Next Version of Photoshop to be GPU-Accelerated

[iris_failsafe]

This is when Adobe will screw Mac people I bet it will be accelerated with Direct X instead of using Open GL, and they will probably ship the mac version un accelerated and only in a 32 bits flavour...


I think is time Apple start plans on their own, or buy Adobe!

 

[ckurowic]

These are mid-range graphics for "the rest of us"....

Mid-range? Last time I heard about GPGPU's the prices were multi-thousands.

 

[winterspan]

Since it is clear that a good portion of commenters here DON'T READ THE ACTUAL THREAD BEFORE POSTING, let me say again that a lot of this information has been debunked by the Adobe engineer of the project, such as he never mentioned a release date for a future version of Photoshop, he never said that any of this GPU enhanced functionality will actually be in ANY Adobe project, etc. So we don't really even know what IS true.

You can find the adobe employee's blog posting here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/05/oct_1.html

Mid-range? Last time I heard about GPGPU's the prices were multi-thousands.

this was brought up earlier in the thread and answered. But here it is again:

"There is no such thing as a "GPGPU". GPGPU is just an umbrella term for using graphic card processors to perform calculations outside of their native domain, i.e. 3D graphics processing. Nvidia does sell special graphic cards without DVI ports that are dedicated to GPGPU type calculations, but their GPGPU code library and SDK, called "CUDA" (Compute Unified Device Architecture), is able to run on ANY Geforce 8-series card (or newer) or it's equivalent professional Quadro card. The lowest 8 series card Apple uses is the Geforce 8400, which retails for about $75."

This is when Adobe will screw Mac people I bet it will be accelerated with Direct X instead of using Open GL, and they will probably ship the mac version un accelerated and only in a 32 bits flavour...

Again, most of the facts provided by the original Tgdaily.com post have been said to be false straight from the Adobe engineer that gave the presentation. That said, TGdaily reported that Adobe's GPGPU technology was based on nVidia's CUDA system. CUDA is a c-like programming language extension that allows arbitrary code to be offloaded to the GPU for processing. This completely bypasses the graphic APIs like DirectX or OpenGL.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Its not how powerful the graphic system is - it's how much the os drives it. For example, the x3100 can so open gl 2.0, but apple only supports 1.2. Until apple gets with the program, its pointless to say how powerful/good the graphics system is.

What the hell are you talking about?

Leopard is OpenGL 2.x ready.

Tiger isn't.

Intel X48 is the latest. The x3100 was a stop-gap.

http://www.intel.com/cd/products/services/emea/eng/chipsets/387228.htm

The X3100 will be replaced soon.

 

[chaosbunny]

While not exclusively related to this thread, I have to say I don't like this type of posts that appear rather often: "zomg you use macbook and not mac pro with 32 gb ram you no professional".

1. It doesn't depend on your machine how good a designer you are. Whatever gets YOUR job done is fine.

2. Designer is not equal to designer. One may do huge billboards with 1-2 gb file size rather often, another may do web design at 72 ppi and the biggest photoshop file is like 50 mb. One may use a mac pro, the other won't see a difference between a mac pro and a mac mini.

These are just extreme examples but I guess you know what I mean.

 

[arthurchanny]

I WILL need a MBP to run that haha

 

[rhett7660]

If Adobe doesn't do 64bit for the Mac on the next version, I know it has been said that they won't, but one never knows. I will wait till the next version after that.

I just purchased the lastest CS3 and that can hold me over for a couple of years.

 

[Shadow]

We do not need to always have the latest version.

Skip a version or two. Had Apple not drop support, you may have been stuck in carbon for another 12 years.

I think it is a shame that these guys waited until now to start thinking about Cocoa. It has been several years since the intel switch and now they tell us that it will be here in 2 more versions (CS5). Somehow I just do not feel the love.

This change will occur late on 2009 or some time in 2010. For a company that started in the Mac world, they seem to prefer doing windows development more.

As to graphic cards .... There is nothing in the wind that says that MacBooks and Minis will ever have a dedicated graphic card. That is the main differentiation between a PRO and the consumer version. Could happen but I would not hold my breath.

Aperture and new Apperture plug-ins are a combination that may help in the mean time.

You sir, have won an internet.

Apple did us a great favor by forcing Adobe to rewrite CS.

 

[chewietobbacca]

This move towards making GPU's more GPGPU has been coming a long time. Nvidia saying that the CPU was dead, ATI moving to integrate GPU's with AMD CPU's, and Intel now playing for the discrete GPU market.

And yes, all this GPGPU thing is based on CUDA. In fact, Folding@Home will be available for CUDA-enabled GPU's IIRC soon.

All this is coming on the heels of Nvidia's next gen GPU: GT200. Supposedly its performance will be to the G80 what the G80 was to the G71

However, knowing Apple, this won't be available until its refresh so until then, PC users will have a big advantage in CUDA enabled programs (the rumored specs include 240 shaders, fixed MUL commands for true 2MADD+MUL per shader, and total 933 GFlops power)

 

[ltcol266845]

Souunds awesome to me! Gotta put that video card to good use!

But yeah, I think their release date of October is crap. CS3 JUST came out!

 

[viperguy]

Ooops.. looks like the update to the news doesn't confirm neither the early release date and the possible GPU acceleration feature
LoL..

 

[katorga]

XP was always sluggish and crappy regardless of the computer you have because it uses the CPU for all GUI stuff.

That is absolutely not true. Video cards have included 2D GUI acceleration since the mid 1990's, and the windows interface used the cards for acceleration. Ditto for the Mac when you used the high end nubus graphics cards back in the day.

What I have noticed in Vista is that the aero interface keeps the GPU in 3D mode and keeps powermizer from kicking in, killing battery life on a laptop. It also still consumes 8-12% CPU just moving a window around. It is a resource hog compared to Compiz on Linux or Core Image on a mac (which do exactly the same thing).

 

[koobcamuk]

Adobe said somewhere that they intend to make more regular updates, perhaps even yearly, to their lineup. So this could be very cool expensive.

If they lowered the price a notch it would be more appealing to me. After forking out for CS3, I think I'll wait until CS5 and 64-bit goodness. My images handle nicely as it is (for my purposes).

 

[winterspan]

....But yeah, I think their release date of October is crap. CS3 JUST came out!

For god sakes, read the thread. Not only has it been mentioned 3 times in this thread, it is now even on the article itself that most of the info from TGdaily.com is B.S., including the October release date. The actual Adobe presentation said absolutely NOTHING about any release date of any product, nor did they actually say that the GPGPU technology would be included in a future version of photoshop. Apparently, the journalist that wrote the TGdaily article is either a complete moron, was inadvertently misled, or both.

This move towards making GPU's more GPGPU has been coming a long time. Nvidia saying that the CPU was dead, ATI moving to integrate GPU's with AMD CPU's, and Intel now playing for the discrete GPU market.

And yes, all this GPGPU thing is based on CUDA. In fact, Folding@Home will be available for CUDA-enabled GPU's IIRC soon.

All this is coming on the heels of Nvidia's next gen GPU: GT200. Supposedly its performance will be to the G80 what the G80 was to the G71

However, knowing Apple, this won't be available until its refresh so until then, PC users will have a big advantage in CUDA enabled programs (the rumored specs include 240 shaders, fixed MUL commands for true 2MADD+MUL per shader, and total 933 GFlops power)

Yep! They are saying that on GT200, the stream processors/shaders are 50% more efficient than on G80. So that 240-shader beast should run like it has ~360 of the older G80 shaders! That is INSANE! I'm not a big gamer, but I like to dabble in 3D animation and simulations. And being a developer, I can't wait to learn how to use the 'CUDA' API for offloading parallel computations.

For people that are wondering what applications will benefit from GPGPU/CUDA tech, think of the types of floating-point heavy applications that benefit from multi-core processing.

- HPC "high-performance computing", Supercomputer applications, Grid computing
- Raytracing, global illumination, and other professional 3D rendering.
- Digital Image processing, biometric recognition, computer vision science
- Video encoding, decoding, editing, compositing, effects rendering, iDCT/IQ
- Audio encoding, editing, compositing, effects rendering
- Digital and Analog signal processing, Speech processing
- Scientific computation and scientific simulations
- Neural networks and Artificial intelligence
- Weather forecasting and simulations
- Molecular dynamics and Biological mechanism simulations
- Oil and Gas industry geology simulations
- Computational Finance / Financial forecasting
- Cryptography

For the average user, they will see vastly-increased MP3 encoding, DVD-ripping, MPEG-4/H264 video encoding, home video editing and effects, digital image editing, etc

That is absolutely not true. Video cards have included 2D GUI acceleration since the mid 1990's, and the windows interface used the cards for acceleration. Ditto for the Mac when you used the high end nubus graphics cards back in the day.

What I have noticed in Vista is that the aero interface keeps the GPU in 3D mode and keeps powermizer from kicking in, killing battery life on a laptop. It also still consumes 8-12% CPU just moving a window around. It is a resource hog compared to Compiz on Linux or Core Image on a mac (which do exactly the same thing).

Yes, "Aero" is a totally pathetic attempt at a polished and 3D accelerated GUI. You can run Quartz in OSX and compiz on Ubuntu with even 3-4 yr old machines with no problem -- especially Compiz. Comparatively, Aero on Vista is incredibly resource hungry and bloated to all hell. I couldn't believe how it was taxing my Quadro 1500M in my laptop. I can get MUCH better battery life with compiz on in Unbuntu than Aero on Vista.

 

[stephenli]

There are two types of graphic designers:
1. Trial and Error; or
2. Visionary and the minimal steps to obtain it.
Which one are you?

both.
but for such file size, i would make a low res for trial and layout before I actually work on the crazy large file, and I suppose nobody will use such size for trail and error...

GPU accleration. well. would apple please remove Intel GMA.
I can see no benefit on Mini / Macbook...
anyway CS4 comes too early. shocked.
Im still using CS1 at work and one of my Macs at home still using Photoshop 7...hahaha

 

[Phillyzero]

this wont be too great for integrated GPUs will it..
or will there still be improvement but only slightly? hm.

I'm also interested in this...

 

[puckhead193]

Wirelessly posted (my blackberry pearl: BlackBerry8130/4.3.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Well that stinks at least my CS3 will still be good for another week
Now if technology moved as fast as the dunking donuts line I might be happy!
Yay for blackberry!

 

[mosx]

Why on earth would Apple make it easier to run professional applications on their cheapest computer? And a better question, why would people buy a MacBook if they are serious about graphic design and Photoshop use?

Up until the switch to Intel, EVERY Mac had a dedicated GPU in it.

If you remember correctly, the last generation of iBook had a Radeon 9550. Which was a slightly down clocked Radeon 9700 with less memory.

The last PowerBook had something like a 1.67GHz G4 and a Radeon 9700. The last iBook was sporting a 1.42GHz G4 with a Radeon 9550. They were ridiculously close in specs.

There is absolutely no reason for Apple to be gimping the MacBook and Mac mini the way they do.

Its ridiculous that the Apple TV gets a dedicated GPU while the MacBook gets gimped with a GPU that is not even up to desktop standards from 2001 as far as performance goes, yet "PCs" can be had with GPUs that run circles around the MacBook for $500+ less.

Anyway, the Intel GMA 950 supports Pixel Shader 2.0. The Radeon 9200 in the last G4 mini and a lot of the iBooks supports PS 1.4.

Why would someone want a MacBook for Photoshop? Well, maybe its all they can afford? Or maybe they want that more portable computer than the MBP (and more reasonably priced, though still overpriced for the hardware) and plan to connect it to a nice big external display? I can think of a hundred reasons why one would use a MacBook for all of their needs.

 

[mosx]

True, but I don't think they would have a dedicated video card; it would cannibalise their MacBook Pro line, and worse, the battery life would die in the ass.

As you can see from my signature, I don't own an Apple product (I hang around for the discussion and atmosphere) - but I do think they need to make their MacBook more robust. I don't expect it to be like their Pro line, but a roll cage like the Lenovo Thinkpad laptop I'm using would be a good start.

False. The iBook and PowerBook G4 were extremely close in specs and the iBook did not "cannibalize" the sales of the PB at all.

The iBook had a 1.42GHz G4 with a Radeon 9550. The Radeon 9550 was just a lower clocked version of the 9700 the PB was sporting.

Also, battery life would not die. At all. Obviously, look at the MBP. Does it have bad battery life? No. Plus if the MacBook had an 8400M GS in it, as it should, Apple could use the same style of power saving thats in the Windows drivers. Such as using less power to drive the display (not just reduced brightness), as well as clocking the GPU down to 100MHz or even lower. They could even write drivers that shut off the dedicated GPU and use the main system memory to display the UI and kick in the dedicated memory as needed.

The MacBook absolutely needs a dedicated GPU and its an insult to everyones intelligence when they try to push a $1400 system (after taxes) as a premium product when the GPU isn't even as good as one you'd find in a PC costing several hundred dollars less.

 

[Shadow]

Up until the switch to Intel, EVERY Mac had a dedicated GPU in it.

If you remember correctly, the last generation of iBook had a Radeon 9550. Which was a slightly down clocked Radeon 9700 with less memory.

The last PowerBook had something like a 1.67GHz G4 and a Radeon 9700. The last iBook was sporting a 1.42GHz G4 with a Radeon 9550. They were ridiculously close in specs.

There is absolutely no reason for Apple to be gimping the MacBook and Mac mini the way they do.

Its ridiculous that the Apple TV gets a dedicated GPU while the MacBook gets gimped with a GPU that is not even up to desktop standards from 2001 as far as performance goes, yet "PCs" can be had with GPUs that run circles around the MacBook for $500+ less.

Anyway, the Intel GMA 950 supports Pixel Shader 2.0. The Radeon 9200 in the last G4 mini and a lot of the iBooks supports PS 1.4.

Why would someone want a MacBook for Photoshop? Well, maybe its all they can afford? Or maybe they want that more portable computer than the MBP (and more reasonably priced, though still overpriced for the hardware) and plan to connect it to a nice big external display? I can think of a hundred reasons why one would use a MacBook for all of their needs.

You forget that the GMA950 in the MacBook and mini is actually more powerful than what was in there before. Just because its dedicated doesnt mean that its not very good. Everyone always bashes the GMA950 for being crap, but I actually quite like it. I manage to run the programs I need on it (and that includes gaming in Windows occasionally) really well. Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work, and if you're doing heavy 3D work (although I use Cinema 4D on my MacBook perfectly) you should have a MacBook Pro anyway.

 

[deathshrub]

Why is this still on the front page?

 

[mosx]

You forget that the GMA950 in the MacBook and mini is actually more powerful than what was in there before. Just because its dedicated doesnt mean that its not very good. Everyone always bashes the GMA950 for being crap, but I actually quite like it. I manage to run the programs I need on it (and that includes gaming in Windows occasionally) really well. Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work, and if you're doing heavy 3D work (although I use Cinema 4D on my MacBook perfectly) you should have a MacBook Pro anyway.

I'm sorry, but the GMA 950 is nowhere near as good as the Radeon 9550 that was in the last iBook or even the Radeon 9200.

I have the same MacBook as you do in your sig, just with 2.5GB of RAM instead of 3. I've also owned systems with the Radeon 9200 and 9550.

The only thing the GMA 950 has over the 9200 is that the GMA supports Pixel Shader 2.0, while the 9200 only supports 1.4.

The GMA 950 does not support hardware T&L, while the 9200 does. The GMA X3100 supports hardware T&L, but the performance is so terrible that you see people on PC related forums coming up with all kinds of creative ways to disable it so the performance is at least as good as the GMA 950!

Do some googling. You'll quickly find that both the 9200 and 9550 are rated WELL above any integrated GPU out there today, still.

My own experience, I had the Radeon 9550 in a Celeron based system. It was basically 1.2GHz Coppermine based Celeron (overclocked from 1.1GHz), 256MB of RAM, and the Radeon 9550. I was able to push UT2k4 and HL2 at full details at 1024x768 and still get around 40fps. My MacBook can't even choke out 30fps at 800x600 with medium settings.

The GMA 950 and X3100 are simply pathetic.

Intel's integrated graphics are not good for anything. They offer no advanced video features like nVidia and ATI/AMD's integrated chipsets, their 3D performance is terrible.. Their DVD playback performance isn't even as good as desktop GPUs from nearly a decade ago! They're a joke. Look at my GeForce 8400M GS in my HP. It does full decoding of every video format, full hardware deinterlacing, deblocking, etc. It can play blu-ray discs without a sweat. The GMA 950? Even in Windows (since OS X does not take advantage of GPU features for video playback), CPU use is unnecessarily high because the GPU can't do anything for video playback.

The MacBook Pro isn't suited for "heavy 3D work" either. The GeForce 8600M GT it has is at the bottom of the "mid-range" cards currently available. A $2,000, $2,500, and $2,800 computer should come with no less than a GeForce 8800M GTX.

If Macs were priced like PCs, the entry level MacBook would have a DVD writer, 2GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8400M GS. The middle would have the 256MB GeForce 8600M GT. The black would have the 512MB version. The MBP would have the 8800M GTX 512 at $2,000. Dual at $2,500 with 1GB of memory and same for the 17".

 

[Tosser]

Like a lot of what is being said in this discussion - utter rubbish. Using the tool best suited to the job is why. What benefit does a Macbook Pro offer over a Macbook with Photoshop? - a bigger screen and slightly more speed.

And a matte screen, lest you forget. The glossy screen being the best tool for the job, is like saying those Bose 5.1 computer speakers is the best tool for monitoring while audio editing, imo.

Otoh, the MB has something the MBPs dont have: Small footprint and a sturdier frame.

 

[email2markt]

Photoshop Online Edition, not CS4

I think this story is probably mixed up with news that Flash Player 10 will support some GPU acceleration - and hence Photoshop Online Edition will likely take advantage of the GPU acceleration at the earliest opportunity.

 

[winterspan]

You forget that the GMA950 in the MacBook and mini is actually more powerful than what was in there before. Just because its dedicated doesnt mean that its not very good. Everyone always bashes the GMA950 for being crap, but I actually quite like it. I manage to run the programs I need on it (and that includes gaming in Windows occasionally) really well. Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work, and if you're doing heavy 3D work (although I use Cinema 4D on my MacBook perfectly) you should have a MacBook Pro anyway.

NO, that is wrong. The GMA950 is much slower than the older iBook GPU.

"Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work" - I'm sorry, but I think that it is rude to say that you know what everyone else needs. I'm sure your average Macbook user, having paid a LOT of money for their laptop compared to similar PCs, would like to have a modern GPU capable of :

1) decoding, de-interlacing, and enhancing HD video playback all without maxing out their processor and killing their battery life
2) decent gaming performance in modern windows games
3) decent performance in 3D modeling and animation apps

nVidia now has something called "Hybrid Graphics" on their platform that allows a computer to have BOTH integrated graphics AND a discrete GPU, and it keeps the discrete GPU off until it is needed in apps requiring heavy 3D processing. This would allow a macbook/any laptop to get great battery life by running on the integrated chipset when browsing the internet/writing in word/etc, and only powering up the fast 3D card when you open up certain applications like games, 3D modeling/animation apps, etc.

I'm sorry, but the GMA 950 is nowhere near as good as the Radeon 9550 that was in the last iBook or even the Radeon 9200.

....The GMA 950 does not support hardware T&L, while the 9200 does. The GMA X3100 supports hardware T&L, but the performance is so terrible that you see people on PC related forums coming up with all kinds of creative ways to disable it so the performance is at least as good as the GMA 950! Do some googling. You'll quickly find that both the 9200 and 9550 are rated WELL above any integrated GPU out there today, still. The GMA 950 and X3100 are simply pathetic.

Intel's integrated graphics are not good for anything. They offer no advanced video features like nVidia and ATI/AMD's integrated chipsets, their 3D performance is terrible.. Their DVD playback performance isn't even as good as desktop GPUs from nearly a decade ago! They're a joke. Look at my GeForce 8400M GS in my HP. It does full decoding of every video format, full hardware deinterlacing, deblocking, etc. It can play blu-ray discs without a sweat. The GMA 950? Even in Windows (since OS X does not take advantage of GPU features for video playback), CPU use is unnecessarily high because the GPU can't do anything for video playback.

The MacBook Pro isn't suited for "heavy 3D work" either. The GeForce 8600M GT it has is at the bottom of the "mid-range" cards currently available. A $2,000, $2,500, and $2,800 computer should come with no less than a GeForce 8800M GTX.

If Macs were priced like PCs, the entry level MacBook would have a DVD writer, 2GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8400M GS. The middle would have the 256MB GeForce 8600M GT. The black would have the 512MB version. The MBP would have the 8800M GTX 512 at $2,000. Dual at $2,500 with 1GB of memory and same for the 17".

I completely agree. It's sad that my 3-year old Dell laptop has a faster card than the top-of-the-line $3500 Macbook Pro. If i wanted, I could even swap it out for an Nvidia 7900M GTX or Quadro 3500M. Although that generation doesn't have the CUDA or HD decoding features, the 7900M GTX blows the doors off the 8600GT. It's literally over twice as fast.

I think this story is probably mixed up with news that Flash Player 10 will support some GPU acceleration - and hence Photoshop Online Edition will likely take advantage of the GPU acceleration at the earliest opportunity.

Not at all likely. The TGdaily.com story was only about the tech presentation given by Adobe. And Adobe WAS showing off GPGPU acceleration of Photoshop, they weren't disputing that part. They were disputing the information about haven given out a release date or even an acknowledgment that this technology will be in any version of photoshop.