Mac Pro / CS2

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Has ANYBODY managed to get CS2 to run reliably on a Mac Pro?
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 28
    All day long.
  • Reply 2 of 28
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    Has ANYBODY managed to get CS2 to run reliably on a Mac Pro?



    It works fine on my MacBook Pro, but Mac Pro, I dunno.
  • Reply 3 of 28
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Yes.



    It works perfectly.
  • Reply 4 of 28
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Which build of the OS are you guys running?



    Which version of InDesign are you running?



    Are the numericals okay? Do the apps ever crash on you?



    And finally ; ) how much RAM do you guys have installed...?
  • Reply 5 of 28
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    Which build of the OS are you guys running?



    Which version of InDesign are you running?



    Are the numericals okay? Do the apps ever crash on you?



    And finally ; ) how much RAM do you guys have installed...?



    I'm running CS and CS2 on 10.4.8 with 4GB RAM in a Mac Pro 2.66. The numerical problem is fixed in 10.4.8 and I've never had a crash with any CS/CS2 app, even before 10.4.8.
  • Reply 6 of 28
    dmzdmz Posts: 5,775member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    Has ANYBODY managed to get CS2 to run reliably on a Mac Pro?



    Yes, for nice little Kindergarten Indesign layouts -- step out of line, however -- and 'th man come and take you away.



    For the simple stuff, rosetta is fine, but it has it's limits.



    Only 1G of RAM, though (only untill Apple stops delaying my memory order.)
  • Reply 7 of 28
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dmz


    Yes, for nice little Kindergarten Indesign layouts -- step out of line, however -- and 'th man come and take you away.



    For the simple stuff, rosetta is fine, but it has it's limits.



    Yup!



    That has been my experience.



    I just wanted to see if the machine I had (and returned) was maybe a bit of a lemon, or if this is a problem with all Mac Pros.



    For some reason, the iMacs can handle even the most complicated InDesign files without falling over... but my Mac Pro would constantly keel over.
  • Reply 8 of 28
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scout7id


    I'm running CS and CS2 on 10.4.8 with 4GB RAM in a Mac Pro 2.66. The numerical problem is fixed in 10.4.8 and I've never had a crash with any CS/CS2 app, even before 10.4.8.



    Thanks for the feedback, guys.



    I never had a CS2 app crash on me until I attempted to run them on a Mac Pro. In fact, I can't remember the last time any app quit on me prior to owning a Mac Pro.



    I'm glad to hear that ..8 has fixed the numerical problems though...
  • Reply 9 of 28
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,322moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    For some reason, the iMacs can handle even the most complicated InDesign files without falling over... but my Mac Pro would constantly keel over.



    That hasn't been the experience where I work. Indesign behaves the worst on the iMacs there. It crashes quite a lot and will slow down for no reason. The documents are quite complex but still, the whole CS2 suite is being a PITA. I'm personally running Photoshop CS2 under Parallels because I'm so fed up with it and I've noticed that Windows Photoshop is about twice as fast at running filters under Parallels as Photoshop under Rosetta and that's comparing an Intel iMac with 2GB Ram to Parallels on a Mac Mini with 1GB Ram where Parallels gets 384MB Ram. On big images that would change but Rosetta is still pretty bad.



    The graphics designers at work can't really do that because of all the fonts they have but it's getting very annoying. CS3 is not offering much hope being so far away because there will be a lot of projects needing done between now and then and with apps crashing randomly, it's not good. Right now would be the perfect time for a competitor to come in but Adobe's so big now, I don't think anyone can compete.



    Out of interest, has anyone bought an Intel Mac and then decided to use Windows on it via Bootcamp until the high end suites become native? I'd be willing to bet that some people have done that.
  • Reply 10 of 28
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    The Mac Pro does have the threaded OpenGL loaded on it - I wonder if that is what is causing the problems. Rosetta trying to translate threaded GPU stuff... getting out of whack with the timing and all.
  • Reply 11 of 28
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy


    The Mac Pro does have the threaded OpenGL loaded on it - I wonder if that is what is causing the problems. Rosetta trying to translate threaded GPU stuff... getting out of whack with the timing and all.



    I thought ..8 introduced threaded OpenGL to all Macs?



    I had the chance to test a new iMac and a Mac Pro side by side a few weeks ago. I was returning a Mac Pro that I was unhappy with, and checking that an iMac was up to scratch. I selected an InDesign document that was giving me grief on the Mac Pro, and opened it up side-by-side on both machines. When switching to 'Display Performance' to 'High Quality Display' it took the iMac a few seconds to pull in the linked logos; but it took the Mac Pro a few minutes before it simply crashed. Upgrading the Mac Pro's memory from 1GB to 2GB actually slowed it down, and it took a few more minutes before it crashed. Everybody agreed that the iMac was noticably faster.



    I was reading an interesting review of the Mac Pro on www.anandtech.com and they mentioned that the processor found in the Mac Pro (Xeon) and the processor found in the iMac (Core 2 Duo) are one-in-the-same ? but the Xeon demands the use of FB-DIMMs.



    The review highlighted concerns about the negative impact that FB-DIMMs had on performance. Factor-in the cost of this expensive (effectively proprietary) memory and I can't understand why Apple would go down this route. Mac Pro users are having to pay over the odds for a slower technology. The more I learn about FB-DIMMs, the more they remind me of Rambus. Will FB-DIMMs be another Intel dead-end?



    How come the G5 Quad could support 16GB of memory via standard DIMMs and the Mac Pro can't?
  • Reply 12 of 28
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    I thought ..8 introduced threaded OpenGL to all Macs?



    Yep. Mac Pros shipped with a later build of 10.4.7 with the feature; 10.4.8 then introduced it to other Macs.
  • Reply 13 of 28
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chucker


    Yep. Mac Pros shipped with a later build of 10.4.7 with the feature; 10.4.8 then introduced it to other Macs.



    So it can't be threaded OpenGL that's causing the problems?
  • Reply 14 of 28
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Hmmm. I guess not.
  • Reply 15 of 28
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    I can't understand why some people are saying it works 'all day long' and others are reporting that it crashes several times a day.



    What's the differentiating factor?
  • Reply 16 of 28
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    I thought ..8 introduced threaded OpenGL to all Macs?



    I had the chance to test a new iMac and a Mac Pro side by side a few weeks ago. I was returning a Mac Pro that I was unhappy with, and checking that an iMac was up to scratch. I selected an InDesign document that was giving me grief on the Mac Pro, and opened it up side-by-side on both machines. When switching to 'Display Performance' to 'High Quality Display' it took the iMac a few seconds to pull in the linked logos; but it took the Mac Pro a few minutes before it simply crashed. Upgrading the Mac Pro's memory from 1GB to 2GB actually slowed it down, and it took a few more minutes before it crashed. Everybody agreed that the iMac was noticably faster.



    I was reading an interesting review of the Mac Pro on www.anandtech.com and they mentioned that the processor found in the Mac Pro (Xeon) and the processor found in the iMac (Core 2 Duo) are one-in-the-same ? but the Xeon demands the use of FB-DIMMs.



    The review highlighted concerns about the negative impact that FB-DIMMs had on performance. Factor-in the cost of this expensive (effectively proprietary) memory and I can't understand why Apple would go down this route. Mac Pro users are having to pay over the odds for a slower technology. The more I learn about FB-DIMMs, the more they remind me of Rambus. Will FB-DIMMs be another Intel dead-end?



    How come the G5 Quad could support 16GB of memory via standard DIMMs and the Mac Pro can't?



    They might be, but keep in mind that FB-DIMMs are designed for servers: in other words, they practically eliminate errors. That's why they're a little bit slower/hotter.



    Furthermore, yes, both the Merom and the Xeon are Core 2 Duo chips. The Xeon has loads more caching, I believe more bandwidth, and can be clocked much higher.
  • Reply 17 of 28
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    I can't understand why some people are saying it works 'all day long' and others are reporting that it crashes several times a day.



    What's the differentiating factor?



    Random quirks in Rosetta. I'm now (and suddenly) fighting a bug where Photoshop crashes every time it opens a file browser. I tried deleting it's Preferences, which worked once, but not anymore.



    To get anything done, I have to duplicate an existing Photoshop file in the Finder, open that, and make sure I only use Save, and not Save As... Thank god Save to Web still works.
  • Reply 18 of 28
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Can anybody who is able to run CS2 on a Mac Pro open a file for me?
  • Reply 19 of 28
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    Can anybody who is able to run CS2 on a Mac Pro open a file for me?



    be more specific - but probably yes.
  • Reply 20 of 28
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah


    Can anybody who is able to run CS2 on a Mac Pro open a file for me?



    How big is it? If it's not more than 10MB, IM me and I'll give you my dotmac address.
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