Apple G5 not impressed...

[mclain swift]

I have just recently purchased a Mac to see what all the fuss is about with theses things. I have to say I am

less than impressed thus far--mostly due to performance. I have a Dual 2.3 GHz G5 with 4 GB DDR2

SDRAM with OS X 10.4.6. This thing runs PSCS2 so much slower than my Dual Intel with 3 GB of RAM.

Almost everything I do in PS the hard drive is chatting away. What is the deal?? 4 GB of RAM not enough?

I actually kinda like the OS (more so the look of it), the dual 20" wide screen displays are beautiful to look

at, it boots up and shuts down unbelievable fast compared to my PC, but I have to say the speed in PS is

utterly dismal. Is there something not set up right? As far as I can tell everything is running properly, but

when I look at the system memory usage indicator while running PS there is still at least 2 GB indicated as

free all the while the hard drive goes chattering away. Any experienced Mac users have anything to offer?

I may just sell this thing and go back to my PC.

[marbing]

Reports from Apple users indicated that the Intel Macs were significantly faster than the older hardware (Power PC?). If that is the case, the older machines must have crawled.

 

On the other hand, now you know why Mac has only 5% of the market.

[serge c]

Have you tried to run any benchmarks on it?

[jautey]

sigh.....

Just a little web research would show that Photoshop for the Mac is not built for the Intel processor yet, so of course its going to be performance problem.

 

Now let the stupid Mac vs. PC war start all the idiots pipe in.

[Uhooru]

Nice, I wish I could purchase a Powermac just to see what the fuss is about. But i use a g5

imac with 2 gig of ram and my hard drive never chat's away even with very large CS2 files, as

you say. And I"ve never found it "dismally slow" compared to the PC I had before it. So

something is strange about your machine. Did you order the machine from Apple with their

ram installed? Or did yo buy aftermarket ram? If aftermarket from where. Regardless of how

fast your pc was, the Powermac's speed should not be "dismal". So something's wrong

somewhere in the chain.

[godfrey]

Making the assumption that you're not just trolling for fun ...

<br><br>

What kind/size files are you opening? <br>

What size drive are you using? <br>

How much free space is on the drive? <br>

<br>

Photoshop maintains a disk-based scratch file and Mac OS X is a full virtual-memory

system too. So there will inevitably be some disk activity as you work. My G5DP 2G system

is fitted with 3G RAM, a 500G boot drive with 300G free space, and 250G scratch drive.

Photoshop CS2 is configures to use 60% of RAM and points to the scratch drive for its disk

based caching. When I open a file, there is a bit of chatter as it loads the file into RAM and

writes its shadow copy to the drive. If you are using a single drive AND that drive has little

free space left (or the freespace it does have is badly fragmented), you will hear a lot of

disk activity when you're starting up and doing operations, and that activity will slow

things down a lot.

<br><br>

That's one starting point...

<br><br>

Godfrey

[pico_digoliardi]

I have the same two systems you have with the exception that each system has two fixed (hard) drives on the bus, and some reserved partitions for work files.

 

Something is wrong with your G5 if it's not performing equal to the Wintel machine. Before we dive in, do you possibly have Spotlight running? It's a positive PIG when you have new, large files. It will soak up CPU like crazy. A coworker updated my G5 to include Spotlight, then loaded up 120 gig movie files onto my system for me to edit and Spotlight stupidly tried to index it, killing performance for _days_. Yeah, I tried to add exceptions. Doesn't work. I let it run all weekend. It would still be running if I hadn't finally assasinated it.

 

You can't kill it by stopping the process or subprocesses. It will just start all over. I can provide the regime. Or you can Google "Kill Spotlight" and for a couple bucks get the routine to automagicaly do it for you.

[kirk_thompson]

When you reply to Godfrey's questions, be sure to add what % of memory is allocated to PS

in PS Preferences.

[mclain swift]

OK...a couple things to clear up:

1) I am not trolling. So quite right there with that idea. I have a legitimate issue here.

2) I have a G5 not an Intel based Mac.

 

Now, Barry, I aggree something isn't right. I bought the machine from Apple. Everything

is right from them. I only have one hard drive with a capacity of 232 GB with 214 GB free

(as stated in system profiler). I thought this might be the issue so I have been snooping

around for another hard drive. I am a little freaked out about installing it because I don't

know Mac's at all. I have only had this thing for a week and I have used PC's for 12+

years.

 

I just can't believe that PS writes to the drive so much with 4 GB of RAM. PS is set to use

75% of RAM. Is this an OS X thing to write to the disc so much? Just to give you an idea of

slowness, let's say I am using the crop tool and select an area it literally takes 5-10

seconds before the "mask" shows up. It was instant on my PC. Or while typing text or

using the dodge/burn tool the disc chatters with every key stroke! On the plus side, it

does seem to save PS files more quickly than the PC. I am editing D2x files so they are

40-60 MB tiff files, if memory serves, when I bring them in from NC. I don't believe I have

Spotlight at all so I don't think that is the issue. Any more ideas of what is going on?

[cooper8168]

And also check to confirm that processor performance is set to Highest in the Energy Saver/

Options pane under System Preferences.

 

Was it bought new or used? In any event, whenever we add a new G5 to our chain, everything

on the new machine gets wiped and re-installed from the ground up. This is especially true

if it was a used machine.

 

Also, which dual-monitor card is installed?

[scott_richards3]

If you recently purchased it then it should have the new Intel chip inside which you should have been aware before you upgraded that PS has not been fully updated to run natively on these chips yet. So it runs in an emulator mode on an app called Rosseta and performance is lacking. When the chips were first announced there was a big hooha about how PS will run a bit slower on the new chips compared to their previous line up and heavy PS users should wait untill Adobe upgrades their apps to run on the new chips natively. Also spotlight uses a lot of system resources when you first start up your system and start to add files. You really have to just step away from your comp until it finishes indexing before you can really start working. Also check to make sure that your PS scratch disk is not set to your start up disk as this will also affect your perfermance. Did you set your cache levels and memory usage levels in the PS preferences yet? Do you have a seperate partition on your drive for your system resources/apps and your working docs?

[serge c]

There's definitely some problem with how your machine runs. Disregard PC vs Mac or Intel vs Motorola (or was it IBM?) comments. It's just some technical bug... This forum may not be the best place to ask.

[cooper8168]

Sounds like bad RAM to me. The store should swap out the chips for free.

[mclain swift]

Yes, processor performance is set to hightest and the video card is a GeForce 6600. It is a

brand new machine bought right from Apple barely a week old. Unless I am mistaken the G5

is a processor not just the name of the machine or that being said the name of the machine

is after the processor, the G5. I have a Dual core G5 not an Intel processor.

[scott_richards3]

You should check to see if something is going on with your hard drive. Reboot with the osx installer cd and run disk ut to see whats going on with your drive.

[godfrey]

To whomever suggested it might be an Intel system ... Apple has not yet released a G5-style

tower machine with an Intel processor.

 

It sounds to me like you have some kind of hardware problem. Take a look with the System

Profiler and see what it tells you the system sees as RAM. Otherwise, head down to an Apple

Store or service outlet with it and talk to someone at tech support.

 

Godfrey

[mclain swift]

Godfrey,

The system sees 4 GB of RAM all chips working fine. I'll probably call tech support tomorrow

and see what is up. I have a feeling they will tell me it is a 3rd party software problem and

there is nothiong they can do.

[cooper8168]

Even if the profiler says that it sees 4GB of RAM, one of the chips can still be bad. It happens

quite frequently, especially in new machines. Systematically remove chips and see if it

speeds up at all. Or just have Apple swap out for all new chips. More often than not, I find

that performance issues in new machines are due to a bad RAM, and my Mac dealer

(Macenthusiasts in LA) attributes most problems like this to bad memory. Of the 10-odd

G5's in my studio, two or three had to have a chip swapped when new. It happens.

[scott_eaton]

<I>Disregard PC vs Mac or Intel vs Motorola </i><P>Good point, because Apple users have no clue what processor they are running anyways, kind of like, Playstation owners :-)

 

 

<P><I>Reports from Apple users indicated that the Intel Macs were significantly faster than the older hardware (Power PC?). </i><P>

Steve Jobes said the G4 (before they switched to Intel) was twice as fast as the equivelant Intel Centrino processor. Apple's marketing is starting to remind me of Monty Python skits; "and now for something completely different".<P><I>

 

You can't kill it by stopping the process or subprocesses. It will just start all over. I can provide the regime. Or you can Google "Kill Spotlight"</i><P>Killing spotlight on a Mac? You do forget OSX is perfect, so the problem is with you. Maybe try buying the latest OSX service pack like Tiger will fix it. I'm still running Win2K server for a desktop, which hauls blistering a$$ on a dual core Athlon with two gig, but now Steve Jobes says his Intel based Macs are faster, so who am I to argue. My AMD machines now suck because Macs now use Intel, right?<P></I>

 

M Swift needs to look at a potential problem with the SATA/IDE interface or related driver issue on his G5 because I've heard of this problem before, and this is a documented achilles heel with some G5's. I've used G5's ,and as much as I enjoy mocking Apple owners I do find a healthy G5 pretty quick with Photoshop. Do not assume the G5 came configured correctly though.

[don_e]

M Swift

 

What would you do if it had been a new pc you had bought a few weeks ago and it performed this way?

 

Proceed to do so now.

 

Good Luck,

 

--

Don E

[basscheffers]

Scott, in my Windows days I always used AMD and their CPUs still rule! Apple made a good

move going to x86, but they made a bad move going with Intel instead of AMD...

[serge c]

"Do not assume the G5 came configured correctly though." - so help the guy to configure it. I understand the question invites an OS battle and a CPU battle. But obviously something is not working right - so address the issue. I've yet to see a computer without problems.

[psoriano]

Another vote for Spotlight. First thing does a newly installed system is the spotlight index.

 

Launch Activity Monitor (in Applications/Utilities) and see what processes are taking the CPU.

Spotlight indexers are processes with names beginning with "md"

 

Two days ago I changed the hard disk of my 20" G5 iMac, and I had the feel that with the new

drive the computer was slower. I entered Activity Monitor to see that 80% CPU were going to

mdimport (spotlight).

[mclain swift]

Thanks Serge. This is what I am saying. It seems as though a lot of people offering advice

here are missing the point that this is the first time I have even seen a Mac. I am not familiar

with it at all. I don't care which processor is faster than the other. I am not some wacky Mac

convert, I was just curious to see why some people like Mac's so much. I don't know what is

normal functioning and what isn't on a Mac. I may have to take it to an Apple store and have

it looked at. I just don't think all the writing to the hard drive in PSCS2 is a normal thing to

be doing on a $5,000 computer with 4 GB of RAM.

[william_john_smith]

<I>"...........$5,000 computer with 4 GB of RAM."</I><P>Say what! So where did you pay

twice the list for the Macintosh? Or are including the cost of the screens in the price? I'm a

diehard Mac person but In your case I say, go back to the PC. BTW, Microsoft uses G5's and

Photoshop in their Graphic Divison and don't seem to have a problem with speed.