Hi all, I have a fairly new iMac (mid-2008 20" model) with a 2.4ghz Intel processor. I am a web designer and use this machine every day for my work. Several months after installing Adobe Creative Suite 3, I noticed that Photoshop was causing the cursor to jump and/or become jerky, as if the video card or processor were not keeping up with what’s going on. This tends to happen after the computer’s been in use for several hours or days after a restart, and it gets so bad I can’t work. I have been following this in Leopard’s Activity Monitor, and I noticed that Photoshop (being memory- and processor- hungry) taxes the processor more heavily than many other programs, which I expected. The strange thing, though, is that over time the Activity Monitor shows the "System" as taking up more and more processor capacity. I.E. when I first start up, the system is using 0-20% of the processor, the rest being available for the user; but after awhile, the system is requiring 50-90% of processor capacity, the result being that as soon as I switch into Photoshop from another program, the system is immediately overtaxed and starts moving very slowly (especially the cursor, as I said).
Now, here’s the really strange part. As I said, this began happening a few months after I first installed Adobe CS3. I re-installed the software at Adobe’s recommendation, and it was fine for another few months, but it began happening a few days ago, which is exactly the same time I shared a jump drive with a friend’s worm-infected Windows XP machine. I know Macs don’t get Windows worms, but is it possible that this thing has lodged itself on my system somehow and is causing it to run generally more slowly?
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Hi Ann, Thanks for responding! I’ve done disk utility, but have so far come up with no errors (although I have expected to find some). I have never repaired permissions or done Cocktail or DiskWarrior. I am not familiar with these; what can you tell me about them?
I have about 75% free space, so that isn’t the problem.
As to CS3 and Leopard, I concur. CS3 is the only bit of software that gives me any significant trouble. Have you heard anything about CS4 being better on that score?
If I can run Photoshop CS3 smoothly under Leopard on my MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core 2 Duo with 3 GB RAM, I don’t see why you can’t run it just fine on a 2.4 GHz iMac. Sure, it’s no Mac Pro, but the behavior you describe is not normal. And no, there is no way the Windows worm has anything to do with this. Check out basic maintenance via Ann’s suggestions above. Also, you should have a Scratch Disk separate from the iMac’s internal HD, such as a firewire external, with 100 GB of free space, and not used to store your documents that are being worked on. In addition, have you recently installed any other suspect software or apps that may be causing trouble?
Also, Photoshop is resource-intensive: Unlike email or internet, it really demands a lot out of the computer. Sooner or later, you will need Disk Warrior. Might as well buy it.
Repair permissions is done through Disk Utility so you probably have done that.
Cocktail (which you can download but which is not free) is used to clean out caches and do other essential maintenance tasks. Or there is Onyx which can do something similar and which is a free download.
DiskWarriot is an essential tool. it is not free and you do need to buy it on a CD (Apple stores stock it).
It is used to repair damaged directories.
You should run it whenever you do a major software installation and every couplel of months after that or whenever the computer begins to feel sluggish.
I am running CS4 on Tiger but there don’t seem to be as many problems being reported with CS4 as there were for CS3 by people who are running it on Leopard.
Gary– thanks for the advice. On my current set-up, I have a FireWire external (320GB) which I use for Time Machine only. If I set this as my scratch disk, you’re saying this should improve performance? And if so, should I partition this drive before making it the scratch disk.
As far as "suspect" apps, I did install Audacity (for music recording) as well as attempting to install some drivers for a USB microphone system, which would not install correctly. I don’t know if those are known to cause problems. And generally speaking, I have installed quite a lot of software ( I installed, uninstalled, and reinstalled CS3 due to problems) without ever running DiskWarrior or any other utility. Maybe this is my problem.
Ann — I’ll be looking into these products. If I’m using them, do you think it’ll help keep the computer running for longer periods of time (given that I’m on it, with the entire CS3 suite open, for 8 hours a day)? The thing is, I used to rarely restart, but now I’m having to do it more often.
Oh, and the other thing is, I use many history states in Photoshop. I often need to go back, so given my 4GB of RAM, I moved up to 60 history states. I assume this taxes the system more heavily, but it seems I have a bigger problem.
If you run Cocktail last thing at night it will do the regular, and essential, maintenance that the Mac OSX Cron Scripts would do if you left the computer running 24/7; and can be set to shut down the computer automatically when it has completed its tasks.
I still advocate Repairing Permissions (with Apple’s Disk Utility) before AND after any system update or upgrade, as well as before AND after installing any software that requires an installer that asks for your password.
I have seen software installations go sour because the installer did not find everything as and where it should be.
I have also seen software installations go bad because the installer did not clean up after itself properly and did not leave everything as and where it should be.
This is just my own personal opinion and practice based on my own observations. Others may disagree and that’s OK. I can only base my routines and my advice to others on my own experience and conclusion. I don’t pretend to know why others believe otherwise.
Repairing Permissions after the fact (i. e. not immediately before and after an install) may NOT help. Try it anyway, though.
====
Additionally, if your machine does not run 24/7 so that it runs the daily, weekly and monthly Cron Scripts in the middle of the night as intended by Apple, run Cocktail (shareware) as well.
Cron Scripts are maintenance routines designed by Apple to run on a daily, weekly and monthly basis in the middle of the night.
If you don’t run them, you WILL run into trouble, sooner rather than later.
Mac OS X performs background maintenance tasks at certain times if the computer is not in sleep mode. If your computer is shut down or in sleep at the designated times, the maintenance does not occur. In that case, you may want or need to run these manually. Mac OS X periodically runs background tasks that, in part, remove system files that are no longer needed. This includes purging older information from log files or deleting certain temporary items. These tasks do not run if the computer is shut down or in sleep mode. If the tasks do not run, it is possible that certain log files (such as system.log) may become very large. Also, from: <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106978>
The disk activity generated by find is a normal part of file system maintenance, used for tasks such as removing invisible temporary files that are used by the system. It is scheduled to occur early in the morning at 03:15 everyday, 04:30 on Saturdays, and 05:30 on the first day of each month.
NOTE: There have been comments to the effect that Apple "fixed" this in 10.4.2 and later versions of the OS, but I have not been able to verify this to my satisfaction. The reference in the 10.4.2 release notes are far from explicit on this subject.
Thanks Ramon. I never shut my computer down at night, but I usually put it into sleep mode. I guess it’s saying this will prevent the maintenance from taking place. If I leave the computer running as normal when I leave it at night, I suppose this does the trick– even though it eventually enters sleep mode automatically?
If I leave the computer running as normal when I leave it at night, I suppose this does the trick– even though it eventually enters sleep mode automatically?
Nope. If the computer is sleeping, the Cron Scripts do not run. It doesn’t matter when it began to sleep or how.
DiskWarriot is an essential tool. it is not free and you do need to buy it on a CD (Apple stores stock it).
When I last upgraded DiskWarrior as a download, I followed Alsoft’s instructions for creating a bootable disc. But, buying a disc instead is, of course, one less thing to do.
When I last upgraded DiskWarrior as a download, I followed Alsoft’s instructions for creating a bootable disc. But, buying a disc instead is, of course, one less thing to do.
Neil:
As I recall it, I did have to have the original CD in order to create an upgraded CD from the downloadable Upgrade software.
Nathan – In your original post you stated that things slowed down after several hours or days of use. Therefore your hardware is able to run PS CS3 fine. You have a hardware or software problem. If none of the things mentioned above work reinstall your system (download a combo installer for the latest version of your system, the whole thing will take under an hour) and if that doesn’t work your software.
Try Disk Warrior
If that doesn’t work a completely clean drive and reinstall everything.
If that doesn’t work take your machine into Apple for repair.
Hi Larry, That’s what I suspected: my machine can run PS just fine– until my system starts hogging so much CPU capacity that none’s left for PS. I don’t get the "jerky cursor" until I’m at that point with the system, where it’s hogging the CPU. Restarting PS doesn’t work at that point, because the problem is with the system itself.
Good news, though, in that I ran OnyX and did "repair permissions" thru Disk Utility, and the machine seems more zippy so far. If this doesn’t solve the problem, I’ll get Disk Warrior or get ProCare for the Genius Bar.
It has taken SIX upgrades and it still has problems so Apple is apparently abandoning it and bringing us a whitewashed version which is to be called Snow Leopard.
Those of us who are lucky enough to have machines that can run Tiger (OSX 10.4.11 have been spared the Leopard trauma.
Yes, but Tiger was pretty solid from 10.4.3 onwards as I recall and just got better and CS3 has been pretty trouble-free running on it too.
The problem with Leopard and the CS3 Suite is that Apple made major changes to the basic structure long after seeding it to the developers like Adobe.
When CS3 was almost ready to ship, Apple moved its goal posts, which is why the CS3 programs have had continuous problems running on Leopard and still do.
Leopard in and of itself is OK as an OS. It has some nice bells and whistles, but it has taken Apple 6 updates to provide a stable environment to run our favorite Adobe apps. Even now people are having trouble installing Adobe software in Leopard.
So I’m willing to agree that Leopard is the worst OS so far. That’s not saying 10.5.6 isn’t so bad. Its just not all that great and the lack of stability is with InDesign is stopping me plus the fact that Epson is not updating the 2200 drivers.
Leopard is NOT that bad and the instabilities described are grossly exaggerated. Most users do not have problems. In here you only hear those who do have problems (like at MaxFixIt as well). Remember that. The ones without problems are usually silent.
Right … I’m actually lying about your Leopard experience because that would benefit me in so many ways … 8/
Whatever, Castaneda. You’ve never mentioned using it that I recall and I’m fairly certain you haven’t bought it – you’re obviously not running it on your ancient G4. Maybe cursory glances with your wife’s Macbook? (which you also hate as I recall) …. feel free to enlighten me about your vast Leopard experience. What specifically don’t you like about it?
Leopard is arguably and easily the worst OS ever released by Apple.
No. It’s not.
Buko-
…the lack of stability is with InDesign is stopping me plus the fact that Epson is not updating the 2200 drivers.
I can’t speak for stability with InDesign because I don’t use it much but everything else I use is (and has been) rock solid. And the NON-updated Epson 2200 driver works just fine with Leopard – as well as it did in 10.4 anyway.
I totally agree that there’s no highly compelling reason to upgrade to Leopard, but the little things do add up. I love the ability to view content in the Finder – movies, images, PDFs, etc., without the need to open an app. Spotlight works fantastically – huge improvement over the version in 10.4. Networking has been much improved, Mail is much better, and on and on …. as I said, there’s no killer feature but the combined overall improvements make the upgrade worthwhile.
FWIW – I use both 10.4 and 10.5 on a daily basis – 10.4 on a G5 Quad at work, and 10.5 on my Mac Pro at home. I prefer 10.5.
Ann-
Just a sample of Leopard’s history if you haven’t been following it:
C’mon, that proves nothing. You could find similar threads about every OS released in addition to every version of Photoshop released. There will always be problems that may or may not be related to the software – and people will post about them.
The only real issue I recall with PSCS3/10.5 was the text input glitch that was rectified with 10.5.2. I’ve been using 10.5 full-time since then and haven’t suffered ANY of the "trauma" you mentioned.
… so Apple is apparently abandoning it and bringing us a whitewashed version which is to be called Snow Leopard.
Sigh … if only other developers would follow suit. Imagine if Adobe would concentrate on actual performance improvements, rather than worthless bells and whistles (adjustment layer panel, anyone?), that cater to the newbie because the bean counters know new features and dumbing down the app will move more product.
Only Apple has the guts to pull this off and I say good for them.
Most compelling feature of Leopard: Time Machine. Freakin’ amazing. It has saved my butt a couple of times already, when I stupidly saved something I regretted shortly later, but was too many history states away from. No problem, just fly back in time and recover a previous version. Gotta love Time Machine. It Just Works.
Yeah, there have been a few bugs and annoyances in Leopard, but it has pretty much settled down. No reason to go back from my perspective, but I don’t use InDesign. Really looking forward to Snow Leopard.
If I were forced to run Leopard, e.g, if I were given a free Mac-Intel box that did not run Tiger, I would disable Spotblight, Dashboard, Time Machine and Spaces, just like I’ve disabled the former two in Tiger.
How does Time Machine differ from an excellent backup utility like, say, SuperDuper! ?
I use Super Duper, but only in Free mode. It has more options if you purchase it. Before Time Machine, I always used Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make periodic bootable backups of my systems. I still do this, because Time Machine backups aren’t bootable unless restored. For my daily backups of the user folder, I used Deja Vu, which worked fine. I backed up ongoing projects manually, which also works OK as long as you don’t forget.
Time Machine is different. The first time you turn it on, it backs up your whole system, including attached drives, unless you tell it not to. After that, it kicks in on a schedule, backing up only what has changed, but keeping all earlier states at the same time. It does this to the limits of its storage capacity, at which point, the oldest files begin to fall off the wagon. Brilliant design. When you enter time machine, you fly back through time looking at successively earlier versions of a chosen directory. You can retrieve any file you find there. I’d have to say the interface is a triumph of usability.
Time Machine is intrusive, because it runs on its own.
I appreciate Ramon’s concern here. You might not want Time Machine kicking in while you have a bunch of stuff up in RAM, or something else going on, etc. Valid point. I can only say it has never caused any trouble, and has already saved me from myself a couple of times.
Not to worry, that was the last post of yours I ever saw.
I’m all broken up, lol …
The only real difference between Time Machine and other BU schemes, like SuperDuper! is that it’s based on hourly backups, rather than a single backup per day. It’s "intrusive" but that’s the price you pay for a larger margin of safety. You can configure the other apps to "run on their own" as well, just not every hour.
Personally, I’m fine with a single, daily backup that’s run overnight using SuperDuper! or DejaVu. I’ve never tried Time Machine, tho.
So far I continue with manual daily backups at the end of the day, except that new images and major work product (like a new ad completion) are immediately backed up. Time Machine sounds interesting but I find the idea of an app automatically backing up a bit scary when doing it manually is so easy.
Also I use daily backup as a good time to purge; e.g. when I build an ad I may have a dozen large evolutionary versions and after the work is submitted and the deadline is past most of the evolutionary versions can be deleted.
I use SuperDuper! for my daily auto backups. But as for previous versions of a job, I always save my files with sequential revision "numbers". For example, my files are all named [job no.]-[client/job title]-[revision no.]. So, the job with three rounds of billable changes:
2075-ABC Widgets and Gadgets Ad 2075-ABC Widgets and Gadgets Ad-REVA 2075-ABC Widgets and Gadgets Ad-REVB 2075-ABC Widgets and Gadgets Ad-REVC-FINAL
I can find any earlier iteration (obviously) and I have a quick history for billing purposes. That’s my "time machine".
With an older, limited machine like mine, I help it in any way I can. That includes managing fonts so only a few are active at any one time but with auto activation, nuking the utterly useless and incredibly intrusive Spotblight, same for Dashboard, and a host of similar measures. I’m glad you see why I don’t want Time Machine kicking in at the wrong time. Really, if CS4 ran in Panther, I’d go back to 10.3.9 in a heart beat.
I run my full backups every night/morning as I go to bed for a rest. Same with Cocktail, which, among many other tasks, checks the SMART status of every single drive attached to the computer.
The computer industry, both on the hardware and on the software sides, is constantly backing each other up with often (not always, of course) questionable upgrades and enhancements designed to move us to buy more hardware and hardware all the time. That’s understandable. But I know my needs.
I’m fine with Super Duper, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to get it to copy 10.4.11 only. Am I missing something? I would like one of my backup drives to be system only and then add two apps.
Well, for my part, I can report that Time Machine works, well and unobtrusively, and I have found no downside. It’s a lot like your first automatic transmission. You cling to the notion that manual was somehow better; you could really feel the road, etc. Then one day you realize you don’t miss it at all. Time Machine is brilliant, for the purposes it was designed to serve, which of course means all the ordinary users who never back up because it’s too complicated or they never quite get around to it. Now, they are covered automatically. People, this is a huge advance in OS technology. Not so much for Pro users, like the folks on this forum. If you are already saving meticulously numbered sequential revisions, and you prefer and need the precision of this, Time Machine wasn’t made for you. I am somewhere in between. I am considerably more of a power user than your average computer owner, but I am not professionally employed in the computer field. I do woodwork and carpentry for living, and play with Macs artistically in my spare time. After I realized that Time Machine always has my back, I found it a very relaxing feeling. And I still do other sorts of backups for different purposes. In short, Time Machine works transparently on my 2 intel Macs, and the interface is exceedingly cool. You can’t go wrong, provided you have the horsepower to run it.
It’s a lot like your first automatic transmission. You cling to the notion that manual was somehow better; you could really feel the road, etc.
Well, I first learned to drive on an automatic; then I discovered stick in 1973 (before my first trip to Europe), and never looked back. Even special ordered my last car with a silky-smooth six-speed (and saved $1300).
Then again, I virtually never drive in stop-and-go commuter traffic. <lol>
Seriously, though, for folks who have never formed a regular backup habit, Time Machine is probably the way to go. Of course, that won’t save folks who come to the forums, panicked with, "I just spent all day working on this big Photoshop project, but the dog ran through the room and pulled out the plug before I could save it. How do I get back my file?
Sandbox is a good feature and i will be using it if I install several big apps soon and then Apple does another Security Update afterward. SuperDuper does not have a system only capability that I can find. I think Ann is right, I’ll have to install 10.4 from disk, update, and add my two apps and my scanner. I just want a nearly empty disk ready for whatever. I have lots of disks and partitions, I might as well have a clean one.
It’s a lot like your first automatic transmission. You cling to the notion that manual was somehow better; you could really feel the road, etc.
Well, I first learned to drive on an automatic; then I discovered stick in 1973 (before my first trip to Europe), and never looked back. Even special ordered my last car with a silky-smooth six-speed (and saved $1300).
Then again, I virtually never drive in stop-and-go commuter traffic. <lol>
Seriously, though, for folks who have never formed a regular backup habit, Time Machine is probably the way to go. Of course, that won’t save folks who come to the forums, panicked with, "I just spent all day working on this big Photoshop picture. But my dog ran through the room five minutes ago and pulled out the plug before I could save it. How do I get my file back?"
Every time you click your mouse, you are counting on a lot of stuff to automatically happen. Do you want to go back to the command line? Sheesh. You guys sound spooked about Leopard. With 8 cores and 10 GB RAM, I’m not worried about a couple of extra processes.
I’d say, perhaps less a fear of Leopard than contempt for a specific Leopard process.
Yes, contempt is the feeling I’ve been picking up on in these comments. I just don’t see what would warrant it, unless you can actually point to a pattern of failure with Time Machine. I can’t. I have been observing it simply working fine ever since I turned it on. I did mention that it is designed more for consumer level users, by the way, but from what I’ve seen so far, I trust it. For those nursing an old Power PC Mac along, maybe you need to do yourself a favor & get into Intel land. Intel Macs are better.
For those nursing an old Power PC Mac along, maybe you need to do yourself a favor & get into Intel land.
It has more to do with, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!" than anything else. If Intel and Leopard work well for you and a growing number of others, that’s fine. If a G5 and Tiger gets the job done without any issues at this time, why change now?
If/when there is a compelling reason for them to switch, trust that the folks will do it.
For those nursing an old Power PC Mac along, maybe you need to do yourself a favor & get into Intel land.
It has more to do with, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!" than anything else. If Intel and Leopard work well for you and a growing number of others, that’s fine. If a G5 and Tiger still get the job done efficiently, without any issues at this time, why change now?
If/when there is a compelling reason for them to switch, trust that the folks will do it.
Where do I find a Mac-Intel that runs Classic or native OS 9.2?
I can’t help you there. It’s been a long time since I’ve needed or even thought about Classic and OS 9. I used to love that system. What do you use it for?
I have had to answer that question a gazillion times over the years. I use some essential, highly-specialized software that cost somewhere between $32,000 and $85,000 when a major client bought it for me. The application (a super powerful TSS) is not updatable or upgradeable, nor can it be replaced. Not only did the developer stopped development, but the whole concept became economically inviable on a worldwide basis. The relatively few users who could benefit from it couldn’t afford it.
Because of that, I have a bunch of other OS 9 applications that I have never bothered to upgrade but they still serve me very, very well. Having to upgrade all of them at once would set me back easily $25,000.
If a G5 and Tiger still get the job done efficiently, without any issues at this time, why change now?
My G5 was the most disappointing and unreliable Mac I ever owned. But your mileage obviously varied. Of course, I owned the balky & finicky factory-overclocked G5 Dual 2.7, frantically cobbled together by Apple when Steve had promised 3 GHz was on the way. It needed liquid cooling just to keep semi-stable. It was quiet so long as it idled, but as soon as anything was demanded of it, the constant ramping up & down of the 9 fans was truly annoying. Here is an example of how annoying this machine was: I could make the fans kick in just by grabbing the resize tab of a Safari window and wiggling it. And on a hot summer’s day, in my little workroom with no air conditioning, it was meltdown time. After the temp in the room got to 90 degrees, the computer would start making all kinds of random errors, and I would give up & shut down. I complained endlessly to Apple during the first year, and they replaced the Mobo, CPU & Power Supply (necessitating 3 trips to the Apple Store). Man did they lose money on this machine! And each time, it came back performing precisely as it always had.
My present machine, the 2008 Mac Pro Octo 2.8, is silent perfection by comparison. I also own a MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Core 2 Duo, from May 2007, which is another sweet little performer, in spite of the 3 GB RAM limitation. I am happy to learn that not all G5s are as weird as mine was.
Sorry to hear of your G5 "experience". Mine has always had good manners and reliability.
I bought the machine for a song. It had been languishing in a client’s closet, never used. To date, I haven’t spent time or much money to keep this G5 usable: the original small 80 GB drive was replaced with two 250 GB drives; the original Pioneer burner was replaced twice (first time to gain dual layer capability and some speed; second time to replace the drive when it became temperamental); the original video card was replaced for better performance, although it still cannot run extended functions in Photoshop CS4); and the original meager RAM was expanded to 4GB.
At some point, I will replace the machine, if only because more apps are demanding "Intel Inside" — obviously the writing is on the wall. Meantime, all I expect to do till then is swap out one 250 GB internal drive for a much larger one. Today’s prices for 1 TB drives make it a no-brainer.
I have not been able to find out exactly what Sandbox actually is, but it allegedly shares your user files with your bootable drive and acts as though it was your bootable drive, so that if you install a screwed up piece os software, you can revert instantly by booting from your original.
iMacs do NOT suck for Photoshop. As a matter of fact go try CS3 on an iMac at least the 24" models config and 4gigs of ram. Nothing about it sucks no matter what.
Of course PS "runs" just fine on a top iMac. Aside from the (unacceptable to me) glossy display, iMacs have a number of limitations as regards running heavy graphics apps in any kind of rigorous workflow:
External drives required but no eSATA, significantly limiting hard drive throughput. Quite important.
Limiting mobile graphics processor, but no mobility.
Limited RAM. The effects of limited RAM are already noticeable today and as we move forward with newer OS/app software and cheapening RAM the iMac’s RAM limitation will become ever more significant.
&bul; an external firewire drive is nothing to sneeze at.
&bul; as one that moves computers to various events, an iMac is much more mobile than a tower and works much better than a laptop.
&bul; RAM capacity typically improves with new releases of the iMac. We’re not going to be stuck at 4GB forever. Apple markets the iMac for home use with iLife. Garageband and iMovie are not wimpy apps. Any system that can run these apps can run Photoshop as well.
Let’s not forget the key words from the first post: ‘I am a web designer’. The discussion over iMac power belongs in another thread. Web designers do not hunger for RAM or extreme processing power. It is clear that Nathan made a professional choice in his system. There’s no need to challenge or question his choice.
RAM capacity typically improves with new releases of the iMac. We’re not going to be stuck at 4GB forever.
?? Yes, you are stuck at 4GB forever when you buy an iMac that only accepts 4 GB.
Apple markets the iMac for home use with iLife. Garageband and iMovie are not wimpy apps. Any system that can run these apps can run Photoshop as well.
There is much more pro work than just getting an app to "run;" like the OP states "…I noticed that Photoshop (being memory- and processor- hungry) taxes the processor more heavily than many other programs"
Let’s not forget the key words from the first post: ‘I am a web designer’. The discussion over iMac power belongs in another thread.
No, the discussion over iMac power belongs right here trying to resolve why the computer in question shows poor PS performance. The key words from the first post were "Photoshop was causing the cursor to jump and/or become jerky, as if the video card or processor were not keeping up with what’s going on." Note too that the OP is running PS with 60 History States routinely used. The fact that his work product ends up on the web does not somehow make his work into light duty PS usage.
It is clear that Nathan made a professional choice in his system. There’s no need to challenge or question his choice.
What we are doing is trying to diagnose poor observed performance, not "question his choice." The choice of a by-definition-limiting iMac with ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory could very well be part of his observed performance problems. There is no need to defend less-good PS platforms like iMacs and laptops, they are what they are. E.g. my 17" MBP has 2x the VRAM of the OP and I (to achieve mobility) by choice live with far less good performance than on my 2.66 GHz MP. If nothing else, a memory leak for instance will express itself in a performance hit much faster on a 4 GB box than on a 10 GB box.
as one that moves computers to various events, an iMac is much more mobile than a tower and works much better than a laptop.
I too use computers all over. In most instances the 17" MBP works great all by itself and unlike an iMac really is mobile. When a larger display is desired any size can be plugged in, including 30" – and no need to carry a loose keyboard and mouse. Better than an iMac, and the show can be run from the MBP as a mirror. The only downside is that laptops are more valuable and are more easily stolen.
Allen, my comments (like those from a few others in this thread) were to point out that Nathan’s issue must be software-related (either the OS or the app). An iMac (even a much older model) should not display that problem so there is little point in suggesting a more powerful computer is the obvious solution. What Nathan describes is an anomaly to that hardware.
What Nathan describes is an anomaly to that hardware.
Given the general CS3 performance of my 2.33 GHz MBP, that was my first thought as well, and I agree that most likely there is something more than just system power limitations at work here. However my MBP has similar power and I realized that I limit my usage on the MBP. If I worked 60 History States hard with lots of layers for hours I probably would expect slowdown on the MBP; that kind of heavy usage I reserve for the MP with its 8 GB RAM.
Nathan-
Yes move your PS scratch to the external FW drive. There is no need to partition it.
Drives slow as they fill. For speed keep all drives not more than 50-70% full.
There are some things we have not fully explored:
it began happening a few days ago, which is exactly the same time I shared a jump drive with a friend’s worm-infected Windows XP machine. I know Macs don’t get Windows worms…
…generally speaking, I have installed quite a lot of software…
Macs do not (yet) "get Windows worms" or viruses in general, but any OS is readily susceptible to malicious software (malware) that a user installs, even if that installation is unintentional. In particular Mac malware is known to infect pirated CS versions as well as other apps. And yes, Mac malware may be transmitted via a Windows thumb drive and Windows contamination can also be transmitted via a Mac. The symptoms of installed malware might well be similar to what you describe.
Personally I do not install anything that does not come directly from a highest end respected vendor, and any time that the Mac OS asks me for my admin password I carefully rethink why I am doing something that requires the PW. More than once I have decided "hmm, I do not really need/trust this" and aborted the approval.
We do realize that the most often used attack vector on Mac is Quicktime, Flash and Acrobat/Reader, right?
No I did not know that. Please elaborate, noting that an "attack vector" is nothing like a successful attack. With ~9 Macs online 24/7, no a/v, I have found zero successful attacks whereas on ~15 PCs I figure we would last about 20 minutes unprotected online without a successful attack.
Allen, visit both Adobe’s and Apple’s log of security updates to see the many, many security updates that have been applied to Quicktime, Flash and Reader. This is not about a user installing a bogus version of QT, Flash and Reader. These ‘highest end respected vendors’ that you trust are opening the door to hackers with their own software. Google for ‘pwned osx’ if you are still in the dark about Mac security.
With ~9 Macs online 24/7, no a/v, I have found zero successful attacks
How does one know if they have been attacked or if they have not been attacked if they run no security monitoring software?
Turn off the A/V on your Windows machines and you won’t see any attacks either. 🙂
Do not rush out and buy Mac anti-virus software because a/v software can cause even more serious problems. Before anyone uses a/v software on a Mac very thorough research is required.
As I’ve noted here previously, absolutely no issues with proper installations and updates of Norton AntiVirus on 6-8 Macs over a number of years. Any past issues with an earlier version of Norton AntiVirus were avoided. Although I’m careful, a small handful of instances of Windows-specific malware has been detected and successfully quarantined and/or deleted on the Mac in front of me now. Fortunately, .exe (and certain other) file types are not recognized by Macs.
Still, aside from the real possibility of there being a major Mac-flavored attack at any time (currently not a big threat as it seems most malware developers still aim for the larger Windows market), I don’t want to risk passing viruses, worms and Trojan horses on to Windows-based friends, family — and clients.
How does one know if they have been attacked or if they have not been attacked if they run no security monitoring software?
Easy. Year after year no problems. I only care if I have been successfully attacked. Third party security software creates its own issues.
I do not need to visit both Adobe’s and Apple’s log of security updates to see the many, many security updates that have been applied to Quicktime, Flash and Reader because I have installed them all weekly, no big deal. Like I stated earlier, an "attack vector" is nothing like a successful attack.
Turn off the A/V on your Windows machines and you won’t see any attacks either.
Yes, I would. Overall operation becomes compromised and it (usually) is very obvious.
Google for ‘pwn osx’ if you are still in the dark about Mac security.
In the dark? How about simply successful since OS 10.2 and above? PC fanboys/girls and a/v vendors make a lot of noise about Mac security issues (which we all agree are non-zero) for their own reasons, but the reality that OS X remains excellent enough from a security standpoint that the best operational protocol for most Mac users remains:
Ignore the noise from PC fanboys/girls and a/v vendors.
Stay current with security updates.
Avoid a/v software.
Keep network access limited.
Install only righteous apps from righteous vendors.
I don’t want to risk passing viruses, worms and Trojan horses on to Windows-based friends, family — and clients.
Makes sense if one moves files around I guess, but IMO it is the Win boxes that should have good a/v (and ours do) rather than complicating the Mac side with whatever Norton or whomever is up to just to protect Win from stuff passed by Win.
aside from the real possibility of there being a major Mac-flavored attack at any time
Such attack when it happens will make big news immediately and we will hear about faster than an installed a/v app could be updated anyway. After the news we will shut down outside access, evaluate the best response and then take that response.
…(currently not a big threat as it seems most malware developers still aim for the larger Windows market)
Agreed most writers aim at Win, but because Win is a security swiss cheese, not just because it has more market share. Macs are already a prime target. Those virus/malware writers not actively part of the a/v community are likely motivated at least partially by ego, and the first dipsh*t who writes a virus that successfully attacks OS X will glean major bragging rights.
How do you know you had no problems? Do you understand what it means to have a remote user gain root access to your system? Do you really expect to see a message pop up on your desktop to tell you that you’ve been compromised?… especially when you do not run security monitoring software?
How about simply successful since OS 10.2 and above?
If you really looked up the yearly PWN 2 OWN contest, you would see an OSX system has been PWN’d often and easily… including those running software as recent as 10.5. And it had nothing to do with trojans or viruses.
I’m no fanboy and I’m not trying to sell anything. Ignorance is what costs us.
The whole introduction of Mac security in this thread is absurd.
The symptoms of installed malware might well be similar to what you describe.
How the heck would Allen know this if he’s never had his Macs attacked with malware?
I simply don’t care about about "Security" I am much more concerned that installing Apple’s attempts to plug Security "holes" (i.e.: Quicktime Updates) have regularly caused more trouble than they are worth.
The part where he acknowledged that malware can be installed on a Mac (and may be the problem here) or the part where he said you should not run security software to monitor/clean that same malware?
The whole introduction of Mac security in this thread is absurd.
Sheesh. From the OP
…it began happening a few days ago, which is exactly the same time I shared a jump drive with a friend’s worm-infected Windows XP machine.
"If you really looked up the yearly PWN 2 OWN contest…"
Old boring news, duh. Of course Macs can be hacked if given network access to the machine; that is not a successful virus attack such that we should compromise OS X with third-party a/v. Note too that only shell access – not root access – was achieved, even though the team that succeeded was first class.
Which brings up another Mac security step I did not mention earlier:
Normally log in as a non-admin user. Only log in as admin when intentionally installing new software.
I just consider that this mania about "Security" is overstated and not something to be particularly concerned about. Frankly, I am not in the least concerned about it.
I guess you did not live through the early Mac viruses like I did, costing hundreds of hours to resolve. Or the issues I have getting a/v for Win to remain current and still play nicely with all the other app upgrades.
Or the Billions of dollars cost spent worldwide coping with poor Win security.
Security is a very big deal. It is a question of when (not if) Macs get whacked again.
I recall only a single Mac "event" and I don’t think it was actually a "virus" as such at all.
Sorry, but I refuse to get in a state about something that currently does not appear to be anything to be particularly concerned about unless one goes in for loading free or dubious (pirated) software over the internet.
The part where he acknowledged that malware can be installed on a Mac (and may be the problem here) or the part where he said you should not run security software to monitor/clean that same malware?
What Allen said was: Simply do not install malware. You do not need (historically problematic) a/v software to monitor/clean something that you never install in the first place.
I’ve run onyX and other disk utilities, and so far have come up with nothing much. However, one thing I just found are 15 dangerously corrupted fonts. I have read that this can cause serious problems in Photoshop. I also have been following Console, and Photoshop is causing the plurality of errors.
Also, I took it into the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store, and we ran "Yes" from the command line to push the processor to its max, while doing some heavy editing in PS. We of course got slowed performance, but were not able to reproduce the problem. Also, when we were done pushing the system and PS, both released the processor and stopped taxing it. This DOES NOT happen when I’m normally using PS: once the CPU starts getting taxed, it stays that way until I reboot. I should note that I did not use any fonts during this exercise… could this be related?
I did that, and then cleaned my fonts cache in OnyX.
The other thing I’ve noticed– now that I’m paying more attention to "All threads, hierarchically" in the Activity Monitor– is that I have this old PowerPC program for an HP Scanjet scanner, which has some kind of "HPScanjetManager.app" that starts up in LaunchD and takes up about 40% of processor (40% of one core, that is). Still that’s eating a lot of CPU and I am pretty sure it’s not actually doing anything productive (since scanning is currently not in use).
I forced the ScanjetManager.app to quit, and immediately saw my CPU usage drop to near zero. And here’s the other thing: when I quit the HP program, Activity Monitor’s PMTool, which was itself eating 40% of CPU, also dropped to under 1%. Related? Maybe it’s time to get a new scanner.
Interestingly enough, Scanjet Manager.app is not in the StartupItems folder. Shouldn’t matter, though, as I just uninstalled the HP program completely and will only use it on my old PowerPC machine. No reason to clog this machine with old junk software.
In the early 1990s I had to deal with supporting about 80 HP LaserJet printers and a UNIX network of about 120 work stations (because the entire staff of the IT department at my daytime job died or quit withing two weeks) for a period of several months. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about HP.
HP software absolutely stunk back then, including their printer drivers. I have no idea if they have improved, as I just stay the hell away from HP. >:(
No doubt. But my overall experience with about two dozen HP black-and-white laser printers over 15-16 years, both network and single user, Mac and Win, have been very positive. (OK, on one occasion, an HP-authorized repair guy totally messed up a standard, routine scheduled maintenance job. But HP simply gave us a brand new, later model printer.)
On the other hand, I’ve only bought Epson and Canon hardware for color printing and flatbed scanning.
No doubt. But my overall experience with about two dozen HP black-and-white laser printers over 15-16 years, both network and single user, Mac and Win, have been very positive. (OK, on one occasion, an HP-authorized repair guy totally messed up some routine scheduled maintenance job. He couldn’t even put the thing back together without the case bulging. But HP simply gave us a brand new, later model printer as a replacement.)
On the other hand, I’ve only bought Epson and Canon hardware for color printing and flatbed scanning.
I have had no particular problems with HP laser printers used on the Win side, just issues with HP computers and displays and useless tech support (nice folks but clueless).
When Bill and Dave ran ran HP, they were the best hardware in the world, and their HP 9036 (?) was a very fine rackmount PC. When the numbers people eventually take over a company from the tech founders, kiss its sweet a– good bye. I don’t know what happened to Tektronix and LaVoie, but Raytheon is another example of the same thing. Basically Hughes Aircraft went the same way but it was the government number crunchers that killed it.
I worked for Keeve Siegel at Conductron a long time ago. Keeve was the original radar cross section guy at the U of M whose work was the basis for stealth. Don’t believe the horse pucky story about that Russian scientist’s unclassified backscattering work that some guy at Lockheed discovered. Conductron, a three hundred million dollar company, was acquired by McDonnell Aircraft about the same time MAC bought Douglas. When I was at Douglas we teamed with MAC and the merger was inevitable. Anyway, Keeve , who weighed in at 350, was convinced of his own brilliance and his company’s success stopped by St Louis on his way back home from a trip and went to J S McDonnell’s office to say hello and brag. The secretary told JS that Keeve was there. After about fifteen minutes, word came back that he was too busy to see him ( he was working a 4 billion dollar deal). Keeve said, "I quit!" and stormed out. He did , too, took his money and went home. Company went to hell. Keeve died.
There’s <http://www.tek.com> for the company that currently makes test and measurement equipment. The company suffered from too many divisions; too many markets, and it spun off a number of them. For instance, their printer technology was acquired by Xerox, which still sells the "melted crayon" printers.
Interestingly enough, after deleting my 15 fatally-corrupted fonts and uninstalling that stupid HP LaunchDaemon, my computer’s quite zippy– even when working for extended periods with large PS docs. I’ve gotten past the point where it usually slows down.
BTW, does anyone know why/how corrupted fonts slow PS (and the Mac) down so much?
I’d like to know how fonts get corrupted in the first place.
I have thousands and thousands installed (thought not all active all at once) and I can barely remember having many problems with any of them, from sources as far ranging as Adobe to little homemade fonts from a guy who has only ever made that single character set.
Font corruption seems to be much more prevalent among the old Type 1 PostScript fonts where the Outline and Screen fonts seem to be able to lose their links to each other.
There is software which can often repair damaged fonts I used to use Fontographer to do that.
There are still a bunch of very old Fonts out there which were written with a resource fork and which are now unusable. These include early versions (Pre 1992 if I remember correctly) of Optima and Eras among others.
These include early versions (Pre 1992 if I remember correctly) of Optima and Eras among others.
Optima and Eras were the two Type 1 fonts written so that they output two distinct waysone for low-res output devices (such as 300 dpi laser printers of the late 1980s-early 1990s); and one for hi-res output (such as for 2540 dpi imagesetters). As a result of higher resolution output devices plus user complaints about the different appearances, the fonts were eventually recoded so they printed identically to all output devices.
An excellent utility of extreme simplicity is TransType by FontLab. I’ve over 12,000 fonts and when FAP reports a bad font, I load it up in TransType and resave it. Cures the problem which FontAgent ‘thought’ it found every time. It might seem a little expensive but with a large font library it is modestly priced I think. I have to ‘repair’ about 4 or 5 fonts a year. You can also load them up and save them again in TypeTool, a modestly priced and limited tool set font creator. That’s FontLabs cheapo font creation tool and very good too! That’s what Ann was doing in Fotographer a much more professional tool.
It’s useful to remember that, as it was explained by Thomas Phinney and Dov Isaacs in the Adobe Typography forum, fonts are actually executable applications themselves.
As I recall, fonts are in a compressed state until they are being used…but the details are fuzzy for the moment. I suppose this change might occasionally lead to corruption.
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