iMac mid 2007 help

[sera202]

Hi I think i have massively messed up. I have bought an IMac mid 2007 via an offer to run photoshop CC 2018. However, when i start to do anything it freezes. Reading more, i think it may not have the memory needed to run the program. It has 4GB RAM.

Have i been stupid, i assume? And can i increase the RAM or is it a case of returning it altogether if i need photoshop?

Thanks

[kglad]

that's so old it's unlikely to run any new software satisfactorily, if at all.  you should return it, if you can.

to what os can you update?

[moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Hardware Forum]

[gener7]

Photoshop system requirements tells you what hardware you need. If you can't return it, you can run earlier versions of Photoshop that may work.

[AHauser282]

I am lucky to run efficiently on my upgraded 27" 2009 iMac. Your (our) computer is way too old at this point to run Photoshop very well.

[johlman]

First thing you want to check to see if your RAM is going out. I'm running Adobe CS3 and haven't had any problems and a friend of mine is running CS4 with no problems either. I'm fairly certain 2018 may not be compatible. So check the RAM and go from there. I also know some brands of RAM that are crap, which also can be an issue.

[RjL190365]

Assuming that the OS software has already been updated to the El Capitan (10.11.x) release of OSX (the most recent version of OSX that's officially supported on an iMac 7.1), and your system's installed 4GB of RAM (which is less RAM than the 8GB that Adobe recommends for Photoshop CC 2018), the reason why your system is crashing on Photoshop launch is simple: The built-in GPU in that system had only 128MB or 256MB of VRAM (a GPU with 512MB or more VRAM - the amount Adobe requires at a minimum just to even run Photoshop CC 2018 at all - was never offered at all in the iMac 7.1). The last version of Photoshop that ran with only a 256MB GPU was CS5 - and if you have an iMac 7.1 with only 128MB of VRAM, you'll have to go all the way back to CS4 for the most recent version that was compatible with GPUs with such a low amount of VRAM. Unfortunately, such legacy versions of Photoshop are no longer available legitimately through any channel, and the Creative Cloud (CC) subscription only permits CS6 as its oldest version that's accessible and downloadable.

In addition, the GPU itself (part of the ATi Radeon HD 2000 series) is no longer officially supported in Photoshop CC 2015.x or later because it is now long obsolete.