Apple’s recently released 10.4.8 system update includes a number of enhancements to the Rosetta processor emulation technology. Now Macworld’s benchmarks add some specifics, reporting a roughly ~35% improvement running Photoshop CS2 on Intel-based Mac systems.
This is pretty great news. I mean, when’s the last time you got a free update that made your machine 35% faster at something? Our engineering and QE folks worked closely with Apple as the new code was developed, testing frequent drops for compatibility and performance. (See, it’s knowing/doing this kind of thing that makes me flip out when people start making up nonsense.)
Now, obviously–obviously–the preferred solution is to get Photoshop & other PPC apps to run natively on Mactel ASAP, and of course we continue to work hard on that front. (Just figured I’d spare anyone the trouble of writing "Git-r-done!!" or words to that effect. ;-)) In the meantime, it’s great to see Rosetta making strides to let people be more productive on these new systems.
[Update: Mike Downey reports that Flash 8 runs roughly 10% faster due to the update, and Steve Kilisky says that After Effects can run up to 15% faster.]
Wow, that’s great news. Now if only you could make Photoshop run 35% faster on my PC. 🙂
[Indeed. Increased performance is always at the top of most request lists, and we’re devoting a lot of cycles to it. Just as life starts to get simpler (Macs moving to Intel), it keep getting more complex. Exciting times, though. –J.]
I can’t wait to try this out when I get home. Now I’m even more eager for the Universal version to come out.
Hey John! Long time no see. Any word on the pathfinder crash in Illustrator CS2 on Mactel? That one’s killing us.
[Good to hear from you, Tom. Let me check into the Illustrator issue. –J.]
why the hell adobe is calling new apple machines MACTEL’S?? who invented such a stupid slogan here? (even- if it’s os/processor combo shouldn’t this be MACOSXTEL or at least OSXTEL? 😉 )
there are intel-based or powerpc-based macs.. http://www.apple.com/rosetta/
[And this is a blog, where I can speak colloquially, using the terms that are in common usage. When Adobe speaks more formally (e.g. in the official FAQ on the subject), it uses more formal language–as I did in the initial paragraph of this post.
Try not to bust my shoes about everything, ‘k? 🙂 –J.]
Mac’s suck… i’m tired of you kool-aid drinking geeks… When is CS3 comming out?
Tom, here’s a quick fix:
Close the Appearances palette. Shut down Illustrator. Re-open Illustrator. You can now re-open the Appearances palette and you can now use the Pathfinder features. But before closing Illustrator, make sure you close the Appearances palette.
Also, when did 10.4.8 come out? I’m confused.
Hi, about that illustrator and pathfinder issue, take a look here.
[Interesting; thanks for the link. –J.]
I am loving the new adobe update
Tom,
I found a workaround on the Adobe support forums. Open Illustrator with the “appearance” palette closed, and pathfinder should work again. Once you have Illustrator open, you can re-activate the palette, but just make sure you close it again before quitting.
I still have trouble with Illustrator randomly crashing after 30 or 40 minutes if I have both Illustrator and Photoshop open at the same time.
Do you know if this update affects the speed of other major non Universal apps like Dreamweaver
[I’m not sure, as I haven’t had a chance to speak to other product teams in detail about it. The Macworld test showed some improvements to MS Office apps, though not as dramatic as with Photoshop. If I can gather more info, I’ll share it here. –J.]
what about After Effects….at the wwdc 2005 Bruce Chizum..Adobe CEO said ” Adobe will be first to port to Apple’s new intel boxes…” so what happened.
[I don’t recall Bruce saying that Adobe would be the first to have its apps running natively. Here’s what I could find, and this. Search the pages for “Chizen.” –J.]
Thanks John for mentioning this.
CS2 is running surprisingly well on our intel macs (please stop calling them Mactel, please, please).
[Okay, I’ll try. Until today I hadn’t heard anyone object to the term, any more than calling Macs “Macs” instead of “Macintoshes.” It’s just shorthand–nothing more. –J.]
Any news about After Effects?
Is there an After Effects team member blogging?
[Steve Kilisky (Product Mgr., like me) runs a blog, as does Bruce Bullis for AE developers. –J.]
Thanks!
f.
[Update: Steve says that in internal tests, AE runs “up to 15% faster” under 10.4.8 than under previous versions. –J.]
It’s great to see that Photoshop and other apps are getting a performance boost under Rosetta. I’m sure they will be incredibly fast when the universal binary versions are available.
I noticed that Macromedia used to put both Windows and Mac versions on one disc, this is definitely something that Adobe should consider doing company wide.
35% is absolutly huge. Will there be a similar increase across the other products such as illustrator?
[Good question. I don’t really know, so you might want to ask someone at Apple for the details of what they changed. If I can gather more info from other teams, I’ll pass it along here. –J.]
That’s great news. I’m on a MacBook Pro and once opened I won’t complain too much about the performance. But the test didn’t include launching the app.
I’m no expert, but it seems that clicking on my Photoshop icon means I can go and get a coffee whilst it loads up – boy is that slow.
Is that Rosetta kicking in slowly or what? And by the way, as a matter of course I alway quit apps on a regular basis to imporve stability – so wise cracks about ‘just leave the app open’.
I also note that cutting and pasting between universal and rosetta apps is s-l-o-w as well.
So the next improvement needs to be the launch speed – after that I’ll be happy to stick with CS2 and wait it out for CS4.
Hi. Just discovered your blog today. And I thank you for it!
Just wanted to point out that with the 10.4.8 update, and a technique recently roughly outlined on the creativecow.net AE forum, the performance of After Effects on the Intel Macs is finally acceptable. The technique is to LOWER the Memory and Cache size settings in AE preferences to ridiculously low settings. The default settings are usually 120%/60% respectively.
The settings I have on my new MacBook Pro (2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM) are 20%/15%, and I just clocked a render at about the same performance, even slightly faster than a Dual 2 GHz G5 PPC.
[Cool–thanks for passing along this info. –J.]
oh, yeah — and there are reports that AE7 is much much faster.
Great news – I ordered an Intel iMac (2.16 GHz with 2GB RAM) today and was worried (to say in the least) about the CS2 performance issue.
hui guys, arent adobe never gonna release the binary versions of photoshop and illustartor, we need it, as 35 % is still not enough, we want it to run nativly on mac book pro
Thanks so much for this blog. I just ordered my iMac 2.16GHz 1GB Ram today and was sooo cncerned about CS2 since it’s my bread and butter. If anyone has any idea how Dreamweaver is performing that would be a great help. I’ve added you to my favorites and will keep checking in.
This is a fantastic news, but the photoshop CS2 don’t run corectly on the OS 10.4.8. I’m very nervous buy a I-mac core 2 and don’t can use the software.
Adobe please correct the problem fast.
[I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about by “doesn’t run correctly.” Can you be more specific? –J.]
Anyone else have problems running Illustrator 11 (CS1) on intel macs?? It keeps crashing for me right after opening but just after i get 2 specific errors (“Cannot create Java VM” and “Cannot create ScriptographerEngine”). I realize Scriptographer is prolly something I installed on my PPC machine before but I NEED a work- around now! I don’t see any intel updates on Adobe’s download site addressing CS1. And yet, Photoshop CS1 running beautifully on my MacBook Pro. huh.
Everytime I try to weld something in Illustrator CS2, immediate crash on my MacBook Pro. I tried the fix listed above on closing the appearance pallet. No luck, anyone else having my problem?
Hey I just found your site – glad to know I’m not the only one having CS2 issues! I just got a new MacPro at work and now Illustrator, Photoshop and most of all InDesign are crashing all the time. I’ve spent 1/2 hour to do 5 minutes of work because of all the crashes. Always the same problem with a particular document, but different causes between the different docs. Exporting to pdf and switching back, then trying to print crashes one set of docs. Trying to view my Ill CS2 eps links in ID in full resolution crashes another doc. I read somewhere about a conflict with AppleTalk and to go to the 10.4.5 version, but they don’t really recommend it and that kind of tweaking makes me nervous. Are there any real solutions to this yet?? I don’t want to go back to Quark!
[I’m afraid I don’t know the details, so I would recommend checking out the InDesign user-to-user forum. –J.]
thanks for the solution to the pathfinder problem. I have about 20 intel macs in a lab environment. Some will throw an error saying that photoshop could not complete the task and you have to click ok. This will keep happening until you restart the machine. Any ideas?
[I’m afraid I don’t. I’d suggest checking the Photoshop user-to-user forum and/or technotes (adobe.com/support). –J.]
I have had a major prob with and without the 10.4.8 update on an Intel Mac Pro. If I open Illustrator and Photoshop, is open Photoshop crashes and visa versa. I have tried deleting temp font files and no luck. any suggestions? I read through this forum and found no references. – Thanks
[I’m afraid I don’t know about these issues & can’t offer specific help. I’d recommend checking the Adobe tech notes and/or updating to 10.4.9 to see if that helps. –J.]
I have a G4 Powerbook and recently had to reinstall my system causing my Dreamweaver, Flash and Freehand programs not to launch properly. I have reinstalled them but it still is a problem,
any ideals on fixing this issue???
Yes the operating system update causes my Photoshop CS3 to crash. I’d like to back out the update. Or somebody fix the OS bug please.