intel iMac than a 1.67 G4 PowerBook. If there is a difference it is not noticable. Just make sure you have at least a Gig of RAM.

 

[japasneezemonk]

Who cares what you are currently running photoshop through.

Your right, i can't really supply much info on raster imaging when my job revolves around little old vector images at a lonely ol' typography foundry. I guess i should stay out of the pro photo editing conversations.