Photoshop CS5 for MAC

[Marko]

In a nutshell, that's exactly right. Your Mac is one of the models with a 32-bit EFI firmware, which means that you cannot boot into a 64-bit kernel.

The main reason why they did that is most likely to prevent incompatibilities with the chipset used on their logic board at that time, similar to the early 32/16 bit Intel processors on PCs way back.

But there were also some models that actually had a 64-bit EFI but were still configured to boot into a 32-bit kernel by default. You can find out which one is yours by typing the following into your Terminal:

ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

It will return the following:

| | "firmware-abi" = <"EFIxx">

xx will be either 32 or 64, which is self-explanatory.

If it turns out to be a 64, you can try forcing a 64-bit boot by holding "6" and "4" keys simultaneously while booting. Once up, go to Apple Menu > About this Mac > More Info... then Left Sidebar > Software. Entry "64-bit Kernel and Extensions" should say "yes".

Hope this makes sense.

Marko

[Marko]

One more comment - even if you do manage to boot into the 64-bit kernel, you will need at least 8 GB of RAM to really see any advantage of it. This would make the effort largely an academic one on your current machine.

[8x10 user]

That is interesting regarding the speed increase of CS5, it probably does have to do with the 64-bit migration.

I do try to make CS3 (my current version) do some pretty tough things. I have to use an older duel core G5 since the quad core will crash on anything more then simple simple stuff. Some of the filters / single operations that I have done in the past took maybe 3-4 hours or more to complete! As a "power" user who wants to maximize his productivity a faster customized computer might make more sense. Ideally I would like to be able to do everything in photoshop in real time. For a lighter more occasional user it is very possible that the newer macs offer enough performance with less maintenance and a more "user friendly" operating system.

I'm still POed about my experience with the Mac G5 but maybe I went a little overboard with my venting by posting here. My apologies to everyone if I distracted from the subject of the thread.

I don't know that the latest processor speed increases actually result in a practical improvement. My 8 core Mac, memory loaded with a competent video card never asks me to wait for anything. I'm use a fair number of the filters and other plugin's.

What was a "little" pokey, is faster in CS5 which apparently runs 64 bit native (an assumption).

I see no reason to upgrade for years the way this is working. I'm scanning 4x5 (color) and 8x10 (B&W) in 16 bit btw.

bob

[PenGun]

I own a video production shop and my experience is just the opposite. Most of our computers are used for video rendering. For some projects the bnox is running 100% on all cores for a month at a time.

About half of out equipment is Mac pro and the other is PC with roughly the same specs. Macs are not more expensive that the PC equivalent.

Anyway to the point, we over time have lost virtually every PC, typically due to processor cooling issues and power supplys. No mac has died in 3 years and we pull the old 4 cores out to be replaced with newer units. The only Mac I've lost in 3 years was a HD on a Imac used in the office.

I'm a fan.

Kinda funny, we ran Win 64 on the Mac's as the software from the "flash" company was 64 in Win and 32 in Mac. It made a difference.

I'm using a pulled "from production" 8 core Mac Pro with the new CS5 and it frikin' screams.

bob

Interesting. I certainly am able to find much cheaper and frankly much better solutions in a PC than from Apple. It's a bad time for Mac hardware, there is nothing to compete with quite cheap and very powerful i5/i7 PC solutions. What is Win 64 BTW?

Just to illustrate the hardware gap. An i7-980X in a decent mobo with 12 G RAM,, twice the Mac Pro, will be about $2000, with a decent video card even, not available on a Mac. It will do anything that Mac Pro can, many things considerably faster. Two in a Tyan dual processor board would be monsterous for $1200 more, approaching the price of a Mac Pro here . You can have a Thuban machine for a lot less money but not quite the ridiculous number of threads.

Ahh hardware my true love. There is so much wonderful stuff these days.

Here's a small bit of advice. Get some decently made PCs with nice power supplies and good cooling. Your present PC vendor/builder is obviously less than stellar.

You can test a new box with prime. I use mprime for Linux but there are ports for everybody. Should reveal any cooling or power supply problems pretty quick. I use it to 'prove' a new machine.

[Marko]

Interesting. I certainly am able to find much cheaper and frankly much better solutions in a PC than from Apple. It's a bad time for Mac hardware, there is nothing to compete with quite cheap and very powerful i5/i7 PC solutions.

Good for you. Go get one. Or a dozen cheap ones for all I care. Cheap computers are every bit as bad as cheap wine, if not worse.

But... "bad time for Mac hardware"??? Dude, read the news!

Which part of "Mac sales up 39% year over year" or "on track to beat Wall Street expectations for the June quarter" don't you understand?

Or the iPad being sold out over large areas?

Not to mention "Apple closes the revenue, income gap with Microsoft to just $1 billion".

Bad time for Mac hardware? Come on, it's so ridiculous it's not even funny...

[PenGun]

Good for you. Go get one. Or a dozen cheap ones for all I care. Cheap computers are every bit as bad as cheap wine, if not worse.

But... "bad time for Mac hardware"??? Dude, read the news!

Which part of "Mac sales up 39% year over year" or "on track to beat Wall Street expectations for the June quarter" don't you understand?

Or the iPad being sold out over large areas?

Not to mention "Apple closes the revenue, income gap with Microsoft to just $1 billion".

Bad time for Mac hardware? Come on, it's so ridiculous it's not even funny...

Yeah the gadgets are flying off the shelves. The computer stuff however is not doing so well. Certainly the hardware is falling behind the PC stuff quite fast. As the Mac premium applys you now get an underpowered machine with a premium price. Any good i7 machine and there are many now will smoke the Mac Pro Quad. Some by a lot. Once you get into tweaking the beasts, which requires bulletproof hardware BTW you can achieve some multiples of Mac Pro Quad performance. For much much cheaper.

As I said it's not a good time for Mac hardware. Obviously I was talking about computers, you have read the thread I presume.

My cheap POS rebuild will smoke all known Macs except in a heavy thread environment. Not surprising, i built it for speed, not rendering. I run prime on it to prove it. Lets see some Macs surviving 24 hrs of prime. That really is the test of a machine.

I build my own and others machines as all the vendors want to sell me crap. Apple is no exception no matter how hard you believe.

[Vaughn]

Okay, what did I buy...

iMac 21.5", OS 10.6.1, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 duo, 4 GB DRAM, and a Tbit hard drive

My soon-to-be ex is keeping the computer, so I had to go buy something, and being on staff at a university has a couple of perks. Will be getting PhotoShop CS5 in a couple weeks -- when the bookstore gets it in.

Now I am a PhotoShop weenie, but will be trying to learn how to use it. I don't know the difference between 32 and 64 bit, but I will figure it out as I go.

Did I buy the right machine? (Edit -- the right machine for someone who can/will not dig into the insides of a computer).

Vaughn

PS -- it has a ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDRS memory that the folks in the bookstore oohed and aahed about.

PS#2 -- I can install up to a total of 16 DRAM. Would I ever need that much?!

[Marko]

Yeah the gadgets are flying off the shelves. The computer stuff however is not doing so well. Certainly the hardware is falling behind the PC stuff quite fast. As the Mac premium applys you now get an underpowered machine with a premium price. Any good i7 machine and there are many now will smoke the Mac Pro Quad. Some by a lot. Once you get into tweaking the beasts, which requires bulletproof hardware BTW you can achieve some multiples of Mac Pro Quad performance. For much much cheaper.

As I said it's not a good time for Mac hardware. Obviously I was talking about computers, you have read the thread I presume.

My cheap POS rebuild will smoke all known Macs except in a heavy thread environment. Not surprising, i built it for speed, not rendering. I run prime on it to prove it. Lets see some Macs surviving 24 hrs of prime. That really is the test of a machine.

I build my own and others machines as all the vendors want to sell me crap. Apple is no exception no matter how hard you believe.

Well, either your PC is too fast for your reading skills OR all that smoke obscures the content but if you bothered to actually read the first quote you would have noticed that it's actually Mac computers that are up 39% over last year. Show me a PC vendor that's even positive, much less close to these figures.

As for the rest, I'm way past the age when I used my computers to run benchmarks or games. These days, I use them mostly for business and then for some fun, such as photography. I don't really care about all that smoke nor do I need any tweaking.

My computers just work. Right out of the box. The way they are supposed to.

And this is a thread about new Photoshop on a Mac. So perhaps you could take all this smoke and mirrors elsewhere? The Lounge strikes me as a perfectly good place, if you must do it here...

[Marko]

Okay, what did I buy...

iMac 21.5", OS 10.6.1, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 duo, 4 GB DRAM, and a Tbit hard drive

My soon-to-be ex is keeping the computer, so I had to go buy something, and being on staff at a university has a couple of perks. Will be getting PhotoShop CS5 in a couple weeks -- when the bookstore gets it in.

Now I am a PhotoShop weenie, but will be trying to learn how to use it. I don't know the difference between 32 and 64 bit, but I will figure it out as I go.

Did I buy the right machine?

Vaughn

PS -- it has a ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor with 256MB of GDDRS memory that the folks in the bookstore oohed and aahed about.

You'll be fine with it for quite some time. The only thing I would really suggest is to up the memory to 8 MB. If you go third party, you could have additional 4 GB for about $100 and then build it in yourself. It's really easy and the instructions can be easily found on the internet.

8GB is the practical minimum if you want to go 64-bit, and given that both your computer and CS5 are 64-bit native, there is simply no reason you woudn't want to.

While at it, I would also highly recommend to get a pair of external 1TB hard drives and set up a proper dual-copy backup. Cheap insurance.

[PenGun]

For Vaughn

Sure. Those Radeons are actually pretty good for an onboard card. The on chip memory keeps them from using your RAM which can be a problem with some on board VGA solutions.

Faster core duo and 4 G RAM , good photoshop machine