CS4 Design Standard, Mac Pro Towers, and RAM recommendations

We're considering upgrading our design towers from:
G5 Dual 1.8GHz
2GB RAM
10.3.9
Adobe Creative Suite CS1
Quark 6
to:
Mac Pro 2x 2.8GHz
10.5.4
Adobe CS4 Design Standard
Quark 8 (I know, I know.)
We'll be spending most of our time in QuarkXpress, Photoshop CS4, and a bit of Illustrator CS4. We hope to eventually migrate to InDesign CS4, but for now our workflow won't allow it. We'll also be running Microsoft Office 2008 applications.
My question: how much RAM should we install? I don't want to buy more than I need, but want to get the optimal amount for the applications we'll be running. We work on 50-page or so Quark docs, with some time spent with 50MB or so Photoshop files. What's everyone's experience and recommendations?
Thanks!

Start with 8 gigs and make sure you don't buy it from Apple. I recommend
crucial.com.
Bob

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Render Lighting Effects Filter Crashing PS CS4 on only Mac Pro Towers...8 Cores!!!

I just recently received a brand new Apple 8 core 2.93Ghz Mac Pro tower and also had the previous 3.33Ghz 8 core with the same exact issue. I have 16GB of memory on this tower and my last tower had 16GB as well. Everytime I run the render lighting effects filter on certain files in PS it hangs up and then crashes on me. I know it is not the files because they work on my Macbook Pro's, my iMac, and have tested them on many other computers other than the Mac Pro tower's at the Apple Retail Store out by me. I ran the same files on their new Mac Pro and it crashed just like it did on my two towers, but was very random and not file specific. Some that crashed on mine opened on theirs and vice versa. I have worked with the Adobe top techs troubleshooting this and supposedly eliminated that it could be a preference related issue, permissions related issue, file issue, and have done many things like disabling Open GL, resetting prefs, reinstalling, trying in new user, in Rosetta, in safe mode, in the root user, etc...super thorough testing and it still happens. Both Apple and Adobe feel that it must be something going on with the Mac Pro tower, PS, and possibly how the graphics card interacts and renders the filter. Actually I opened these files in my PS CS3 and it rendering the lighting effects filter, but was unable to run the filter on the entire image and actually left a 1/4 inch of the bottom of the image untouched which was completely bizarre. I have screenshots and console logs too if someone wants to see. I am REALLY curious to hear if anyone else has run into this problem or if they try what happens. Thanks and curious to hear some input. Regards, Anthony
Here are three links to the files...the first one is the file that is crashing my CS4 when running filter>render>lighting effects. The second is what it did to my file after running that same file in CS3, and the last is what the preview dialog box showed in CS3 when not running the filter on the entire image.
http://www.atortphotography.com/psbugs/AlmondWaffle.jpg
http://www.atortphotography.com/psbugs/AlmondWaffleRenderBug.tif
http://www.atortphotography.com/psbugs/cs3filterpreviewcorrupt

Hey there Bryan...I actually just talked with a level 2 Apple product specialist today after generating a case with Apple and he brought this to Apple Engineers and apparently since it is third party...meaning Adobe....it first has to be documented with Adobe after they look into the problem and then Adobe apparently will or should work together with Apple to help find a solution to the problem. This problem is very easy to reproduce on any 8 core Mac Pro tower and am hoping more people use the darn render lighting effects filter and get on everyone's case. I also had someone I know who is a Photoshop guru...Jim DiVitale test it on his 8 core in his photo studio and he was able to get his PS CS4 to crash like a bomb too. There is obviously something going on that needs to be looked at hopefully MUCH sooner than later so let's see what comes out of this. It really does suck because this is a filter that I actually do use in my workflow quite often. I just know that before I even attempt to run this filter I make absolutely certain I save everything and then hit that darn OK button. Keep on them and try to bring as much attention to this issue as possible so we can come to a resolution fast! @nthony

Mac Pro - CPU and Ram Utilisation (don't appear to be fully used)

Hi,
We've recently purchase and set-up a Mac Pro running OS X 10.4.8 (latest patches), FCP 5.1.2 and don't seem to be getting quite the performance we were expecting. (Caveat - I'm a IT tech not a video specialist so apologies if I get something wrong).
A few background details
Our configuration is as follows:
Mac Pro Dual Proc/Dual Core 3.0GHz intel
5GB Ram configured as:
Riser A Dimm 1 - 1GB
Riser A Dimm 2 - 1GB
Riser B Dimm 1 - 1GB
Riser B Dimm 2 - 1GB
Riser A Dimm 3 - 512MB
Riser A Dimm 4 - 512MB
(think AFAIK this should be the best config for the ram we have?)
(Slot 1 (in x16 mode)) ATI Radeon X1900 512MB graphics
500GB Internal SATA HD
(Slot 3(in x4mode)) FC 2 GB/s Apple card to XRAID (7x500GB RAID 5 with one spare)
(Slot 4(in x4 mode))Blackmagic Decklink HD Pro
Xraid seems fine performance wise - Blackmagic disk test shows 145MB/s Read about 100MB/s write.
Anyhow we have been doing some test rendering but don't seem to get the CPU utilisation above 150% (out off 400%) and also note the RAM utilisation also seems a little on the low side (not using more than 200MB 'Real memory' (as noted in Activity monitor) and any more than 1.2GB 'virtual Memory' despite having lots available (nothing else running)).
The (DV PAL) file we are rendering is simple consisting of over an 1 hour of Sat TV footage (bout 15GB worth just to test) captured via DV to which we applied some plugin effects (Chroma key, Light Ray and Scrub) once again just to test perfomance.
Have checked all the settings I can think of -i.e. system settings > Memory and Cache is set to Application = 100% (2560MB) and Still Cache = 20% (482MB). Scratch is Xraid etc. but can't seem to find anything obvious that could bee affecting this. (Also as an aside does anyone know if FCP limited to 50% of total sys memory as it appears to be (looking at the app = 100% = 2580MB) as it seems we could utilise more (in generall)).
Is this situation be normal? - bit hard to benchmark as our other machines are still 10.3.9 / G5 based with FCP 4.x. The Video tech seems to think its not as big a difference from his Dual 2.0Ghz G5 2GB Ram (3 years old) as he thought it would be (apologies for his vagueness)
Anything I can look to change/improve - I am concerned mainly about the lack of utilisation? Everything is freshly built straight after delivery
thanks - Pete
Mac Pro DP 3.0Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

It probably is mostly a 32-bit versus 64-bit thing in that the big boys like Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, etc. won't "see" more than just under 4 gigs of RAM. So they won't use memory as efficiently. A nice side effect to this is that you can multitask well with several of these apps open at once if you have a around 8 gigs of RAM.
Also DV (NTSC or PAL) isn't going to tax the system much as far as bandwidth so your maximum RAM usage probably won't be as high.
Compressor will push the CPUs harder, as will using some other codecs that are more sophisticated than DV.
Also, I'd think that the new Intels are still new enough that a lot of software might not be fully optimized yet. And in general the G5 PPC machines have a really fat memory to processor bus so that you aren't necessarily going to see a radical speed increase with these new Intel motherboards for some tasks.
If you have any CPU-based 3D apps like Cinema 4D or similar I'd try rendering tests to benchmark your CPU usage. 3D isn't as RAM intensive but it will push the four cores in my Quad G5 nicely. I'd expect the new Intel Quads to outrun my PPC Quad.

Hello, I have an apple Mac Pro. It is an older machine but I just had the Apple Store install a new drive with OSX 10.6.8. It runs great but I need to load software. Will it run CS4 Design Standard? Or, will I need CS5.

Hello, I have an Apple Mac Pro Laptop. It is an older machine but I just had the Apple Store install a new hard drive with OSX 10.6.8. It runs great but I need to load software. Will it run CS4 Design Standard? Or, will I need CS5. This machine can't run 10.7.

Hi There,
As per CS5.5 Design Standard release notes it can run on 10.6.8.
Kindly try to install in and share the results so that we can assist you if needed.
Please find the download link in my previous post.
Thanks,
Atul Saini

I can't get the CS4 Design Standard to download onto my computer... I just purchased a new MAC and I can't install my old software.

I can't get the CS4 Design Standard to download onto my computer... I just purchased a new MAC and I can't install my old software.

I'm having the same issue. All my applications transferred over. Lightroom is working, but when I went to edit a picture in Photoshop, I got an error message. It told me to restart, but the program still won't open after restart. It says licensing has stopped working, but what does that mean? I can't tell whether it's unsupported/blocked, or if it's a malfunction. The error code is 150:30 See screen shot.

I purchased a new mac and i installed CS4 Design Standard, it installed but won't open

I purchased a new mac and i installed CS4 Design Standard, it installed but won't open

You're welcome! Glad it worked!
Benjamin
P.S. Be sure to mark the solving answer correct (Java update) to mark the issue resolved and help other user's find solutions to similar problems.

Hi! I've got CS3 Design Standard - the actual disks and Software License certificate. It was installed on my laptop which crashed and could therefore not be uninstalled. I have now installed it on my new MacBook Pro, but cannot get it registered with the

Hi! I've got CS3 Design Standard - the actual disks and Software License certificate. It was installed on my laptop which crashed and could therefore not be uninstalled. I have now installed it on my new MacBook Pro, but cannot get it registered with the serial number. Is it because it wasn't uninstalled on the previous laptop? What to do now?? Thx!

Maybe this can help someone else... I simply had to properly uninstall CS3 and reinstall it again after that. I think that sorted it! I also remember having a similar issue with Macs at work a couple of years back. Not sure whether the same applies to CS5/CS6. Here's a link on how to properly uninstall CS3 on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS. I'm on OS X 10.9.2 but it worked just fine. Remove Creative Suite 3 and CS3 products

I am going to buy either a Mac Air or Mac Pro Retina 8GB RAM and 256GB. And as I have to still run Windows I will install Parallels 9. As the Mac are both 64bit machines does that mean I need to install Windows 7 64bit ? And office pro 2013 64 bit too?

I am going to buy either a Mac Air or Mac Pro Retina 8GB RAM and 256GB. And as I have to still run Windows programs I will install Parallels 9. As the Mac are both 64bit machines does that mean I need to install Windows 7 64bit or just install 32 bit? (Going with Win7 as I hate Win8). And I will install Office Pro 2013 64 bit too or 32 bit or is that automatically selected by the underlying OS (I use Word, Excel and Access mainly for a membership database of a local club) ? I am not a power user so would appreciate advice on way to go

Again thank you. If I only use word, excel and access in the Win environment and Mac OS for email and safari for internet do I need anti virus software . Ie my connection to the world is mac only and I use office pro only to ruin the club, newsletters, membership database etc. and of course anything I do there can drag/drop to the mac environ to email. That's my understanding anyway. Next will my existing .pst file copy directly into mac mail or do I have to runs translator as I recall reading something about that ages ago when I started thinking Mac

My hard drive crashed and I now have a new one installed. I have lost my purchased Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard MAC OS. I have the reciept and product; can I reinstall it into the computer?

My hard drive crashed and I now have a new one installed. I have lost my purchased Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard MAC OS. I have the receipt and product; can I reinstall it into the computer?

Download CS6 products
Mylenium

I'm using CS4 design standard and my serial no. is invalid when I've changed computer. I have deactivated the suite on my previous pc.

I'm using CS4 design standard and my serial no. is invalid when I've changed computer. I have deactivated the suite on my previous pc. Please advice.

Please refer to :
Invalid serial number error
Error "Invalid serial number" | Acrobat 9 | CS4
Please check the internet security status, also check the administrative rights.Most importantly check the compatibility of CS4 with the computer.System requirements | CS4, Point Products
Hope it would help you.
Regards
Rajshree

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro, 8 gb ram with a Dell 27" display and a 42" LG TV. I am thinking about upgrading the stock ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card for better resolution, preferring 2 dvi outputs. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best card?

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro, 8 gb ram with a Dell 27” display and a 42” LG TV. I am thinking about upgrading the stock ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card for better resolution, preferring 2 dvi outputs or 1 dvi and 1 vga vs 1 dvi and a mini. I don't do a lot of Final Cut Pro, gaming, etc. I am interested in best value for the graphics card.
Does anyone have any suggestions on the best graphics card for these larger displays for the best value?
Thanks,
Kevin

I recommend you install nothing older than the Apple-firware 5770, about US$250.
RE: Mac Pro Replacement Graphics cards
1) Apple brand cards,
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards, and
3) "Mac Edition" cards ...
... show all the screens, including Boot up screens, Safe Mode, Installer, Recovery, debug screens, and Alt/Option boot screens. At this writing, these choices include:
1) Apple brand cards:
• Apple-firmware 5770, about US$250** works near full speed in every model Mac Pro, Drivers in 10.6.5
• Apple-firmware 5870, about US$450
2) "sold in the Apple store" cards
• NVIDIA Quadro 4000, about US$1200
• NVIDIA Quadro 5000, about US$2500
3) "Mac Edition" cards -- REQUIRE 10.8.3 or later:
• SAPPHIRE HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 MAC Edition, about US$480** Vendor recommends Mac Pro 4,1
• EVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition, about US$600
The cards above require no more than the provided two 6-pin aux power connectors provided in the Mac Pro through 2012 model. Aux cables may not be provided for third-party cards, but are readily available.
If you are Meet ALL of these:
• running 10.8.3 or later AND
• don't care about "no boot screens" etc AND
• can re-wire or otherwise "work out" the power cabling, THEN:
You can use many more cards, even most "PC-only cards"

I have had adobe creative suit 6 design standard for 2 years and all of the sudden it would not open. I do not have the windows disc anymore however i still have the product code, number and serial number. is there anyway to get my photoshop back?

I have had adobe creative suit 6 design standard for 2 years and all of the sudden it would not open. I do not have the windows disc anymore however i still have the product code, number and serial number. is there anyway to get my photoshop back?

uninstall, clean and reinstall per Use the CC Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems | CC, CS3-CS6
for the installation file(s):
Downloads available:
Suites and Programs: CC 2014 | CC | CS6 | CS5.5 | CS5 | CS4 | CS3
Acrobat: XI, X | 9,8 | 9 standard
Premiere Elements: 12 | 11, 10 | 9, 8, 7
Photoshop Elements: 12 | 11, 10 | 9,8,7
Lightroom: 5.5 (win), 5.5 (mac) | 5 | 4 | 3
Captivate: 8 | 7 | 6 | 5
Contribute: CS5 | CS4, CS3
Download and installation help for Adobe links
Download and installation help for Prodesigntools links are listed on most linked pages. They are critical; especially steps 1, 2 and 3. If you click a link that does not have those steps listed, open a second window using the Lightroom 3 link to see those 'Important Instructions'.

2008 Mac Pro 3,1 RAM burning up - running hot

Problem: 2008 Mac Pro Tower running hot.
Possible causes: Power Supply? Fan not working? Machine has 667 mhz RAM not 800 mhz.
PSU was chirping like a cricket a few weeks ago. I pulled it out, air cleaned it (and the entire Mac, vacuumed all the dust) and left PSU out for 12 hours to static discharge, etc. When I put the PSU back in, it was working and the chirping was gone.
Successfully used the MAC for a few days, no probs other than 2 DIMMS went bad. I went away for 2 weeks, tried to start-up the Mac yesterday and it wouldn't power on at all, no light. I unplugged it, tried different outlets, power cords, etc. Then I removed any changes that I had made previously (i.e. installed diff HD and 2 new RAM DIMMs to replace the ones that burned up) before going away. I removed PSU and let it sit while I cleaned the 2 DIMMs that had seemed to overheat before I went away. Put it all back together (PSU, old DIMMs which were cleaned and left HD #3 out) and it powered up. I then noticed that I was down from 32 GB RAM to 16 GB very quickly. The machine had also "shut down because of a problem" during that time then restarted and ran for a bit. I repaired the 16 GB RAM by cleaning it, brought it back up to 32 GB again and within minutes it was back to 24 GB. I pulled the RAM cards out and they were hot. The last 8 GB to go were likely the only DIMMs I haven't cleaned yet. I don't know how long that fix will last. Seems like we have a pattern of over heating.
Any ideas? Is it the 667 mhz RAM? The PSU? The fan? (How do you test a fan?)
Thank you for your time.
2008 Mac Pro 3,1
2x Quad Core 2.80 Ghz Intel Xeon
32 GB RAM (667 mhz)
3 HD's
10.9 OS Mavericks
Logic Pro X

First the RAM must be made for your computer as determined by Apple:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6413
Thus you have an early 2008 Mac Pro if it is a Mac Pro tower and not a MacBook Pro notebook.
The RAM must be either preinstalled by Apple, or from a place that sells lifetime warranty early 2008 Mac Pro RAM.
Just because you got PC6400 DDR2 ECC 800 Mhz FB-DIMM with 256 bit wide memory architecture, as the specs call for,
does not mean the RAM is compatible. Only RAM stated to be for "early 2008 Mac Pro" is compatible with those towers.
http://www.macsales.com/ (OWC) http://www.datamem.com/ and http://www.crucial.com/ all sell RAM by stating the time of year and model name.
Do not buy ValueRAM. If after doing that it doesn't work, some directions for other interior repairs exist on http://www.ifixit.com/ and http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
Check to make sure the circuit your machine is on is giving off the full amp called for by specs and that current is not split to other devices, and you have either a UPC or surge protector power cord that can handle that ampere. If there is any chance the machine was plugged in during a lightning storm, your power supply may be fried even with a surge protector or UPC being there. No surge protector is 100% lightning foolproof.

How to install the CS4 design standard in Windows 7?

I bought the CS4 design standard and install it in Win XP.
Recently, I upgraded my OS to Win7.
However, when I wanted to reinstall the CS4 design standard, it failed.
So I tried just install one function of that design standard : Acrobat 9.0 Pro.
That installation succeeded. But when I want to use it,
it shows that I need to initiate with other CS4 functions, such as CS4 photoshop to make it work.
Is anyone can help me? Thanks!

Hi s2007,
What was the error message that you encountered when you tried to install CS4?
We might have to check the install logs for the installation failure.
Please see Troubleshoot with install logs | CS5, CS5.5, CS6 - http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/troubleshoot-install-logs-cs5-cs5.html for information on how to review your installation logs
You might also want to try the following steps:
> Enable the hidden Admin Account on Windows 7 ( Ref : http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/enable-the-hidden-administrator-account-on-wi ndows-vista/ )
> Disable all Non-Microsoft Startup Services. (Ref : http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/disable-startup-items-services-windows.html )
> Disable all the Antivirus softwares like CA, Norton,Mc Afee etc. temporarily from the computer.
Reboot and try installing in the new enabled Admin user account and check.
Regards,
Rave

Slow down issue with Premiere CS4 on a Mac pro

I am having a similar slow down issue with Premiere CS4 on a Mac pro, but I don't have bloated prproj file size.
Here is what I am working with:
Mac Pro intel quad core 2.8ghz
OSX 10.6.7 Snow Leopard
6Gigs RAM
3TB storage between 4 drives, each drive with about 50% free space
I am editing a 10 minute HD video from avchd files. The edited video is very heavy in photoshop files with a variety of different fx including green screen. The system has slowed down to almost a standstill. Anytime I move the playcurser, or try to do any action, it displays the spinning top "thinking" icon and takes 15 seconds to several minutes to unfreeze. I am often forced to force quit and I have gotten unexpected quits several times. The program also freezes on startup frequently.
No other programs are running. When I export with media encoder, it took about 4 hours to complete. The last 4 or so photoshop images I added seemed to tip the program over the edge. It had been slowing down some, but those last few really dropped the processing speed. Before those additions, export took 30 min to 1hr.
I did delete the render files (did not check if the file size was bloated beforehand, oops) but it has not significantly affected my performance.

Do you need all of those extra pixels in the stills? Are you panning the full 4976?
Two things to consider are that if you using, say a 1920 x 1080 Sequence Frame Size, you can only see that at any time, regardless of how large the images are in pixels. If there are extra pixels, i.e. the Pan is not using all 4976 pxls., I would Scale to just what you need in PS, prior to Import.
If you are doing any Scale in PrPro, its Scaling algorithms are not as efficient, as those in PS. [Note: CS5 and 5.5 are a major improvement on that statement.]
With many large stills (the max for CS4 is 4096 x 4096, if there ARE extra pixels, pushing those around will use up resources, and quickly. As a test, some years back, I was working on a "photo wall," and was using 4000 x 4000 images. The workstation had no issues with slowness, until I got to the 5th large still. By the 8th, the Project was too slow to edit. I had to wait for everything. Luckily, I have AE, and it handles large stills much more efficiently, and much differently, than PrPro. I just moved to an AE Comp, and completed the Project, finishing up n PrPro, after I Exported from AE.
Just something to think about. With Scaling in PrPro, this is one time, where bigger is not necessarily better.
Good luck,
Hunt

CS4 Design Standard, Mac Pro Towers, and RAM recommendations

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