Adobe CS3 with GMA 950

In short:

how well does Adobe CS3 run on a notebook with an onboard GMA 950 GPU?



In "long":

I've recently purchased (although I've yet to receive) my first notebook computer on what I believe to be a pretty good deal. As an afterthought, I'm now wondering how well Adobe CS3 Production Premium will run given the onboard Intel GMA 950 GPU.

The notebook meets the minimum system requirements except a) Premiere requires a 7200 RPM hard drive whereas my notebook ships with a 5400 RPM drive, b) the onboard GMA 950 GPU is obviously somewhat suspect (before you roll your eyes at me, my NES emulator is about as complicated as my gaming needs get ) and c) Adobe states that CS3 requires a 1,280 x 1,024 monitor resolution with 32-bit video card.

My dilema: I am aware of Adobe's generous 30-day free trial, but with the factory 5400 RPM drive I can't accurately test the software. I can easily upgrade to a 7200 RPM drive, but I will incur this expense ONLY if I believe I can get decent performance from Adobe CS3.

So, does anyone have experience running CS3 on the GMA 950? I am a professional video editor by day. I have the desire and know-how to take advantage of most features of Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects. I can deal with slow render time and somewhat slugish performance, but I simply must have the majority of the software functionality available to me. Any insight will be greatly appreciated!

Finally, what is up with the c) 1,280 x 1,024 monitor resolution requirement? I find it hard to believe the software will not function properly simply because my monitor is 1440 × 900. But then why would they state this? I'd use that "confused" emoticon here if I was into that sort of thing

disclaimer - I've googled this topic, I've searched this message board extensively, I've browsed the " The Mobile Graphics Card Info Page", I've found threads that almost answer my questions... in short, I'm stuck - and this message board appears to be ahead of all others I've seen by leaps and bounds. Although this is the gaming forum, this looks like the best home for this thread. If I've violated any policies/preferences, please know I've made good effort to follow generally accepted practices.

oh, and hear are the relevant spec's on my notebook:
Intel Core Duo Processor T2350: 1.86GHz, 2MB L2, 533MHz FSB
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
Memory Size: 2048MB
Memory Speed: PC2-5300 DDR2 667MHz SDRAM
Display Size: 17.0” widescreen WXGA+ with TruBrite Technology
Display Resolution: 1440×900, Native support for 720p content
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Graphics Memory: 8MB-256MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory
Hard Drive: 120GB 5400rpm
Configured with 2048MB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (both memory slots may be occupied). Maximum capacity 4096MB
120GB (5400RPM); Serial ATA hard disk drive; 9.5mm height; user removable



Thanks for reading!

 

1) 5400 vs. 7200: They offer similar performance, so that is just marketing hype on Adobe's part. Shame on them.
2) Most programs that do editing rely on the CPU and RAM. And looking at your signature you have a laptop that should be okay.
3) The monitor thing is mostly just a recommended res so that their GUI looks okay I believe. Again, marketing hype.

 

In "short":
1) Hard disk speed only matters when you require extensive use of a scratch disc (during importing/recording sessions). In most practical instances, a 5400RPM HDD is fine. My friend uses his HP 1440 x 900 laptop with a 200GB 5400RPM as his main video editing platform, and he hasn't ran into any problems.
2) Adobe CS3, from what I can see, doesn't use any real-time 3D rendering, so I don't see why a discrete graphics card is required. So the GMA 950 should be totally fine.
Premiere, from past expereiences, does not use real-time 3D rendering either. All effects have to be rendered first before being displayed. Thus a discrete GPU should not be necessary. Once again, the GMA 950 should suite your purposes well.
Now, I can't offer any advice on AfterEffects as I haven't used it extensively, and most definitely not on a mobile platform.
However, the same friend I mentioned above, does use it regularly (he's a music video editor), and once again, I haven't seen or heard of him complaining of any problems he's run into on his HP laptop.

Granted, his laptop does come with a discrete GPU (nVidia GeForce Go 7600).

3) Resolution does not matter. I'm running Adobe CS2 fine on a 1280 x 800 screen. I haven't tried CS3, but I doubt it's that much more different.

Final note: What's the "official" requirements for CS3? More specifically, what makes you say that the GMA 950 would be a problem?

One suggestion: What you can do is simply use an external 72K RPM HDD as a scratch disk, that way the HDD the OS/Application runs on doesn't impede the speed of your editing software's temp file/scratch disk file.

For general use purposes, I agree that they offer simliar performances. But there's definitely a noticeable speed difference when you're doing heavy duty editing work and require extensive use of the HDD as a scratch disk.

Unless you're willing to say that a 33% spin difference between 54K RPM and 72K RPM is negligible (Note: I said spin difference, that doesn't translate to linear performance increase), I'm pretty sure there's going to be a noticeable amount of performance difference when dealing with professional grade video/photo editing.

 

Wow, I can't thank you enough for the quick responses. Apparently I've given out too much reputation today to reward you folks. Anyway, I'm going to read your responses more thoroughly in the morning when I can see straight (tired, not drunk... I swear!)

 

OK, I lied... I got sucked back in and I'm still awake.

Greg:
Thanks for helping me decode the hype. Very helpful!

Triple_Dude:
After Effects isn't "true" 3D, more like 2.5D. So going with everything else you've said, it seems like I may be OK. And the reason I doubt the GMA 950 is because Adobe doesn't list it on their recommended GPU page.

Again, thanks for such well-thought-out responses. I'm liking this place!

 

I use Adobe CS3 Design Premium and it runs mostly smooth and efficiently on my Tecra M7. It uses a GMA 950 chip. When I have PSDs open at about 200MB a pop it starts to gurgle and choke, but... for the most part it runs ok.

Mind you, I mainly use Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. I'm a web/art ninja, but it runs fairly well on the whole.

 

Good info, Inkjammer. I have an older Macromedia version of Dreamweaver I still inted to use on this laptop, and I would like to use Illustrator, Flash, etc. I wanted to ask about those programs as well, but I figured I threw enough in my original post so I tried to minimize it to just the programs I am most interested in. So thanks for posting your experience, that is indeed very helpful to me!

I forgot to add earlier that I was apprehensive about the GMA 950 because everybody on this forum bashes this GPU. Everywhere I look online has this listed as one of the worst mobile graphics cards. The video work I do required over $100,000 in hardware and software when I graduated college seven years ago, so I'm still in awe that any laptop can handle what I intend to do.



Anyway, I think I have all the info I need. Please feel free to add more advice, but I'm fairly convinced I should be able to run the CS3 suite pretty well.

 

Well, it still is the lowest run of laptop GPUs, but can do the job. Heavy animations will choke the system, so if you plan on animating complex things in Flash, it's a no go. For DV items it's not too bad and will suite you decently enough.

Keep your expectations low, and stick with Windows Vista Basic - do not bother with Aero. It'll just bo down the GMA 950 and kill your performance in the apps. =)

EDIT: I just realized I mis-labelled my graphics card in my previous post. Blah. I don't have a GMA 950 in my Tecra M7, but I have used them before. It's low end, but it will still work decently enough when accompanied by a good processor.

 

Oh, I definitely know how you feel.

I actually do work in the 3D Animation and Modelling field (Maya and Photoshop are my best friends ), and when I was in school about 8 years ago, the "workstation" computers with 512MB of RAM, 16MB nVidia Quadro and a Intel Xeon (fastest at the time, I believe) CPU costed well over 5K, and it handled 3DS Max 4 like a dream!

But now... My 1.2K laptop EASILY over power that machine like no tomorrow .

Technology sure does progress fast... Heh.

 

I wanted to do a quick follow-up to share that this GPU does indeed handle the CS3 suite of products very well in my four weeks of using it. No openGL processing or anything like that, but it is perfectly adequate for my needs. Anything greater would have been overkill for me, especially considering I don't do any 3D gaming. In fact, the difference between the performance of my new laptop and my desktop at work with a 3GHz quad core processor with 4GB RAM and high-end GPU is marginal on most of the projects I'm working on. I of course let the desktop handle all the client sessions and rendering, but for everyday editorial needs when I'm by myself I'm thoroughly pleased with my laptop.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

Photoshop really doesnt use your video card at all unless your working with the extended edition with the 3d modeling tools. Its all cpu/ram for the most part.

In theory it uses your video card, but its just 2d stuff so if your video card is capable of putting a picture on your screen it pretty much meets the requirements to run photoshop