Mac OS slower than Windows XP

[rkdiddy]

I'm (relatively) new to Apple. I do web/graphic design and in the past always used a PC.

I recently switched over to a MBP and I'm a little disappointed in the speed in which the Adobe suite loads on the Mac OS.

Don't get me wrong I still love my MBP - just a little unsure how a newer MBP with 4 gigs of ram, 7200 rpm hardrive, etc loads slower (gets beach ball occasionally) than my 4 year old Dell XPS210 PC.

 

[spinnerlys]

What part of the Adobe Suite do you mean?

On my MBP (the same as yours), PS loads in 10 seconds flat when not started before.
A 15MB RAW image takes 5 seconds to load into Camera RAW and then again 5 seconds if I open it finally.

Also I don't get beach balls at all with PS, but other software like Safari sometimes.

Have you looked into Activity Monitor, what process might eat up your CPU?
Don't forget to Show All Processes.

 

[MeWhOeLsE]

You do have the 9600 enabled? not the default 9400

 

[rkdiddy]

I will check my activity manager when I get home.

I will also check the 9600 - you turn that on as a system profile of better performance, right?

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes.
System Preferences > Energy Saver > Better Performance

 

[ViciousShadow21]

the graphics card shouldnt matter. PS opens for me in about 4 seconds with both graphics cards. i use photoshop pretty heavily and have never had a problem with the 9400 graphics card. obviously the 9600 is faster but i dont get beachballs with the 9400.

 

[barkmonster]

I'm (relatively) new to Apple. I do web/graphic design and in the past always used a PC.

I recently switched over to a MBP and I'm a little disappointed in the speed in which the Adobe suite loads on the Mac OS.

Don't get me wrong I still love my MBP - just a little unsure how a newer MBP with 4 gigs of ram, 7200 rpm hardrive, etc loads slower (gets beach ball occasionally) than my 4 year old Dell XPS210 PC.

You can't expect a laptop hard drive to perform as well as a desktop hard drive. You also can't imagine how much slower Adobe apps load with each version. If you were going from an early CS version to one from 3 or above, blame adobe's bloat ware, not apple. No GPU settings will make you're apps load faster.

Installing an intel X-25 as your internal drive would make it scream though.

http://barefeats.com/mbpp08.html

and if you had 2 of them raided together with the "optibay"

http://barefeats.com/mbpp13.html

I know they don't show application launch times but they're an indication of how much faster SSDs are than laptop drives. That's the only way you're going to get desktop or better performance out of a 2.5" laptop drive.

 

[goMac]

If you're using CS2 or older, it's going to load extremely slowly, because it has to run in an emulator.

 

[atheros07]

How long exactly is it taking to load? On my UMBP, Adobe Photoshop CS4 takes about 11 seconds to load if you haven't started it up in some time, or 4 seconds to load if you've recently used it and it's still in the Mac's memory.

 

[TXBDan]

I just tried for kicks. It took my early '08 2.4ghz 4gigs for ram 14-15 seconds to load PS CS4. I haven't run it since my last reboot yesterday and i also have a WindowsXP VMware session going thats using 1gig of RAM.

I often run PS CS4 and Lightroom 2.3 at the same time and i've never seen a beachball. Runs darn well imo.

 

[mikes70mustang]

I'm (relatively) new to Apple. I do web/graphic design and in the past always used a PC.

I recently switched over to a MBP and I'm a little disappointed in the speed in which the Adobe suite loads on the Mac OS.

Don't get me wrong I still love my MBP - just a little unsure how a newer MBP with 4 gigs of ram, 7200 rpm hardrive, etc loads slower (gets beach ball occasionally) than my 4 year old Dell XPS210 PC.

relatively new yet lurking on MR for over a year?

 

[rkdiddy]

Ok, so I'm reporting back.

Switched the profile to performance.

CS3-PS: 11 seconds
CS3-Ill: 21 seconds
CS3-DW: 11 seconds

I'm guessing it might be due to bloatware as suggested - my PC is running CS2.

Thanks for everyone's help!

 

[rkdiddy]

relatively new yet lurking on MR for over a year?

Really?

I'm sure I'm not the only one that researches my purchases prior to purchasing.

 

[mikes70mustang]

Really?

I'm sure I'm not the only one that researches my purchases prior to purchasing.

im glad i never happend upon this site before buying. b/c of negative vibe and seeing all the defective apple posts. i would have been dissuaded from buying lol. But valid point, i realized that right after posting, but let it lie because.....didnt feel like editing

 

[TXBDan]

Ok, so I'm reporting back.

Switched the profile to performance.

CS3-PS: 11 seconds
CS3-Ill: 21 seconds
CS3-DW: 11 seconds

I'm guessing it might be due to bloatware as suggested - my PC is running CS2.

Thanks for everyone's help!

Without a doubt. CS2 is much leaner and meaner than CS4. Well maybe not meaner actually, but it is leaner.