How much speed is gained on a G4
when AltiVec Plug-ins are used
with Photoshop 5.5?
First posted G4/400 results 9/19/99
© 1999 Rob Art Morgan, editor of BARE FEATS
rob-art@barefeats.com

 

 

Conclusion: AltiVec plug-ins make a significant difference in the speed of the Photoshop effects. In the case of the G4/400 Yikes, activating the AltiVecCore accelerated it at least 48% in the case of the Gaussian Blur and as much as 187% in the case of the Flashlight LightingEffect!

These are not the only 3 functions that AltiVec speeds up. Read Adobe's press release for more.

Thanks to AltiVec "aware" apps like Photoshop and the solution of the ROM Block issue, the G4 release is great news for all power users.

Test Configurations & Procedures

• The Apple Power Macintosh G4/400 "Yikes!" test machine had 256MB of RAM.
  The G3/400 was a Power Mac 7500 with PowerLogix G3/466MHz upgrade set to 400MHz and 3:2 cache ratio.
• Photoshop 5.5 was given 180MB of application size. The test file was a 27MB Photoshop document.
• To get the full AltiVec boost to kick in, three things need to be true of Photoshop. (See the READ ME file in the Adobe folder in the Apple Extras folder.)
  1. The AltiVec version of LightingEffects must be in the Filters folder in the Plug-ins folder. (This will NOT happen automatically when Photoshop 5.5 is installed.I saved the "old" LightingEffects plug-in so I could "turn off" AltiVec when I wanted.)
  2. The AltiVecCore Plug-in must be in the Adobe folder in the System folder and an alias must be present in the Adobe Photoshop Only folder in the Plug-ins folder. (This WILL happen automatically when Photoshop 5.5 is installed on a G4 system. To turn it OFF, just remove the alias from the Photoshop folder.)
  3. The "~" must be removed from the ~Enable Async I/O folder in the Extensions folder in the Plug-ins folder. (This will NOT happen automatically.)
• The THREE Photoshop effects were timed with a stopwatch. They included:
  1. ROTATE Clock Wise at 30 degrees.
  2. GAUSSIAN BLUR at 30 pixels
  3. FLASHLIGHT LIGHTING EFFECT at default settings

FLASH! The ROM "block" has been BROKEN!

I received a copy of the ROM patching utility from PowerLogix. I ran it on a Blue & White G3/450 (Mac OS 8.6) which had its ROM updated to 1.1f4.

After installing the patch, I popped in a G4/400 ZIF from a G4/400 Yikes. It booted up no problemo and was running at 450MHz (due to the jumper settings on the Blue & White motherboard).

Just for fun I booted from the second drive which had MacOS 9 installed. Launching Photoshop 5.5 with AltiVecCore activated, I ran the Rotate, Gaussian Blur, and Lighting Effects tests. It screamed!

PowerLogix has announced 10/1/99 that they have full AltiVec compatibility with the G4 upgrades. When I tested the patch there was a problem with it under Mac OS 8.6 but it worked fine under Mac OS 9. Now it works with both.

"We created a macro with a large range of typical PhotoShop operations and found that on identically equipped machines, a 4 year old PowerMac 7500 with a G4 could virtually match a brand new PowerMac G4," said Marc Reviel, VP of Engineering.