Virgil Johnson Posted December 16, 2008 Share Posted December 16, 2008 hi, this is Virgil's friend Myrna. I'm looking into buying a new software (Photoshop CS4 extended) and stronger computer that won't get stuck in multitasking and will last a few years. I've been reading in many reviews around the net that the Vista system basically doesn't work well for some people's use [i.e.: Blueray etc.] my needs do not include primary use of such technology but I do work with design and the web. my question: what are the pros and cons envolving the XP and in your professional experience what works best with adobe CS4 extended? Myrna Figueiredo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted December 16, 2008 Share Posted December 16, 2008 Well, according to Adobe Vista is one of the recommeded OSes for CS4, and we were just talking about this yesterday and Adam from Boxx was saying he's not seeing problems. Photoshop CS4 does have a 64-bit version so Vista Business 64 would be an obvious choice. They're also starting to get into GPU computing with Photoshop so you want an nVidia card that uses CUDA (which seems to be all of their current cards... a 9800GT would be killer and cost very little...) Photoshop isn't very multithreaded so I'd say the best Core 2 Duo you can get would be one option, or for better futureproofing an i7. But of course, for graphic and web design use I'm going to go ahead and recommend a 24" iMac with a RAM upgrade and CS4, Rapidweaver, Aperture, Pixelmator and VectorDesigner. Later if you want to get into video you can add Final Cut Studio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted December 16, 2008 Share Posted December 16, 2008 Whatever you do, don't buy a Dell Laptop with CS4. Apparently there are issues with their video drivers where the cursor/brush does not show up. One of my collegues at VisMasters called Dell and got though to a senior person and he was told they would not be making a fix for the driver to make this work. There is a hacked driver out there, but it will only fix the problem if you don't use OpenGL with CS4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted December 16, 2008 Share Posted December 16, 2008 Is it because of the version of the nVidia (or ATI) driver Dell gives you? What they do (or at least used to do last time I owned a Dell, which needless to say was a long time ago), and this annoys the crap out of me, is they take a normal nVidia card but instead of calling it "Geforce 8200m", they call it "Dell Inspiron 666 Video Card" or whatever it is. Then they put a video driver on their site for "Dell Inspiron 666 Video Card", which is actually a repackaged nVidia driver. The normal nVidia driver doesn't install, because the driver is for a "Geforce 8200m" and nobody told it that a "Dell Inspiron 666 Video Card" is really a "Geforce 8420m". Then Dell never updates the video driver. Because that would mean their tech support people need to know more than one thing. So you're running a video driver from 2005 when nVidia solved the bug in 2007. The driver hacks are all along the lines of going into a file that comes with the nVidia driver and changing the PCI ID codes so it knows it can install. When I had to do this I found the information on laptopvideo2go.com. Of course, MacOS doesn't have this problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted December 16, 2008 Share Posted December 16, 2008 CS4 Extended is only supported by Adobe on systems running Vista64. I don't know of any current issues or problems supporting BLURAY drives on Vista or Vista64. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted December 17, 2008 Share Posted December 17, 2008 Wait, no, I actually looked up the Adobe requirements before posting that and XP is in the list - SP3 recommended - and 64 bit wasn't required. I think the Bluray issue has to do with the awful DRM for HD content in Vista. The driver writers seem to be coping with it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slinger Posted December 17, 2008 Share Posted December 17, 2008 Well, according to Adobe Vista is one of the recommeded OSes for CS4, and we were just talking about this yesterday and Adam from Boxx was saying he's not seeing problems. Photoshop CS4 does have a 64-bit version so Vista Business 64 would be an obvious choice. They're also starting to get into GPU computing with Photoshop so you want an nVidia card that uses CUDA (which seems to be all of their current cards... a 9800GT would be killer and cost very little...) Photoshop isn't very multithreaded so I'd say the best Core 2 Duo you can get would be one option, or for better futureproofing an i7. But of course, for graphic and web design use I'm going to go ahead and recommend a 24" iMac with a RAM upgrade and CS4, Rapidweaver, Aperture, Pixelmator and VectorDesigner. Later if you want to get into video you can add Final Cut Studio.The 9800gt can be had for less than $100 after MIR at newegg right now too Whatever you do, don't buy a Dell Laptop with CS4. Apparently there are issues with their video drivers where the cursor/brush does not show up. One of my collegues at VisMasters called Dell and got though to a senior person and he was told they would not be making a fix for the driver to make this work. There is a hacked driver out there, but it will only fix the problem if you don't use OpenGL with CS4.That sucks that they acknowledge there is an issue but plan to do nothing about it. What customer support Is it because of the version of the nVidia (or ATI) driver Dell gives you? What they do (or at least used to do last time I owned a Dell, which needless to say was a long time ago), and this annoys the crap out of me, is they take a normal nVidia card but instead of calling it "Geforce 8200m", they call it "Dell Inspiron 666 Video Card" or whatever it is. Then they put a video driver on their site for "Dell Inspiron 666 Video Card", which is actually a repackaged nVidia driver. The normal nVidia driver doesn't install, because the driver is for a "Geforce 8200m" and nobody told it that a "Dell Inspiron 666 Video Card" is really a "Geforce 8420m". Then Dell never updates the video driver. Because that would mean their tech support people need to know more than one thing. So you're running a video driver from 2005 when nVidia solved the bug in 2007. The driver hacks are all along the lines of going into a file that comes with the nVidia driver and changing the PCI ID codes so it knows it can install. When I had to do this I found the information on laptopvideo2go.com. Of course, MacOS doesn't have this problem.Dell no longer does that. Now they simply list it as an nVidia card. However, they still package repakcaged Dell drivers so I would think you could uninstall the video drivers they sent and get new fresh ones and solve the issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil Johnson Posted December 17, 2008 Author Share Posted December 17, 2008 Hi, this is Myrna. Thank you so much for your responses and clarifications. Right now I'm building a custom computer at pugetsystems.com rated third best by consumer report.org Thanks again and have a jolly drawing life :^) Myrna Figueiredo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted December 20, 2008 Share Posted December 20, 2008 Btw Engadget reports today that nVidia has started releasing the laptop drivers on their own web site. Anybody dealing with old buggy drivers should check that out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 Wait, no, I actually looked up the Adobe requirements before posting that and XP is in the list - SP3 recommended - and 64 bit wasn't required. To use the "Extended" (64bit) part of CS4 Photoshop Extended, one needs to have Vista64... Was all... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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