Photoshop on MacBook Running XP Tests are Great

[Frank Petronio]

http://www.creativemac.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=39536

Looks like a MacBook Pro running Wondoze XP is the fastest Photoslop machine these days. So how much is the Adobe CS crossgrade?

The point being that Adobe may not release a MacIntel optimized version of CS3 for a another year, so in the meantime running CS2 on Windows -- using the new Mac hardware -- may be the best way to go for the next year or so.

(I know, your disk array, etc. negates the differences and your set-up is better because...)

[Walt Calahan]

Frank

I know it is just a typo, I make them ALL the time, but you've got me laughing out loud.

"fastest Photoslop"

I guess we all have quickly produced photoslop from time to time. Some say all I have to do is pick up a camera to make photoslop. GRIN.

Thanks for the chuckle.

[Frank Petronio]

Windoze and Photoslop are correct, not typos! I fix my typos automagically.

[neil poulsen]

So, is it possible to run XP and OSX side by side on the same MacBook?

Is it in different partitions?

If it is possible to run them side by side in some configuration, how difficult is it to switch back and forth? And, is it possible for both to access the same datasets? No executables, of course, but the same documents or data files?

How does running Photoshop on the MacBook compare to running Photoshop on the most recent PowerBook? Has anyone used both? What's the "CS cross-grade?"

My interest is in being able to run MS based software in OSX. That is, discard Microsoft altogether. (That does sound sweet!) I understand that Apple's next version of OSX, Leopard, has this as its goal.

Seeing all the possibilities, it's interesting that Apple didn't make the switch to Intel based processors a long time ago. Just when the whole computer evolution scene was kind of going stale, something like this comes along to liven things up. Excellent!

[Frank Petronio]

A couple of weeks ago Apple introduced "Bootcamp" which allows you to boot in either OSX or XP. You supply the legal XP OS. Runs just like a Sony or Dell... on nicer hardware.

Adobe has offered "crossgrades" to switch platforms, so you might be able to get a Windows version of CS2 for only $XXX if you already own the Mac version. Hopefully they'll introduce promotional prices.

Running CS2 apps on a MacIntel Powerbook currently requires Rosetta emulation, which works great but drops the performance down to ~ G4 levels (similar to the performance of Macs of 3-4 years ago).

Apple's stock jumped with the news, and it is an attractive option to purchase the MacIntel MacBook as they are competitive with other higher end PC laptops.

[John Flavell]

Bootcamp became obsolete in about three days. Here's an excerpt from an article that's floating around some of the Mac interest groups about running both Windoze and OSX at the same time:

"NO wonder, then, that last week, the corridors of cyberspace echoed
with the sounds of high-fiving when a superior solution came to
light. A little company called Parallels has found a way to
eliminate all of those drawbacks — and to run Windows XP and Mac OS
X simultaneously."

I'd be happy to post the full version here or email to anyone interested.

[Dominique Labrosse]

John,

Parallels is virtulization software. So when you are running XP within the Parallels virtualization software, performance will be inherently slower than if there was no virtualization layer. In this case XP is running over top of OSX. Assuming identical hardware, I'm pretty sure that running Photoslop ( like that one :-) ) on XP in Parallels on top of OSX would be much slower than running Photoslop in XP without a virtualization layer. I'd be even willing to bet that it is slower than running Photoslop in OSX under Rosetta (which is in effect a virtualization layer as well - but not virtualizing an entire operating system).

Just my 2 cents.

[John Brownlow]

The overhead in Parallels is supposed to be of the order of 2%, which would make it much faster than running under Rosetta.

Your 2 cents are over-valued.

[Thomas Papa]

Was in the local Apple Store looking at a quad G5. Word is that the MacIntels are much faster and Adobe is likely to be out with CS3 for the MacIntel late this year or early fall, but before MacWorld. Looking at some very intense plug in for CS2 sold under the name Tone Mapping on another web site, the quad G5 was fast but not blazing. You could see the frames being build on a 200mb file. As most of you know the sales people in these stores are picked from the Apple Users and the Photoshop guy winked and nodded when asked if it would be better to wait for the Quad MacIntel. The killer is the ECC Ram cost per gigabyte.

[adrian tyler]

how fast does microsoft turd run on it?

[Dominique Labrosse]

John,

I'm sorry to have presumed Parallels' inneficiency. From the preliminary benchmarks it looks like Parallels outperforms Rosetta, but not XP running natively. Not sure where you found your 2% number though, the only numbers I could find show a difference of 19% in favour of the native or "Boot Camp" version of XP in the performance of a specific Photoshop filter. Yes I know this is not a reliable benchmark, but it was the only one I could find after a quick web search.

Source: MacWorld's article http://www.macworld.com/2006/04/firstlooks/parallelsfl/index.php

It seems that as long as the hardware in question supports Intel's Virtualization Technology then "near native" performance is claimed by Parallels. The Mac Mini tested in the article above may not have hardware support for Intel's Virtualization Technology (though the MacBook Pro and iMac are claimed to support it). Meaning that the MacBook Pro would be more efficient at virtualizing XP than the Mini tested in the link above. However the term "near native" sounds very subjective to me. My experience using VMware virtual machines at work on my IBM dual core office PC to run Windows on Windows (this is to allow InDesign ME and InDesign CS2 to co-exist on the same machine) has shown adequate but underwhelming performance. So please excuse my suspicion until I actually see virtualized Windows performing "near natively" on a Mac running OSX for myself.

Regards,

[John Flavell]

And then, of course, there's Apple's Aperture, which is now 'universal'. It'll run on both Power PCs and the intel Macs.

The problem wtih Adobe going slow with a new version of Photo Shop will, I'm sure, be solved by market forces. This discussion will be pretty much moot in about three months and we''ll all go back to being frineds again. We sure get grouchy when we're impatient.

[Al D]

Too bad Apple doesn't really get it and chuck the Mach kernel in OS X for a Linux kernel...

[John Sarsgard]

I think the kernel in OS X is from Unix.

[Marko]

Yes, it is actually a variant of BSD Unix.

[otzi]

Photoslop is correct, not a typo! !!!!

Is'nt it intersting that Photoslop has entered the lexicon *after* the advent of digital imaging. Hmmm.

I have my head down but I'll maintain the right to use "photography" for emoltion based processes.