Back in September, the Photoshop team provided advanced notice that Photoshop CS6 (13.0) will be the last major version of Photoshop to support Windows XP.
In addition, all subsequent Photoshop feature updates specifically for Creative Cloud members will also require 512 MB of vRAM in order to use the 3D features found in Photoshop CS6 Extended.
Please note: The system requirements for Photoshop CS6 Extended have always indicated that you need 512 MB of vRAM, but this wasn’t a hard enforcement.
Users who do not have 512 MB of vRAM will see the following dialog if they try to access a 3D feature in future Photoshop updates for Creative Cloud:
We hope that by providing this information early it will help you understand our current decisions around operating system support and where we we’re headed with future releases of Photoshop. We encourage all customers who are currently using the 3D features in Photoshop CS6 Extended to begin upgrading their video card/hardware now so they can fully take advantage of future Photoshop innovations as soon as they are available.
Additional Information
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I’m respectfully disappointed. This leaves out the computer I use at work (8 core, 16GB ram Mac Pro) and our home computer (6 month old mac).
Hugh,
Which video card do you have and how much vRAM does it have?
Are you a Creative Cloud Member or a traditional boxed product/perpetual license user?
Hi Jeffrey,
Does the Intel HD 4000 with its 512MB of shared memory on the 8GB configuration qualify?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3246#intel4000
Thanks
I’d have to double-check with the 3D engineers, but I think it requires dedicated vRAM.
Especially as the HD4000 is used on the new Mac Mini, which with 16 GB RAM would have 512 MB for graphics and otherwise is a decent workhorse.
In fact the HD3000 used in the previous rev of the Mac Mini should have 512 MB when the system ram is 8 or 16 GB.
Looking forward to clarification Jeffrey, thanks!
Hi Pedro,
That card should work with shared memory, but we don’t have an exact system with the same card, yet. We’ll be getting one soon for further testing.
this really is going to be a blow to a lot of 3d rendering and digital video companies who have windows based systems. very disappointed.
In which way? The XP part or the card requirement part?
Iam dissapointed too, that means that my 2011 macbook pro won’t make it happen? I have a Radeon HD 6490M
How much VRAM does the 6490M have? Looking on the AMD site, it looks like it has 1GB.
Both my macbook pro, and mac mini have only 256mb vram NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. I’ve had no trouble working with the 3d element of photoshop. Now I’ll be made to weigh up what else is in any future updates, with keeping using the 3d part. I find this a hard blow to the mac users who don’t have an option to just upgrade the graphics card but would have to buy a whole new computer. Is there no way the mac version can keep 256mb as it’s minimum?
Is there a check tool to test if a machine is compliant?
You can choose, Help>System Info…
You will see video card memory listed in the information in the dialog (this is on my Macbook Air):
Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.0.1 (13.0.1 20120808.r.519 2012/08/08:21:00:00) x64
Operating System: Mac OS 10.7.5
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:42, Stepping:7 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, HyperThreading
Physical processor count: 2
Logical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 1800 MHz
Built-in memory: 4096 MB
Free memory: 1749 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 3184 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 68 %
Image tile size: 128K
Image cache levels: 4
OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.
OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced
OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.
OpenGL Version: 2.1 APPLE-7.32.12
OpenCL Unavailable
Video Card Vendor: Intel Inc.
Video Card Renderer: Intel HD Graphics 3000 OpenGL Engine
Display: 1
Main Display
Display Depth:= 32
Display Bounds:= top: 0, left: 0, bottom: 900, right: 1440
Video Renderer ID: 16925441
Video Card Memory: 384 MB
I’ve been considering buying a MacBook Air myself, and was going to buy the latest CS Design/Web bundle to go with it, primarily for Dreamweaver and Photoshop; does this inadequate video memory mean the whole suite will be flaky, or just that 3d imaging will be disabled?
Just the 3D features.
HD 4000 should max out in 1720 mb shared memory which should be sufficient for the 512 mb memory limit
Hey Jeff!
Question for you, I’m looking at the new iMac… they will come with 1GB vRAM… obviously for future proofing it’s best to get more vRAM but for a non-3D user, is there any benefit to going with additional vRAM beyond the stock 1GB or should I go for 2GB (or more if available)? Are there non 3D things where I’ll benefit from the additional now?
Thanks!
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Currently, you’ll only see real benefit of going more than 1BG with 3D. So, if you’re not doing any, or a lot, of 3D you will be happy with 1GB.
You’d probably get more bang out of faster processor, faster drives and more RAM: http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2012/10/how-to-tune-photoshop-cs6-for-peak-performance.html
I am using a 2011 MacBook Air with 384 MB of VRAM, Intel HD 3000 chip. I am not a Creative Cloud user, I purchased the Production Premium bundle. Is this change going to affect my 3D capabilities? This is a brand new rig I put together for portable 3D and video work. I am concerned this is going to break my workflow…
The new maxed out Mac Mini 2012 @2.6Ghz quad core has HD4000 with 768mb vRam Versus 512mb @2.3 GHz Mac Mini.
I have a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz, Dual-Core Intel Xeon with only 256 VRAM. Are these older computers upgradeable?
In general, Mac Pro’s are more upgradable than laptops and iMacs. You’ll have to check with Apple for video card upgrade options.
When an update like this takes away features that used to work on that user’s machine, I think the updater should warn them in advance. That way they could choose whether they want to install it or not. As it is now, after upgrading users get a “surprise” they did not expect.
After applying the update I never saw the warning dialog you show above, it just seemed like Photoshop’s 3D features were broken. It was only after I trashed my prefs that this dialog appeared. And still the 3D features are there, just not working. I choose Type > Extrude to 3D (which used to work on my machine) and now nothing happens. No warning dialog, just nothing. That sure seems like a bug to me.
If you’re going to disable a feature via a simple software update (especially a feature that I’ve used on this machine in the past), at least remove that feature visually, or visually disable it so I can be sure that what I do see should work. If I see that menu item and can choose it, it should work. As it stands right now, it just seems like a buggy app. I’ve never used an Adobe product before that lets me choose a menu item that doesn’t work… where choosing it results in nothing happening. I should at least getting some error or feedback of some sort after choosing it. I hope you learn from this and can better handle these types of updates in the future.
This really stinks! My girlfriend and I have been using Creative Cloud since launch with no problems, and now after updating her 2011 MacBook Air (Intel HD3000/384MB shared VRAM) is unable to load files THAT SHE CREATED IN THE APP ON THE SAME MACHINE LAST WEEK!
We’re kind of in a difficult spot here, in order to upgrade the machine we’d need to not only buy a new machine, but step up from the MacBook Air to the much bigger (and more costly) MacBook Pro. All to do work that she has had no trouble doing with Photoshop CS6 Extended via Creative Cloud for the last several months.
Is there a way for Creative Cloud users to downgrade their Photoshop installation to a version that works for her?
I was using the 3d functions just fine on my Mac Book Pro until I did the updates yesterday and now I am left with a half finished project due to the “strengthened” requirements. This is a massive let down and a huge black mark on the creative cloud…The only warning I got was “New Features”…and I fail to see how posting a note in “Jeff Tranberry’s Digital Imaging Crawlspace” is fair warning. I only found this thread trying to solve my problem because the above message did almost nothing to help after the damage was done. I don’t have time to get a new MBPro to finish this project…is there any workaround or way I can roll back the upgrades?
You can uninstall and reinstall to install an earlier version.
This error started showing up for me a few weeks ago and I have a MacBook Pro with 1 GB of VRAM. Need to google a solution, I should be supported. I bought extra VRAM just for the 3D features of Photoshop.
Can you post more details, including your system info here:
http://phtshp.us/report_a_problem
Directions for sharing your system info from Photoshop:
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop_how_do_i_share_my_system_information
For those with less than 512mb vRAM that lost 3D capabilities. Easy work around for PHOTOSHOP CS6 3D for required 512mb vRAM. Uninstall Photoshop and re-install and don’t update. I am a creative cloud user and i updated photoshop and i lost all my 3D capabilities, since i only have a a macbook pro with 384mb vRAM. Now all my 3D is working good!
was able to download 13.0 again
I also had 3d and now do not. My system info says:
Dedicated video memory 1024MB
System video memory of 0MB
Are either of those my vRAM?
If so, any ideas why it would work before and not now.
I have windows 7 and an nvidia card listed as compatible(geo 220?)
When I update the drivers for my card to the latest I have system crash with blue screen.
When I leave my old drivers in things work fine, but now with no 3D.
Thanks for any help.
Hi Cary,
Can you post more details, including your system info here:
http://phtshp.us/report_a_problem
Directions for sharing your system info from Photoshop (this will provide a lot richer information for us to help):
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop_how_do_i_share_my_system_information
I have mac pro i7. Will the ATI Radeon HD 5770 or 5780 graphics card work with Photoshop CS6?
Thanks
It looks like they both have more than 1GB of VRAM. If I’m looking at the right thing (and they have more than 512MB of VRAM) they should work fine with Photoshop CS6.