Next Version of Photoshop to be GPU-Accelerated

[Padaung]

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.

Lol, too true. This was the one reason I held off getting the Macbook for a long while - a vain hope Apple would make a matte version. However, it's not been such a pain once you get used to it (and properly calibrate it). A decent external screen also helps when at home/office...

So are you saying that my reliance on the laptop speakers explains why I am such a bad musician!!!

Interesting tooing and frowing on the various aspects of the integrated graphics cards between people. I have tried playing a game or two on this laptop and it did rather suck! PS runs great though, but it would be fab if future versions of PS were able to make some sort of use of the graphics chip for a even just a little more speed

 

[edenwaith]

PS, Bridge, and GPU

I can't wait for this. Hopefully Bridge will get the same treatment.

It is because of Bridge CS3's abysmal performance that makes me suspect whether adding GPU acceleration to PS would be that beneficial or not. Unless you have a fairly current video card/GPU in your computer, Bridge doesn't work with hardware acceleration very well at all, and in such cases, it is best to just use software rendering.

But considering that most of my image work deals with smaller images, I'm not the ideal candidate for high-end PS features.

 

[edenwaith]

Yesterdays

Agreed, it stills seems like CS3 was launched... yesterday.

Adobe certainly had a lot on its plate between CS2 and CS3 with supporting Intel-based Macs and integrating the Macromedia line of products. The wait (especially) for a UB version of Photoshop seemed to take forever, but it has already been a year since CS3 was released. If Adobe does stick to its promise of releasing new updates every 18-24 months, then we could theoretically be getting new updates by late October of this year. That still feels way too soon, though. Now, if they were making some minor updates, so it was CS 3.5, that would be neat, but Adobe only seems to make patch updates to its products these days, for the most part. When Photoshop even get up to a x.1+ version? I last count Photoshop 5.5 being the last version, all other updates have only received patch updates (i.e. PS 7.0.1).

For myself, I am not seeing enough additional value being added to Adobe's core products to entice me enough to upgrade. But then, this might be the problem with mature products. Consider how many people probably still use older versions of Microsoft Office. As long as it keeps working and does what you want, why bother upgrading? I would like to see Adobe perhaps slow down some on its product releases so I feel that each new release provides real value and incentive to buy the latest version.

 

[Shadow]

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".

Thats funny, I could swear that the GMA in my MacBook absolutely destroys the Radeon 9whatever in the G4 minis. I am able to play Command and Conquer 3 at 1280x800 on my MacBook in Windows. I even have benchmarks that says the GMA950 is better than the 9550: http://www.macworld.com/article/50898/2006/05/macbookbench.html (its compared to the 1G MacBooks, but its only the CPU that changed when the GPU was the same).

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 not trying to say that I know what everyone else needs; I'm saying that for what most people will use their MacBooks for: internet browsing, iTunes, IMing etc. There are exceptions to the rule - I use my MacBook for Cinema 4D amongst other things - but for what most people will be doing, the GMA is fine. Its widely accepted on this forum and many others that the GMA is fine unless you're doing 3D work, go check a few "MB vs MBP threads", you'll find the same.

1) How many people play HD video on a regular basis? No-one that I know does. Ever. I'm trying to say what most people will use their MacBooks for, not what everyone will use it for.
2) I get 30+ FPS in C&C3 at 1280x800 resolution in Windows.
3) Again, I use Cinema 4D fairly regularly on my MacBook and its fine.

Adding 2 graphics cards a MacBook? You've got to be joking. They get hot enough already! My CPU is at 59C now, and its on a desk. Adding a dedicated card into it would only make it even hotter. They can only put one in the MBP because it conducts heat better and it has 2 fans in whereas the MB only as 1.

 

[BenRoethig]

GMA would be sufficient on windows but unfortunately not on OSX. Apple doesn't put anywhere near the effort into the graphics drivers and the implementation of OpenGL is quite up to par either, let alone as good as DX. In short, the graphics situation is exactly the opposite of the rest of the OS where you see Microsoft paying attention to detail and Apple being lazy.

 

[edenwaith]

Honestly, I haven't seen any compelling new features in Photoshop since 7.0. Other than bringing the program up-to-date to run on newer hardware and mangling the interface more and more with each revision, I haven't seen anything on recent versions of Photoshop that makes me think Adobe has put much thought into it.

Pretty much feelings about Adobe's upgrades for many years. I haven't found too much that was compelling about Photoshop's upgrades since PS 6. The best reason to upgrade to PS7 was for Mac OS X compatibility, just as PS CS3 was for native Intel compatibility.

 

[winterspan]

I'm not trying to say that I know what everyone else needs; I'm saying that for what most people will use their MacBooks for: internet browsing, iTunes, IMing etc. There are exceptions to the rule - I use my MacBook for Cinema 4D amongst other things - but for what most people will be doing, the GMA is fine. Its widely accepted on this forum and many others that the GMA is fine unless you're doing 3D work, go check a few "MB vs MBP threads", you'll find the same.

1) How many people play HD video on a regular basis? No-one that I know does. Ever. I'm trying to say what most people will use their MacBooks for, not what everyone will use it for.
2) I get 30+ FPS in C&C3 at 1280x800 resolution in Windows.
3) Again, I use Cinema 4D fairly regularly on my MacBook and its fine.

Adding 2 graphics cards a MacBook? You've got to be joking. They get hot enough already! My CPU is at 59C now, and its on a desk. Adding a dedicated card into it would only make it even hotter. They can only put one in the MBP because it conducts heat better and it has 2 fans in whereas the MB only as 1.

Again, I'm not suggesting that every Macbook user needs a decent graphics experience, but they DESERVE one after paying what they do for a new computer.
And I have to ask: Have you actually used a computer with a modern, powerful video card? I'm trying to understand where you perspective is coming from because normally I would consider anyone who uses Intel's integrated graphics to run Cinema 4D to be a bit less than sane.

And regarding Nvidia's Hybrid graphics ---- First of all, it does not use "2 graphic cards" as integrated graphics can hardly be called a card for god sakes ---- Intel's IGP is a small chipset on the motherboard. Secondly, the heat output form a low-end GPU can be controlled quite easily, and theres no reason why Apple can engineer the Macbook with a better cooling solution. And the card would only run when needed, and would be turned off most of the time.

 

[Shadow]

Again, I'm not suggesting that every Macbook user needs a decent graphics experience, but they DESERVE one after paying what they do for a new computer.
And I have to ask: Have you actually used a computer with a modern, powerful video card? I'm trying to understand where you perspective is coming from because normally I would consider anyone who uses Intel's integrated graphics to run Cinema 4D to be a bit less than sane.

And regarding Nvidia's Hybrid graphics ---- First of all, it does not use "2 graphic cards" as integrated graphics can hardly be called a card for god sakes ---- Intel's IGP is a small chipset on the motherboard. Secondly, the heat output form a low-end GPU can be controlled quite easily, and theres no reason why Apple can engineer the Macbook with a better cooling solution. And the card would only run when needed, and would be turned off most of the time.

I agree with you there. I'm not saying that the GMA950 is good, I'm saying that its satisfactory for most people, although it should have a better graphics solution.
Actually and perhaps shamefully, the GMA950 is the best graphics card I have ever owned. The one in my last HP was a GeForce 4 MX 440, so even the GMA950 is better than that. Running a Cinema 4D on a GMA950 probably isnt a good experience, but for what I'm used to, its pretty good. The MacBook is actually a really good machine, they can handle pretty much everything you could throw at it, except obviously graphics work.

 

[MattZani]

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.

Im getting a MBP, and i love gaming, but i simply would not want an 8800 of any kind inside, firstly heat issues, The new Alienware with Dual 8800GTX's and 4Ghz Dual Core, Idles at 65C! Secondly, battery, the alienwares are lucky to get 2 hours of battery, the most powerful is lucky to get 1 hour, so its only good for moving to another room, and not shutting down. Third, weight, all Gaming laptops are about 8 - 14 Pounds, which is a real arm breaker. And finally, Design, all gaming laptops are pug ugly because they have to fit so many fans in, and they are over 2" thick!

I really wouldnt want an 8800, i like the MBP, because you can actually use it outside, where you cannot get power, and because you can carry it places.

Also, proffesionals wouldnt want an 8800 either, because its not made for Pro use, its for gaming, they would want a nVidia Quadro FX, but they are about the Price of a MBP, so its not a viable option.

The 8600M GT is perfect, it uses very little power, can kick out good gaming FPS when its needed to, and can handle the Semi Pro work people will do on a laptop.

After all, any Pro running OS X will have a Mac Pro, not a laptop.

 

[winterspan]

Im getting a MBP, and i love gaming, but i simply would not want an 8800 of any kind inside, firstly heat issues, The new Alienware with Dual 8800GTX's and 4Ghz Dual Core, Idles at 65C! Secondly, battery, the alienwares are lucky to get 2 hours of battery, the most powerful is lucky to get 1 hour, so its only good for moving to another room, and not shutting down. Third, weight, all Gaming laptops are about 8 - 14 Pounds, which is a real arm breaker. And finally, Design, all gaming laptops are pug ugly because they have to fit so many fans in, and they are over 2" thick!

The person you are responding to said the MB pro should come with an option of a 8800M GTX. That perhaps might be a bit much, but a 8800GTS or 8700GT should be included for the price being paid; not to mention a new high-powered Quadro should be available for Pros. It's a complete joke that a laptop with the word "Pro" in it doesn't have the option of a Quadro card.

Anyways, how can you possibly compare the size, weight, heat output and battery life of a Macbook Pro with a 8800M GTX versus an enormous alienware laptop with 4Ghz processors, 3 hard drives, 2 8800GTX cards, etc. That doesn't make any sense. Of course the Macbook Pro wouldn't be anywhere near as large, heavy, hot or power-hungry as that thing.

I really wouldnt want an 8800, i like the MBP, because you can actually use it outside, where you cannot get power, and because you can carry it places.
Also, proffesionals wouldnt want an 8800 either, because its not made for Pro use, its for gaming, they would want a nVidia Quadro FX, but they are about the Price of a MBP, so its not a viable option.

As i mentioned in a previous post, the technology already exists that allows a laptop to have both integrated graphics AND a discrete card --- it allows the discrete GPU to be turned off until needed, thus immensely lowering power usage and improving battery life when doing normal non-3D activities. Even Quartz/Quicktime/etc would be powered by the GMA, and only intensive 3D apps would need to turn on the 8800M GTX/GTS /8700M GT.

Also, I'll agree with you that Pros want Quadro cards, but NOT that its "not an option". Every PC manufacturer that makes laptop workstations offer Quadro cards. There is no justifiable reason why Apple shouldn't, other than them being to lazy to implement it and not wanting to have to deal with more BTO options.

The 8600M GT is perfect, it uses very little power, can kick out good gaming FPS when its needed to, and can handle the Semi Pro work people will do on a laptop.

It may be "perfect" for you, but it's shameful that the 8600M GT is the best thing you can get on a $3,000 "Pro" machine.

After all, any Pro running OS X will have a Mac Pro, not a laptop.

Oh really? You seen any "Pro" dragging around a Mac Pro lately? What do you think they use when they are away from the workstation? Most major PC manufacturers offer some form of professional laptop workstation, e.g. Dell Precision -- Which by the way are excellent machines with steel/carbon/magnesium cases and available with high-end screens and Quadro cards.

 

[Bucnawesome]

I just really hope CS4 is a sign the macbooks are getting a decent discrete gpu like the HD 2400 or the 8400 gs in the next revision. Apple knows many people who have macs run photoshop so hopefully they will cater their next revisions of products to support it