Trying out CS4 and a suggestion to Adobe.

[john_pa...@adobeforums.com]

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

[John_T...@adobeforums.com]

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>

[Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com]

John, you also pay more for the good stuff, like National Instruments VI.

[trouble]

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 . . .

[Myle...@adobeforums.com]

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

[john_pa...@adobeforums.com]

Lawrenc...@adobeforums.com 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

[john_pa...@adobeforums.com]

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