disappointment

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I know…I know, I have debated typing this post for a week now, but I gotta get it out in the open. I am not happy with my MacPro. I dont want to come across as arrogant, or even ungrateful. I worked hard to afford this machine and I spent ALOT of money on it.

My first mac—the one I was using primarily before buying the MacPro—was a 17" powerbook w/1gig of ram. It got me through 2 grueling years of graduate studies in visual communication. I still own it.

My MacPro has 2 gig's of ram, 3.0Ghz dual-core's and a 500GB drive…everything else is standard options aside from a second superdrive.

I thought I was buying a super–computer, I know I payed for a supercomputer at least. I opened it and set it up with the greatest of care, plugged in my cinema display and booted it up…giddy, like a little kid on christmas. This machine smelled like a new pair of nike's (does anyone elses smell this way?) it was an amazing experience.

Fast forward a month. When I was shopping around and looking for the best set–up, I was told that 4GB of ram was overkill…hence the 2GB in my machine. I know there are issues with Rosetta and Adobe right now and that is why CS runs slow and quite unstable. I can deal with it till CS3. But the native app's…iMovie, Garageband, etc., they open lighting fast but it doesn't take much to bog them down. In fact a quite simple iMovie project I was doing made this machine very sluggish and iMovie crashed numerous times. I have a background in music production, but did most of my work in Cubase on a PC, so I imagined Garageband would run like a dream on this "super–computer". Wrong……10 tracks w/ alot of effects and again, Mac isn't acting so Pro. I used to run 40 tracks w/ complex automation and effects routings on my PC and this was technology from 5 years ago. I'll quit my ranting, and ask the members here.

Did I expect too much? Are the app's the fault? Do I need to run some benchmarks tests and post the results? How do I make this thing faster? RAID? More RAM? Graphics card upgrade?

I still love it the thing, I still dust it off everyday, and maybe talk to it once in a while.....

advice?
 
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Honestly I don't know what to say. How about running those benchmarks and posting the results? Maybe something's wrong. From what you describe it should be able to handle those tasks fairly easily.
 
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Re Adobe CS at least, Adobe has made a universal of Photoshop CS3 available for CS2 customers (not sure if this extends to CS or not). It seems very stable, and all the reports I have seen of its performance say it screams along on the Intel chips just like it does on the PowerMac G5s (nearly similar performance between the 2.66 GHz Mac Pro and the 2.3 GHz PowerMac G5 - so you should see even better peformance since you are at 3.0 GHz). Here is the URL:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/photoshopcs3/

I have never used GarageBand so unfortunately I can't offer any assistance there.
 
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Al iMac 20" 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Have you any Rosetta apps open when you're using the Universal stuff? I find having such a program open, unused, bogs down other apps.
 
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I don't know if this applies to a Mac Pro, since I dont own one, but on my PowerMac, under System Preferences, there is an item called Energy Saver. In the Options "tab" there is an item for Processor Performance. This should be set at "Highest". Is this the case for yours?
 
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powermacG5 2.3ghz 2gig ram running logicpro7
also put your audio tracks/samples on an other drive to where osx is installed

i really dont believe you can only get 10 tracks out of Garageband on a macpro i have a G5 2.3 and a macbookpro that can do why more than that.

you must have something not set up right or are trying to use software thats PPC not UB
 
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Macpro 3.0ghz
I don't know if this applies to a Mac Pro, since I dont own one, but on my PowerMac, under System Preferences, there is an item called Energy Saver. In the Options "tab" there is an item for Processor Performance. This should be set at "Highest". Is this the case for yours?

I just got my macpro Tuesday and I am lost for words this thing really flys.
I am coming for a fast PC and I still am amazed.
under system preferences/option tab, I dont see any processor performance?
 
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Under System Preferences, look for Energy Saver, then to the Options tab in that Preference panel.
 
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nope I dont have it, I guess macpros do not come with that feature?
Does mac have a screen shot tool?
 
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thanks! now where does it put it lol
 

eric


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by default, the desktop as a png.
 
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nope I dont have it, I guess macpros do not come with that feature?
Does mac have a screen shot tool?

When taking a shot of the entire screen is not productive:

cmd-shift-4 & hold down the mouse, forming a shaded rectangle, or square, of the desired area. When you release the mouse your snapshot will automatically appear on Desktop as a png image.
 

Cam


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has garageband been sorted to work properaly with mac pros yet? I run 40+ tracks in protools quite happily with no sluggishness on my 2.0ghz 1gigram pro. Perhaps garageband is simply a shite bit of software written for kids?
 
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In my experience, garageband, iDVD and iMovie especially run way way slower than their professional counterparts. I think they must have really inneficient programing or something because iMovie gets worse with every release. It is so unstable now I would not touch it.
Perhaps you should look into Final Cut Express and Logic Express? They fly even on a G4 when iMovie and garageband would slow it down to nothing. I would never run iMovie HD on my powermac G4, even on my macbook pro. Its just gross.

As well, more RAM will allways make things faster, although not so much after 2GB (exept maybe in rossetta). 2GB should be plenty. Just try not to run photoshop with any other media programs at the same time. Rossetta is a RAM hog.
 

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