Trying out CS4 and a suggestion to Adobe.

JP
Posted By
john_passaneau
Nov 17, 2008
Views
287
Replies
6
Status
Closed
Hi all:
I’ve been trying out CS4 while waiting for it to come in at the University computer store.
At work on my new Dell Optiplex 755 with 4gig of memory, it flies! At home with my old Gateway and HP laptop, not so good. The openGL stuff doesn’t work on either one. The video card in the Gateway is an ATI 550 with 250meg of memory and the latest drivers I could find. It claims to have openGL 2.0 but it doesn’t work.I found a bit of software on the web that checks to see if your video is suitable for a video game. It claims that my system has openGL 2.0 and should work with the published spec’s for CS4 but it doesn’t work. This all reminds me of the early days of personal computing with the compatibility wars were manufactures fought over who was most compatible and if the software didn’t run it was the hardware’s fault not theirs.
My suggestion is for Adobe to make a video test tool that users could use to validate their video hardware and software. I would like to buy a new laptop for use with CS4. But it is hard to tell looking at the spec’s for laptops if they will work. If I had this tool on a thumb drive it would be easy to check.
All in all I’ve spent more time with software and hardware problems affecting Photoshop than I’ve spent on any other programs. As an engineer I use some powerful and complex software, and none of it is as fussy as Photoshop is.

John Passaneau
Physics Electronics Shop
Penn State University
Related Tags
suggest try

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

JT
John_T_Smith
Nov 17, 2008
This is not Adobe support, it is a user to user discussion area

To tell Adobe what you would like
<http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform>
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Nov 17, 2008
John, you also pay more for the good stuff, like National Instruments VI.
G
gowanoh
Nov 17, 2008
Photoshop is no more fussy than the OS it runs on, particularly the abomination that is Vista (the Mac OS is hardly any better). If you were to say CS3 was a bug-ridden application that was never fixed by Adobe I might agree.
The truth is that the GPU processing in CS4 is a great idea but underwhelming in everyday use. If you have been using CS3 with a fast processor and adequate RAM the real world differences are barely noticeable. I have read that Adobe is limited because of a lack of uniform software protocols to access ATI vs Nvidia GPUs: a little bribe to Adobe might help one company’s marketing efforts over another, and since Mac desktops mostly ship with ancient bottom of the barrel ATI videocards anyway . . .
M
Mylenium
Nov 17, 2008
My suggestion is for Adobe to make a video test tool that users could use to validate their video hardware and software

Well, see it that way: The trial is your testing tool. As your failed attempts with that game-centric tool more than eloquently prove, there’s a fundamental difference between an abstract capabilities test and using features in a practical implementation. Come to think of it, any testing tool that would provide a maximum breadth of possible scenarios would probably be quite complex in itself, drawing resources from fixing stuff in the programs themselves. I know it’s a bitch, but consider that vendors of other programs face the same situation. It may look smooth on the surface, but from personal involvement I know that even e.g. in 3D programs sometimes programmers will implement a specific workaround for only a given graphics card or series of cards that does not comply to the (theoretically) unified standards of OpenGL. It’s not much different for Adobe, for sure. At best, one could argue that they had all the money to buy every card and test it, but even that doesn’t hold true. In a way, that race has long been lost, as sad as it is…

Mylenium
JP
john_passaneau
Nov 18, 2008
wrote:
John, you also pay more for the good stuff, like National Instruments VI.
I have VI and it’s allot more than Photoshop, but I think that Photoshop out sells VI by 100 to one, and by that should cost less than VI. The analogy doesn’t fit me thinks.

John Passaneau
JP
john_passaneau
Nov 18, 2008
Hi Myelnium:

You didn’t think about what I wanted the tool for. How can I take the trial version of Photoshop to the computer store to see if the video in the laptop I would like to buy supports the openGL requirements of Photoshop? The software tool I had was for one just that game and I would bet that the game would run just fine on my system. What we need is a software tool just for Photoshop not a universal tool. This is a sea change for Photoshop as never before was the video card very important to the operation of the program. Just look at all the messages from people having problems. It is only going to get worse with future releases from Adobe as I believe they will make greater use of the power of the modern video cards.

John Passaneau

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections