Big Computing

The computing story continues to unfold. Societies' member, Martin Taylor was impressed with the data we published when we built Big Computer 3 (BC3 - 16GB RAM, 2x Quad-Core processors and all the toys to match). So much so that he had Dell build him one as well. He noticed it was slower than his old machine, not the outcome he was seeking! As part of fathoming out what was going on he shared his files with us and we completed the identical task. This was a real-world one, consisting of making contact sheets from 278 JPEG files, 3x4 up, onto a 10x8 sheet, at 180 ppi, 23 sheets in total. Typical of the proofs that many people like to present to a couple when starting to select images for their album.

The timings are tabled above. After a short amount of time Martin lost faith in the Dell box, sent it back and joined the increasing throngs who have migrated to Mac. He purchased a Mac Pro with a similar specification (16GB RAM, 2xQuad Core processors). The results are startling. His time to complete the task has been reduced from 10 minutes (using XP 64-bit and CS3) to 1m10s using the Mac and CS4. The root cause seems to be the Windows operating systems. Vista and XP-64-bit are slow and pound for pound the Mac is 10x quicker using a 32-bit operating system (progress or what?).

The announcement of Windows 7 this week has done little to allay fears. Think about it, Vista is truly awful but they have retained the core structure and brought the release date forward in an attempt to staunch the haemorrhaging. The likelihood is that the rushed launch will deliver an even less finished product. They claim that because they are retaining the core structure that anything that works in Vista will continue to do so in Windows 7 – wrong philosophy grasshopper! The problem with Vista is not the things that do work, but the things that don't. Vista is a dog, it has always been a dog and now it seems it is about to deliver a mongrel puppy and a premature one at that.

Casting about for a suitable metaphor to rant about, we came up with the following. Microsoft is like a child with a learning disorder and significant behavioural problems to boot. This child has now grown to be larger and physically stronger than its parents and sits in the corner all day, refusing to go to school and generally causing mayhem and disruption. Meantime the Mac is like the pretty younger sister, all new shoes and handbag shopping – a pretty little thing with a string of admiring suitors, she is actually quite smart under the flashing eyelashes, but is expensive to run with her stylist tastes. Linux is the talented younger sister. She is not yet pretty, but looks like she might be. She is definitely the smartest child of the family but because she is young and small she has to shout a lot to be heard. Meanwhile the parents (that's us) are quietly tearing our hair out to keep the home together and praying for the day when they all shove off to uni and start earning some money!

End of rant.

Machine	Photoshop	OS	Time	Time/files	Processors	RAM
MMcN BC3	CS2	VISTA	5m 2s 302s	1.09	8	16GB
MMcN BC3	CS2	VISTA	5m 05s 305s	1.10	8	16GB
MMcN BC3	CS3	VISTA	11m 52s 712s	2.56	8	16GB
MMcN BC2	CS2	XP-32	12m 30s 750s	2.70	1	2GB
Martin T BC3	CS3	XP64	10m 05s 605s	2.18	4	16GB
Martin T Mac	CS3	MacOS	8m 30s 510s	1.83	8	16GB
Martin T Mac	CS4	MacOS	1m 10s 70s	0.25	8	16GB

TALKING OF RANTS!

Try this one. My mouse has suddenly started to judder when working with brushes in Photoshop. This is so bad as to prevent accurate painting of masks and uncontrolled splodging when using the Rubber Stamp tool. Googling for 'Vista Photoshop jittering' revealed that we were not alone but no solution had been posted as of 28 October on the Adobe forum.

Adding 'stuttering' to the search dropped out the answer at http://www.evrim-sen.com/html/photoshop-lag-vista.htm
here is the extract:

"Problem
Photoshop (7, CS2, CS3, CS4) is studdering / lagging / jerking / delaying on Windows Vista working with brush. Happens with NVidia graphic cards. It also causes lots of screen and program lags.
Driver updates do not help (2008-05).

Solution
Go to 'Appearance Settings' and turn Windows Scheme from "Windows Vista Basic" or any other scheme back to 'Windows Aero'. To do so, click right mouse button on your Desktop, select "Personalize", then select "Theme", and use the Drop Down Menu and select

"Windows Vista".
So simple that may be, that solves the problem.

Alternatives:
If you do not like Windows Aero, work without the ruler (CTRL+r). when the problem comes again, press CTRL+r twice. This does not solve the problem once and for all, but it helps. Also pressing CTRL+"-" (minimize) and CTRL+"+" (maximize) stops the studdering for a while."

This last one worked for us, we also tried Windows Aero running in 'Classic' mode. This too worked.

Why do we have to put up with this sort of stuff? Let's take the car analogy. If you bought a new car and it went at half the speed of your old one, wouldn't you take it back the the sale room and ask for your money back? If your new car was stuttering and the only solution was to get out of the car lift the bonnet twice and get back in again wouldn't you take it back to the sale room and demand that it was fixed. Now, where's that phone number for the Apple Mac centre?

End of Rant number two.

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