Seeking suggestions for Windows virtual desktop (for Photoshop schoolwork)
Hi Tildes community,
I'm seeking your suggestions for spinning up Windows virtual desktop.
Allow me to set the context...
My offspring is in second semester of their first year of university, and needs to use Adobe Photoshop for one of their classes this semester. They don't use a regular laptop, and have been doing quite well at uni. with their beefy Ipad. While they have used photoshop so far on their ipad, there are some growing pains. Of course, they have access to super beefy desktop Apple Macs at their school's computer lab, but its a pain to get usage of them for a few reasons. At home, all my machines are linux except for my partner's which is an old clunker Windows laptop - which i am in progress of migrating themn away from that Windows machine towards linux laptop...Hence, I don't really have a solid, modern enough machine for my offspring to load Photoshop onto.
Then, I thought, hey, maybe i can spin up some Windows virtual desktop somewhere for my offspring to use photoshop on...Its only needed for about 10 or 12 weeks remaining this semester...and they only need to use it once per week for each week's assignments. I feel like as long as the virtual windows machine is beefy enough to suppoort photoshop workloads, it can get them through the semester...and then in summer i can decide if I need to buy them an actual laptop (like an Apple laptop, etc.).
So, may i ask of you dear Tildes community members...Does my approach make sense (of trying to use a windows virt. desktop)? And, if so, are there any recommendations for which provider to use, and how to spin these up? Like, should i try something via AWS or Google Cloud or Azure? Or, should i not even consider this virtual windows approach? I'm open to hearing any/a ll recommendations. If you have links to share for me to research, or if you actually wrote your own blog post on similar topic for example, i'd love to hear it! Thanks in advance!!
Edit: 2025-02-24 UPDATE: Wanted to update folks on where i am on this...After reviewing these comments, researching some more both online and offline, etc...I arrived at the decision of biting the bullet and just buying my kid an Apple Macbook laptop. I want to thank you all for all your greet feedback and suggestions! Thanks so much Tildes community!!!
If you have a spare GPU lying around, you could try PCI passthrough via OVMF on one of your Linux machines. Performance is nearly bare metal.
Given that AFAIK Photoshop should work well enough in a non-PCI passthrough VM (at least on a machine where Photoshop runs well on bare metal) and neither this nor dual booting has been deemed a valid option by OP, I'm assuming they don't want to be running Windows through local hardware at all, VM or otherwise. However, if I'm misreading the situation and a Windows VM with direct GPU access is acceptable, that would indeed be a possible solution.
You are correct that trying to run Windows on local hardware as VM is not desired. Any machines that i have which run linux for running said Win VM won't have the sufficient modernity as it relates to GPUs, etc....at least not to be able to nicely run the VM at least for what i understand that photoshop needs. My hope/assumption was that if i can learn about some Windowd virtual desktop offering maybe such offerings include the ability to enable some gpu-like functions whiuch would i hope work fine for photoshop...but, yeah, no desire to run any VM locally. ;-)
Unfortunately, i don't have a spare gpu lying around. But, appreciate the suggestion for pci passthru via ovmf! Thanks!
If you have an integrated GPU in your CPU, that would also work for the host machine. Though I wonder also if Wine would be adequate enough in this case, without the need for a VM at all.
Yeah, i had been referring to VMs throughout all of my comments, but i silently assumed Wine in that thought as well. But, appreciate the idea to be sure to cover all bases. Thanks very much!
I think buying them a used M1 MacBook is the way to go.
Adobe products work worse on Windows than they do on Mac. They also use GPU accelleration so if you don’t pass through your GPU to the virtual machine you will have a very slow experience. Also, I’m not sure how good VMs are for color accuracy, which could be a problem depending on what they are using it for.
I agree with your suggested solution and your comment on color accuracy.
However, I'm not sure if the Adobe suite truly does run better on Mac vs Windows? My partner uses it (mostly Photoshop and Illustrator) primary on Windows and sometimes on Mac, and seems to have fewer issues (hanging, crashing) on Windows. I believe this is on a MacBook Pro from around 2014, and the Windows PC is a self-built from around 2015.
Granted, this is anecdotal.
Similarly, an M4 Mac mini would only set you back about $500 after the student discount (assuming you're in the US).
I was hoping to try to leverage a solution that is a bit more flexible where my kid can move around, and do their work either from home, at school, other places, etc. I suppose i could get such a computer, and simply set up remote access....hmm? also, i guess i am so out of the loop with Apple products that i had not known that a Mac Mini could be had for not-so-crazy-high a price...Hmmm. Its a good suggestion, thanks for sharing!!
I'm used to buying used/refurbished towers and laptops for many years now...But, i run linux on them...And, they have all been PCs...So have zero experience buying used Apple products. My fear with apple stuff is that it tends to be so locked down, that it prevents (or severely limits) the ability to upgrade devices...but, maybe i'm wrong. And, i guess since my kid only needs it for school...maybe upgrades might not be needed? Hmm...it might not be a bad idea, so will research a bit.
Also, your point about color accuracy was something that i had honestly NOT thought about. While i used photoshop as a web developer in the late 90s/early 00s, it was for basics like slicing up imagery, etc. and had no need for designery concepts like color accuracy :-) This is a good point! I won't know how to test this, other than to have my offspring sort of try stuff and then see if it is an issue. I suppose whatever approach i take that does not preserve true color accuracy would likely hamper my offspring more if graphics/design was their profession right now...but since they're only a uni. student, not really sure if its a thing for them to worry too much about...Nevertheless, its still a good point of consideration. Thanks for bringing this up!
Yes, there’s practically zero upgradeability in a MacBook. The memory, GPU, and CPU are all unified on the same chip, and MacBook storage modules are proprietary.
So if your student will need 16GB RAM and 1TB storage, make sure you buy it in advance. I’ve suffered a lot of headache from running out of space on a 256GB SSD while editing video on a Mac.
When it comes to buying used Apple products, the Apple certified refurbished store is pretty great: https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/macbook-air-macbook-pro . I’ve never had a problem buying it there; it’s practically brand new, including new packaging, charging cables, etc. It’s pricier than other used markets, but that’s the cost of certified.
If you don’t want to go with Apple certified, I’ve also used Swappa for cheaper used Apple products. I’ve also sold my own Apple products back on Swappa, because you can fetch a higher return than trading it into Apple.
These are great suggestions! I never would have thought Apple would have sold refurbished stuff on their own site/store - interesting. I suppose I'd feel better if i go this route because of the certified aspect; so worth a look-see. I'll also check out Swappa as well. Thanks!!!
This is not a direct answer, but I wanted to mention it in case it helps. Universities often have virtual desktops available to allow access to certain software, particularly stats, matlab, Adobe, and other design products. You might look into that first.
Yeah, this is a good idea!
While i didn't think of the virtual desktop at the time, my kid from the very beginning did engage with the university tech support...but they directed my kid towards the school online portal which was very much set to provide them with a student license for the software...But nothing about virtual desktop offerings. They simply noted that my kid could use the Adobe licnese from their local machine, or of course use the university computer labs (which would already have all needed software installed on the machines), etc. However...I think we simply blindly followed those instructions, and certainly did not exhaust this virt. desktop avenue...So, its definitely worth some research! Thanks for the idea!
I don't have any current recommendations, in the past I tried paperspace but they have since been bought by digitalocean and pivoted to AI GPUs. At least, that's all I can find on their website anymore.
However, what you are looking for is called a VDI and there are other vendors out there. Prices vary and are often based on some base rate for disk usage and after that on usage.
It is entirely doable, however for photoshop maybe not entirely practical. Simply because remoting into a machine means that what they see is a compressed version of what is actually shown on photoshop. Accurate color displaying therefore will be an issue.
Out of curiosity, getting them a macBook is out of the question? Doesn't even have to be brand new, a second hand M1 MacBook Air will be more than capable of running photoshop and can be relatively affordable.
Edit: Sorry, overlooked that a laptop will be considered at a later point. The color accuracy will remain a thing, if that isn't as much of an issue (yet) then any decent VDI either rented or hosted by yourself will likely do.
I'm at least high-level aware of what VDI is, but honestly did not think about the possible "compressed version of what is actually shown on photoshop". That might be enough of a hassle to be a showstopper...at least i think, being that i am not a designer/graphics specialist type of person. I've used remote desktops and VDI stuff only very minimally in the past (like tens of years ago!) But my use-case was along the lines of log into a remote machine, then access some server, do a thing that is not grahpics heavy, then log out, etc. But, no idea how it would work or not work for very specific use cases like my kid's graphics schoolwork.
Also, the color accurayc is another point, and others also brought this up...so maybe its also a concern. These are good points that you bring up! Thanks for sharing!
I can speak from an azure cloud side, as that's all I have experience in.
Azure is expensive, but handles windows pretty nicely I would say. Beefy machines especially get expensive quickly. You could easily spend a few hundred in your timeframe, especially if you ever forget to turn it off. However, there are often ways of getting free azure credits, which would be a great way of doing this. I have a visual studio subscription that comes with like $100 a month of azure credits, which made a good Minecraft server.
It can certainly do what you want pretty easily. You can choose a windows image and have it up and running in like 10 minutes. If you wanted any specic advice let me know. But long story short, unless you have azure credits you can almost certainly do it cheaper elsewhere, but maybe not quite as easily, I don't know the process on other clouds.
Yeah, i kinda figured something like Azure virtual desktop or the related might do the trick...though as others have pointed out, there might be consideratins i need to watch out for like color accuracy, compressed version of imagery and the like. But, even it those considerations are minimal or not an issue....the other big thing is cost - which i agree with you is something to consider as well in all this! While i don't play in hyperscaler clouds directly very much beyond bare minimal things, i am well aware of folks getting sticker shock from the likes of Azure/GCP/AWS...so for what i imagine might be a beefy machine that i guess might be needed for this use-case, it is a fear. And, then of course if i'm spending hundreds of dollars for usage bhy my kid this semster...at some point it stops making sense, and maynbe makes better sense to bite the bullet and buy Apple hardware now as a sort of investment for my kid...and as others suggested, there might be an option to buy used stuff (whiuch i'm better experienced on the PC side). I guess i could always play around a little on Azure, and see how the usage racks up for a tiny slice of time...and then extrapolate from that what the buy hardware vs rent usage comparison would be, and make a decision. Anyway, thanks for your feedback!
Any virtual desktop is going to exhibit the same issues because you'll be accessing via some sort of remote desktop tool and none have lossless encoding. Frankly, there shouldn't be much color loss provided the VM is located nearby.
You'll need a native output to overcome these issues, so most virtual options would likely not meet the need.
Yeah, this is all a bit tricky...Because i have employed remote access tools and virtual desktop both for business and personal use for years...But, never have the concerns been encoding needs or color topics...It almost always is about access, performance, latency, those kinds of things. :-) This is a bit of a new world of use-case for me. Anyway, great points, and appreciate your feedback; thanks!
If you wanted to avoid working on a bare cloud provider, you could try one of the "cloud gaming" setups people are selling where you can install software on a Windows VM they give you. Maybe https://shadow.tech/ or something like that might work?
This is a good point; i had not thought of a gamer-centric cloud offering, since their setups would be tuned for graphics-y stuff...i know its not exactly the same, but likely the horsepower might be there. I'll take a look. Thanks for the suggestion!
I was also thinking shadow.tech might work if you can squeak by on the Standard plan’s RAM. Might not be worth the cost for a semester on the Advanced plan though. If you try a demo keep an eye on latency because moving layers around could get really frustrating if it lags.
Yep, I'll give the demo a shot. Thanks!