[Liquid!]

Searched the past posts on this one with not much luck. I'd like to know if anyone out there has tried Painter 6.0 on their MacIntosh and if yes how was the performance.

I just recently tried it on a MAC G3 250MHZ, 200MB alloted to Painter, and most of the brushes were majorly lagging. That is to say that when you hit "[" or "]" for resiaing some of them you would end up with a small hourglass icon for just a sec.l But just long enough of a delay to be REALLY annyoying. Also using some of the other brushes, mainly watercolor, with FLAT coverage, and SINGLE bristle, which is sort of similar to the brush in PShop has a lag after you make a stroke...

Painter seems pretty cool, especially considering that Pshops latest upgrades are continually becoming more and more removed from what I do, however I wouldn't want to use it under these circumstances.

Could anyone else share their experiences?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Best,
c

[spooge demon]

I have tried P6 on a g4 with plenty o ram and it does the same thing. It seems impractical for anything over 2k.

I also feel the same way about photoshop. If they just had a way of showing which brush was selected, I would be fine with their new brush palette. Dot release coming up, fingers crossed.

The adobe board has the genius engineers that love to change things defending 6.0 and if you don't like it, you are an anal retentive power user who is too arrogant to "try anything new." Sheesh.

[Ko]

Hi Guys

Hmnn.... I think this has been discussed a few times before.... and in general Painter is reported to lag a lot on Macs compared to PCs.

I think that I've written this before, but here goes....

I have a Dual P3 500MHz at home and at work I'm running a dual G4 450MHz. Both systems are fitted with 512Mb RAM.

My experience is that the G4 kicks butt on the PC when working in Photoshop 4/5.5.
But Painter handles MUCH better on the PC. Painter states that it's optimized for the P3, but I don't think that it makes much use of the Altivec core in the G4, like Photoshop does. My guess is that the programmers have been sloppy, when dishing out the Mac version of Painter.

(By the way, I just love Painter... sweet stuff)
In my opinion, Adobe are in the progress of killing Photoshop. But it's still the best thing in the world for highend, highres image editing and design work, which is what I do for a living....

later.

Ko

[Liquid!]

Thanks guys! Really appreciate the feedback.

This makes me very sad indeed, since I think this means I will be switching to a PC in the near future. After being a diehard PC users for many years, the mac has truly won me over. The operating system is much more elegant, and streamlined than the clutterance of .dll's on the PC side of things, however Adobe is killing Pshop for me. Moreover, with the arrival of MAC OS X I will only be able to run older versions in a "CLASSIC" layer, which will pretty mich kill performance. And not upgrading to OS X is something that can only last for "so" long since it means that any future upgrades of software optimized for OS X is incompatibble with the older OS. As I said, this is making me REALLY sad, because I still believe that the Mac is a better machine for my purposes, albeit with much less software, than its PC counterparts.

SPOOGE - I ran into the same problem with the ADOBE guys myself a while back. The answer I got was, "Phshop is for photoediting, it ISNT designed for art". I have a feeling the only way this is going to change is when they start loosing marketshare. I'm assuming you're on the Mac too, what do you make of these developments on the horizon?

KO - Do you know if Painter6 would work fine on a Athlon or Duron processors?

Man this is "urking" me...

[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited January 24, 2001).]

[Liquid!]

KO - Thanks! Please be sure to let us know!

[CapnPyro]

Liquid! Don't switch! it's the darkside man, the darkside!!

No but seriously I have a G4 450 w/ 256 ram, swtiching brushes or brush sizes gives me no lag in painter 6. although, when i make a stroke with a large brush, the mark trails behind my cursor, it appears about a 1/4 second later.

And if you thought the MacOS is elegant now, wait till OSX comes out. It handles memory better and all programs (that want to be considered modern) will be updated, hopefully itll take advantage of OSX's better memory management and other various modern features that I dont know of it should also take advantage of the alti-vec engine (another reason to get a new G4 chris! )

-Capn

ps- PC's are evil, pass it on

[Ko]

Liquid!

I've never tried Painter on an Athlon or Duron processor... but my girlfriend is getting a 700MHz Duron tomorrow and she wants to digi-paint too
So, I'll make a testrun Painter will never forget!

I don't think it'll perform as well as the P3 though, causs of the P3 optimization...

I'll post my experience in a few days time.
In the meantime someone else can probably tell you about the Athlon/Duron performance.

Good Luck!

Ko

[Ben Barker]

Adobe is concerned with one thing now, and that is impressing their share holders. For us, that means feature creep with every new release. Worthless crap that just makes it slower and slower.
The program can't get much better, or it couldn't at least with about 5.5. Maybe some better type handling, and the integration of Imageready. But beyond that every change is a change for the worse, even if all it does is add processor overhead.

[Liquid!]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ben Barker:
Adobe is concerned with one thing now, and that is impressing their share holders. For us, that means feature creep with every new release. Worthless crap that just makes it slower and slower.
The program can't get much better, or it couldn't at least with about 5.5. Maybe some better type handling, and the integration of Imageready. But beyond that every change is a change for the worse, even if all it does is add processor overhead.

---

Boy, you're hitting a nerve here.

I think there is TONS that could be improved upon with Photoshop. Its not about changing and tweaking minor little things, but a NEW approach to thinking about what the best way is of putting a "piece" together on the computer.

Like what you say? Lets see.

1. Take some clues from Painter regarding media, brushes, texture, etc. However keep in mind, that their interface SUCKS. Mainly, enable users to have sophisticated brushes in addition to the existing ones.

2. I don't know why I have to use pshop, illustrator, Quark, to create ONE lousy ad. You should be able to overlay text more easily and have it "quark" onto disk within Pshop. Why doesn't this exist yet?

And these are just two of the big ones. I could really go on about this. I've been lately soooo frstrated with this, that I considered doing my own... (ala the guy that did DeluxePaint on the AMIGA ages ago..) Ok, that is biting off a bit much, but you get the point...

-c

[Seph|roth]

Liquid!

You should check out Adobe InDesign for these kind of things. Much more user friendly than Quark and i think you have some of Illustrators capabilities incorporated in it.



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- Seph -
Listen Without Prejudice

[Liquid!]

Thanks for the tip. I read reviews on InDesign though and they all read to wait and see a bit. So not quite a Quark killer yet..., but personally I can't wait. Quark looks/acts like it was made in the stoneage.

[CapnPyro]

i have the *cough*extended demo version*cough* of Indesign1.5... its my favorite page layout app, sort of a more professional version of PageMaker. it has no drawing function at all. I wish adobe would condense all their apps into one giant suite or �berprogram.

itd be nice to have photoshop, illustrator, a page layout, and webdesign and ftp program in one

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http://home1.gte.net/capnpyro

[quaternius]

Liquid!
I think Ko may be onto something in the other thread related to this subject. What's your video card set-up? It seems graphics cards have a significant impact on the speed of Painter. (I'm sure you know this already, but just in case -)For example, for 2D speed, such things as higher RAMDAC speed means significantly higher refresh rates, etc. I'm running over 300MHz on my RAMDAC, which is pretty good for a two year old card. Oh, I went to the dark side years ago, so I'm talking about a 3D Labs VX1 video card on a PC.

However, the new NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics card for the MAC may be just the ticket. The specs on the RAMDAC are over 350MHz. Problem is, I think you need a G4 to run it, but check to make sure.

Maybe there's a good ATI card out there; but the Radeon for MAC gets pretty mixed reviews on 2D performance.

Good luck, surprising to me how few options there are for the MAC these days.

Q

[Liquid!]

quote:

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Originally posted by quaternius:
Liquid!
I think Ko may be onto something in the other thread related to this subject. What's your video card set-up? It seems graphics cards have a significant impact on the speed of Painter. (I'm sure you know this already, but just in case -)


Nope I had no idea! That might make some sense though. I have a ATI RAGE ORION in the G3. But I wish the idiots at Corel would have mentioned it...

Where is KO's thread?


For example, for 2D speed, such things as higher RAMDAC speed means significantly higher refresh rates, etc. I'm running over 300MHz on my RAMDAC, which is pretty good for a two year old card. Oh, I went to the dark side years ago, so I'm talking about a 3D Labs VX1 video card on a PC.


Can I measure the Ramdac on the card in a mac?


However, the new NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics card for the MAC may be just the ticket. The specs on the RAMDAC are over 350MHz. Problem is, I think you need a G4 to run it, but check to make sure.


Unfortunately, as it stands now I can't see myself buying another Mac. Trust me this really bothers me, because I've grown very fond of them in comparing the same software across the PC/Mac platform. But if you're trying to make a living at it, you need the most efficient tools possible.


Maybe there's a good ATI card out there; but the Radeon for MAC gets pretty mixed reviews on 2D performance.


Well, it aint' the ORION!


Good luck, surprising to me how few options there are for the MAC these days.

Q

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Thanks!!

[CapnPyro]

Very true, i forgot about RAMDAC. All that is is the 2d processor on your graphics card, the mhz of it. Current high end graphics cards (like geforce2's etc) max out at 350.. 300 is still very speedy. The Orion is also a 16 meg card, I had a look at ATI's site and it didnt mention the ramdac speed of it. The Radeon for the Mac uses a 350mhz RAMDAC and 32megs DDR SDRAM (faster ram)

If your looking at maybe upgrading the card, the Radeon Mac Edition is the way to go for 2d. Here are some Photoshop benchmarking scores. The chip you have now is equivelent in these tests to the Rage128r2. http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/Radeon_AGP_Retail/index2.html You would have to get the PCI version, but the scores would be pretty identical for 2d performance

I didnt do this quick bit of research just because Im a nice guy although i am, I just cant stand the thought of a graphics professional moving AWAY from the mac

-Capn

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http://home1.gte.net/capnpyro

[spooge demon]

Hmmm... I can't stand my mac. I like my PC, and I wish I could switch.

But if I were to drop 2-3000 on a proper PC, and it crawls with complex 200 MB files, what do i do then?

I have a dual 400 Mhz pentium 2 NT box with 256 RAM, and it is useless in PS. A 50 meg image will hardly open. My G4 will do anything at all with the same file almost instantly. The PC does have a scsi drive. I have ramped up and down the resources avaliable to PS, no help.

I suspect that the PS port to windows is not optimal.

So, does anyone have a fast PC with 1 gig+ of
ram? Does it open a 6k image with 10 layers?

[quaternius]

Spooge -

Looks like upgrade time this year. Please Sir, more gruel... I mean RAM? PS is a total memory hog isn't it! I can't even open some 60meg files with 512Megs of Ram in PS. Useless is right! GIG time is here. I'll watch responses too.

But I CAN open those files in Painter???? I haven't gotten over 60 megs yet, so I haven't needed that gig of RAM so far - but how long can I keep dodging? And that's... um... one reason why I've chosen to embrace the wierdness that is Painter - on the PC no less.

Such is life.

Q

[quaternius]

Doh! Brain-dead am I. The 2D drivers written to run the dad-gummed video are at least as important as the RAMDAC speed. Since I'm not getting lag until I get to fairly large brushes (80 to 550 depending on the brush), my 3D Labs VX1 must therefore have an excellent 2D driver compared to some of the other cards out there with equal or better RAMDAC speeds. Only other thing I can think of. And the bummer is, where the heck would you find a repository of Painter/Photoshop tests with different cards - when the big deal in the marketplace is how well a card pushes ploygons in 3D game apps.???

This would be just as important on the MAC as the PC. Does that make any sense?

Q

[Ben Barker]

quote:

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Originally posted by Liquid!:

Boy, you're hitting a nerve here.

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That's never going to happen, because Adobe wants to sell you multiple software packages.
Plus it would be pretty hard to design a UI that could handle it and still have an acceptable learning curve.