Installing Adobe Premiere CS5.5. OS X host, Windows 7 guest.

[Josiah Sprague]

I'm trying to install the Windows version of Adobe Premiere CS 5.5 on a Windows 7 guest OS.

The Premiere installer is telling me that the system doesn't meet the minimum requirements.

Here are the requirements from Adobe:

Intel® Core™2 Duo or AMD Phenom® II processor; 64-bit support required
Windows 7 with Service Pack 1, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1
4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
4GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash storage devices)
Additional disk space required for preview files and other working files (10GB recommended)
1280x800 display
7200 RPM or faster hard drive (multiple fast disk drives, preferably RAID 0 configured, recommended)
Sound card compatible with ASIO protocol or Microsoft Windows Driver Model
QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for QuickTime features
Optional: Adobe-certified GPU card from list below with at least 1GB VRAM for GPU accelerated-performance
Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, membership validation, and access to online services.

As far as I can tell, my guest OS meets all of these. I gave it 4 processors, 5642MB of RAM, 125 GB hard-disk space, 1280x1024 display, sound enabled, and 256MB video ram with 3D and 2D acceleration enabled.

Any ideas why it still says that the minimum requirements aren't met? Most of the rest of the CS 5.5 suite seems to be fine, it is only Premiere and After Effects that complain. Is it possible to run these in a VirtualBox VM?

[mpack]

Post the VM log file as a zipped attachment. For how, see Minimum information needed for assistance.

[Josiah Sprague]

I apologize. I've attached the log file.

I'm using VirtualBox 4.3.6 r91406

Host is OS X Mavericks with 8GB of RAM.

Both host and guest are 64 bit.

Please let me know if there is any required info missing.

[socratis]

I gave it 4 processors, 5642MB of RAM, 125 GB hard-disk space, 1280x1024 display, sound enabled, and 256MB video ram with 3D and 2D acceleration enabled.

You can't give what you don't have. According to your log:

00:00:00.822459 Host RAM: 8192MB total, 4170MB available
00:00:00.928334   RamSize         <integer> = 0x0000000160a00000 (5 916 065 792, 5 GB)
00:00:00.928759   VRamSize         <integer> = 0x0000000010000000 (268 435 456, 256 MB)

Also, you left out some of the requirements for Adobe CS 5.5 (why?). According to their website at http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/system-requirements-premiere-pro.html:

1280 x 900 display with OpenGL 2.0-compatible video adapter

Programs like these tend to push the physical hardware to their limit, hence the strict requirements. Virtual machines will never be as powerful as the physical host, specially on the video side. Applications that have high requirements on the GPU (drawing, 3D, games) are expected to not work as good as on the real hardware.

[mpack]

I also notice that the guest OS type is set to "Windows 7" instead of "Windows 7 (64 bit)". And, assigning all 4 cores to the guest leaves nothing for the host to run on.

[Josiah Sprague]

My host has 8GB of RAM. Why only 4170MB is available is beyond me. Any help?

I copied and pasted the requirements straight off the Adobe website. Perhaps Adobe left something off one of their lists. Anyway, 1280x1024 should be large enough. I don't know how to tell if the VM is OpenGL 2.0-compatible; can anyone help with this?

I understand that this software stretches the limits of a VM, and that it won't work as good on real hardware. But I'd rather do this than shell out over $1k to buy the Mac version since Adobe won't let me crossgrade, and I realistically don't use this software more than occasionally. This VM is more powerful than the PC I previously had the software running on, so I think it should work.

[mpack]

My host has 8GB of RAM. Why only 4170MB is available is beyond me. Any help?

I'm not sure what help we can give you. This is a matter between you and your host PC - you need to check what memory hogs are currently running that you don't need, and eliminate them. That, or substantiallly reduce the allocation to the guest - you really shouldn't be using much more than half the available RAM.

[Josiah Sprague]

Keep in mind, I don't know anything about how a virtual machine works, and I came to this forum for help understanding.

I don't know what the log means when it says there is x amount of memory available. Does that have to do with currently unused memory at an exact moment? In that case, I would think that it changes depending on what programs I have running. Who knows, maybe when that log was captured I had a lot running (though I don't recall doing anything since installing VirtualBox that would be using 4GB of memory). In either case, will closing programs to temporarily free up memory allow me to allocate more to the VM?

you really shouldn't be using much more than half the available RAM.

Why is that?

[socratis]

But I'd rather do this than shell out over $1k to buy the Mac version since Adobe won't let me crossgrade

Honestly, I'm not at all in favor for this behavior, but, in this case, I wouldn't mind searching a torrent site for an equivalent version of something that I paid for and not using it now. With a clear conscience!

I don't know how to tell if the VM is OpenGL 2.0-compatible; can anyone help with this?

I just searched for "is my graphics card opengl 2.0 compatible program" and I found the OpenGL Doctor and the GPU Caps Viewer which reported that the virtual video card presented by VBox to the guest, is indeed OpenGL 2.1 compatible. I don't know if that means full or partial only compatibility. My guess is is not, based on some Open GL 2.1 tests that failed.

Video Card Vendor:    Humper
Renderer:             Chromium
OpenGL Version:       2.1 Chromium 1.9
GLU Version:          1.2.2.0 Microsoft Corporation

you really shouldn't be using much more than half the available RAM.

Why is that?

Performance will suffer gravely if you start running out of memory on your host, mostly due to swapping. Personally, I wouldn't go that far as half of the free available, but I'm willing to leave 256 to 512 MB free on the host after my guests are up and running...

[Josiah Sprague]

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. After lots of trial and error, I figured out that I mistakenly had installed a 32-bit guest OS. After switching to 64-bit everything works fine. Now just hoping that my Windows license transfers ok from my old PC to the VM. Thanks again!

[mpack]

Does that have to do with currently unused memory at an exact moment? In that case, I would think that it changes depending on what programs I have running. Who knows, maybe when that log was captured I had a lot running

Yes, that is exactly what it means, and that is exactly the correct inference to draw. When you start a VM which has X MB of RAM allocated in the recipe, you need >>X free RAM on the host, since both VBox and the host will have another RAM needs. VirtualBox cannot use swappable RAM in the guest as the performance would be intolerable, and guest drivers expect to be running in kernel mode - they just aren't designed to cope with any kind of lag.

I don't recall doing anything since installing VirtualBox that would be using 4GB of memory). In either case, will closing programs to temporarily free up memory allow me to allocate more to the VM?

Straight out of the box, most modern OS's will install a whole load of junk that eats up RAM. After all, you only bought a PC so you could admire how pretty the OS desktop is, right? It isn't as if anyone really wants to do anything on their PCs... (sorry, <sarcasm> tags missing there.. ). You may also have installed antivirus, those folks seem to have a similar attitude regarding what people use computers for. The good news is that yes, if you turn off disk indexing etc etc etc then you can recover a lot of the lost performance and other resources.

[RiverMM]

Installation of CS5 cause out of memory issue, let alone current Photoshop CC.