Apple Responds to Adobe

Thargok333 writes "Apple calls out Adobe on the 'PC is Faster' article linked from the Adobe website. They state that it is an After Effects bug, which they are working close to Adobe to fix. With Adobe's idea of G4 optimization, I am not impressed that a 'single 1.25 GHz G3' gets beat by a P4 3 GHz."

Comments

The trouble is, x86s really are faster

[ebcdic]

Of course Apple will reject claims that their machines are slow, but sooner or later they're going to have to do something about it. I run straightforward CPU intensive programs such as XML processors, and for them Macs are roughly 20% slower *per MHz* than Intel and AMD processors. Given that the clock speeds of the fastest x86s are more than twice those of the fastest Macs, I can run three times as fast on a Linux or BSD machine costing the same as a Mac.

No amount of tweeking to use special purpose instructions or multiple processors is going to beat that in the long term, so if the PPC people don't do something about it soon, Apple will have to switch. Of course that would be a very expensive move, but fortunately Apple can hope that just the threat of it will be enough to make Motorola and IBM pull their fingers out.

An Honest Answer

[HotButteredHampster]

I'll try to give an honest answer. I have this very same argu^H^H^H^Hconversation with one of the developers I work with pretty frequently. To give you a bit of background, I am a software developer on multiple platforms including Mac OS X, but I spend most of my time on Windows.

Performance in a given task is not defined by frontside bus bandwidth. It is defined in the amount of useful work done in a given time.

All things being equal, the computer platform with the highest raw performance should perform more useful work in a given time. But things are never equal. How many different parts of the operating system and application are mixed in with the process? How many different developers of varying skill levels have added code to the process? Under normal circumstances, a given algorithm can vary between log n and n-squared processing time, depending on the quality of the developer's insight to the problem at hand.

Perhaps an analogy: put me on a Suzuki GSX-R1000 and let me race against Nicky Hayden on a GSX-R600. By rights, I've got almost twice the horsepower. But there is no freakin' way I'll get around a racetrack faster! Objective fact: the raw performance of the GSX-R1000 is higher. Objective fact: the GSX-R600 made it around the racetrack faster. Conclusion: the raw performance of the platform was not the dominant factor in the test.

So, do I expect the Mac to be faster? No, I expect it to be slower. But I will not argue when I am presented with meaningful benchmarks which contradict that presumption, either. What those benchmarks are saying is that the variables other than raw performance are dominating the equation.

Excess

[lux55]

I'm a software developer, so my machine needs only modest requirements. Mostly a copy of PostgreSQL, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Apache, etc, and a decent text editor (BBEdit or NEdit preferred).

Last summer I left a job where I was working full time on an AMD 1.5GHZ with 512MB RAM and a 7200 IDE drive. It ran Red Hat 7.2 and Gnome 1.4. It was WAY more than sufficient for my needs.

I left and moved my work onto a TiBook 667MHZ with 512MB RAM. Performance difference of the machine? Negligible. Performance difference of myself? Huge.

The truth is I really like both Gnome and OSX, but in terms of the "it just works" factor, OSX has a huge lead on everyone. Apple has the ability to accomplish something rare in human interface design: To be simple enough for the newbies to be comfortable, without compromising the power. No other system does this as well (yet).

My other home system is an AMD 1800+ (1.5GHZ) also with 512MB RAM. There's no real difference in system performance for 90% of what I do. Still, I only use that machine for testing and bug tracking, and spend countless hours perfectly satisfied with my TiBook. It's about personal preference though, in the end.

Re:The next PPC

[Gropo]

How about a memory controller right in the CPU?

Speculation of a 970 on-die controller exists from the most erudite of tech news sources. We'll hopefully have better insight on the matter when he finishes/publishes Part 2 of his 970 breakdown article.

And a HyperTransport link with 6.4 gigabytes per second of bandwidth (for AGP, PCI, Gigabit, SATA, etc.)

Can do... Apple is a member of the HyperTransport Consortium, and adding 2+2 suggests an equivalent-if-not-HT-proper I/O bus on the speculated 970 Apple MoBos.

The 970 won't be the only 64-bit consumer chip on the market this October.

True enough. I think the poignant argument is that Apple holds all the marbles in the platform arena, leading us to suspect quicker adoption of 64-bit precision on the OS level and API's. It's entirely plausible that if Apple is truly behind the 970, Panther will launch concurrent support for +4Gb memory addresses and 'double' integer strings. Microsoft is still playing the 'shy southern belle' in terms of outlining support for AAx86-64. Sure, the linux camp is already on it, but to be fair you did say "64-bit consumer chip"...

Re:Gimp

[pressman]

Look at Macromedia. The ape Adobe's interface at every chance they get. Good software with an interface consistent to what the market expects makes MM a viable competitor to Adobe. I'm still pretty firmly in the Adobe camp, but Dreamweaver made me switch from GoLive. A fmailiar interface on a superior product. It can happen.

Years ago I gave X-Res and Corel Photopaint their day in the sun, but you know what? They were just garbage compared to Photoshop. I tried Painter for a while. A very powerful, expressive program, but way too palette heavy, even by Adobe standards. I never really grasped the program, but many people with traditional media backgrounds did and they saw it as a complement to Photoshop rather than as a competitor. It lives in on to this day in pretty much the same fashion... though having gone through like 8 owners.... one of which was Corel. Shudder.

So an underdog can steal the crown, but that underdog had better have some mad skills. The GIMP isn't even close to being there. It's the genius, harelipped, buck toothed uncle of the digital imaging world that all the pretty people in the family don't deign to talk to. Clean up the interface and put in the features and capabilities that the design market wants and duke it out that way.

Claiming that The GIMP is ready to topple the Photoshop crown right now on Slashdot is just ludicrous. The app has potential, but it needs to grow up and mature a great deal before taking on the throne.

Re:Gimp

[shylock0]

I'm a consultant who does a lot of work with digital media, content creation, and professional design/art companies.

Please, as a response to this post, let me know of one or two graphics professionals (web sites, please) which I can verify use GIMP (not film gimp, which is completely different (and has undergone a name change), but GIMP).

The truth of the matter is, professionals -- true professionals, people who make their living sitting in front of a computer using photo and graphics tools for 4-8 hours a day -- all use Photoshop. It has nothing to do with interface or learning curve. It has to do with color management.

People who make arguments about GIMP and Photoshop and don't mention color management simply don't know what they are talking about. Color management is nearly everything to graphics professionals, and, quite simply, the Mac and Adobe Software does it better than anything else -- light-years ahead of GIMP. That's why many graphics pros use Macs, even *if* PCs are faster. Speed is far less important than output. Color management is everything.

We use GIMP quite a bit in our office (we also use photoshop). It's free, it's fast, and we can get it to run on the four platforms we use. But we can't recommend it as a solution to our customers. It's just not good enough.