Software technology is moving ahead much faster than most of us tend to upgrade our hardware. The result is that unless we have a fat yearly hardware budget, we feel left behind, seemingly unable to take advantage of the latest-and-greatest software tech.
For example, Topaz A.I. Gigapixel 2.0.0 is very modern, cutting-edge, demanding software. Users putting it through its paces have been discussing the strength and performance of their GPU video cards, CPU processor speeds and amount of RAM like auto enthusiasts showing off their muscle cars!
Today I’d like to have some fun and march to the rear, playing “how low can you go?” and still use Gigapixel to process photos to an extreme level. The better your computer system, the better Gigapixel (and anything else, of course) runs, BUT – what lower-end hardware can you get away with?
Danger, Will Robinson! On their website, Topaz describes the minimum requirements and recommended hardware for running Gigapixel and offers a “dire warning” that “If your machine hardware falls between the Minimum and Recommended performance levels, you WILL encounter issues using A.I. Gigapixel, including excessive processing times!”
Topaz also says, “If you are using a graphics card that is on the Unsupported Graphics Cards list, then your graphics card hardware will not be supported. This means A.I. Gigapixel may or may not work on your system when using GPU processing” and you will have to fall back on the CPU.
Well OK then! Since nobody who is stuck using old hardware wants to be left out when it comes to trying new things, let’s flout this official advice and forge ahead, running Gigapixel 2.0.0 on various computers that not only do not “fall between” the minimum and recommend specs, but lag way below them! I am going to use four different computers that are between five and 10 years old, testing both Apple and PC hardware, running Mac and Windows OS’s.
•Note: Topaz is not promoting a coupon code or discount for A.I. Gigapixel but we are! Use coupon “plugsnpixels” here to save 15% off the retail price (this discount also applies to ALL Topaz products). The latest update is FREE for existing users, as per Topaz’s longstanding policy for all of its software.
Here are our contestants in descending order of age:
•2013 fusion-drive 3.1 GHz i7 iMac with 8 gigs RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1GB GPU
•2013 i7 MacBook Air with 8 gigs RAM and Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB GPU
•2011 home-built, triple-boot HDD, i7/2600k “Hackintosh” with 16 gigs RAM and Zotec GT430 1GB GPU
•2008 Core 2 Duo 17″ MacBook Pro with 4 gigs RAM, older 120 gig SSD upgrade and NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512MB GPU
Be aware that we are going to be executing the tests with 600% upsampling of the entire uncropped image. At this level, Gigapixel performs literally trillions of calculations, which translates to millions of calculations per pixel!
For this stress test, I will use an image from a Canon Rebel DSLR, originally created as a moderately-sized JPEG (3088 x 2056 pixels @ 72ppi) and saved as a quickie test back when the camera was just purchased. I will use this same 4.2 MB image file with all four computers. Here’s the uncropped image (reduced, for reference):
The Gigapixel settings used were: 600% enlargement, Moderate Reduce Noise and Blur, TIFF output @ 16-bit (more than necessary, probably) and Save Metadata checked (which adds stress to the test).
Below is a before-and-after comparison of the original pixel data at left (at 600% view) and at right the results from the 2008 MacBookPro at 100%, as seen together in Photoshop (open in new tab or window for actual size). The end result looks exactly the same as it would if it were generated on any high-end gaming-type system (and you wouldn’t have known I used an old beastie rescued from the garage if I hadn’t told you):
On the 2013 iMac, the upsampling process at the settings described above took 6 minutes
On the 2013 MacBook Air, 9 minutes
On the 2011 Hackintosh running Windows 10, 17 minutes; running OS X El Capitan, 12 minutes (same exact hardware, different but similar boot HDDs)
On the 2008 MacBook Pro, 40 minutes…
(All computers accessed the image directly from the Desktop and saved the result to the same boot drive.)
Yeah, Topaz warned us about those slowest render times, but I pulled it off anyway on ancient hardware going back a full decade! Obviously on a late-model, dragon-slaying, water-cooled, glowing-blue box, the render times would be much faster. But you and I don’t have one of those, do we?! You go to work with the computer you have.
Special note on the bottom-of-the-barrel 2008 MacBook Pro:
It’s running macOS Mojave (that’s right, I’m also stretching Apple’s intended hardware cutoff date for their latest OS [2012] backwards by four years! I used the macOS Mojave Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs which worked for me on the first try.
Here’s how this hack job looks when it’s all up and running with Gigapixel (it’s a beautiful sight to behold on the elderly laptop. I actually didn’t think either Mojave or Gigapixel would even work!):
So there you have it! Even if you have older computing hardware (and these days it seems anything over a year old is OLD), don’t be afraid to add A.I. Gigapixel to your image editing arsenal. There’s no need to wonder if it will work, download the free trial and see for yourself what happens on your particular setup.
Getting results on unsupported hardware will take longer than usual (as we were warned), but the final images will be exactly the same as you’d get on the latest and greatest computers, at no extra cost (other than time). Speaking of which, you can queue up your renders in Gigapixel and go to bed or leave for work while the old hardware does its thing.
•Note: Topaz is not promoting a coupon code or discount for A.I. Gigapixel but we are! Use coupon “plugsnpixels” here to save 15% off the retail price (this discount also applies to ALL Topaz products). The latest update is FREE for existing users, as per Topaz’s longstanding policy for all of its software.
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