Vladamir, your system seem fine (maybe the 3 gig partition is a bit small. I’d go for at least 10-20.). It’s running ok for me w/a 2.8 and only 1 gig of ram. I do note the it takes a second when switching tools, which is annoying. But other than that it seems fine here. There’ve been some threads going on about machines w/2 gig of rams and performance problems w/CS. Have you checked them out.
Some things to try, turn cache levels up to 6, turn ps’s memory allocation down to about 45% and tweak up from there until you start to see the slowdowns again.
GOod luck and Merry Christmas.
dave
I must ditto your findings. I like PS CS a lot. But speedy, it ain’t.
It seems that the good Adobe folks just do not care much about performance or at least it is not on top of their priority list. It was so bad with Photoshop Album that I gave up using it alltogether.
Let us hope they get their act together one day. The product has too much to offer otherwise.
Mery Christmas!
George
Vladimir,
The performance problems are not related to the speed of your processor. I have CS on an Athlon 2800 and a Pentium 2.4 laptop, both with 1G of RAM and there is no significant or consistent performance difference. Some operations are faster on one, others are faster on the other and both are very fast. I upgraded from PS6 and CS is as fast or faster for most operations so CS is not inherently slow. However, it does seem to have performance problems on some machines. The biggest difference I saw in performance was when I reformatted the hard drive on the laptop and reinstalled.
As Dave says, there does appear to be some issue with Pentiums and 2G of RAM which doesn’t seem to have been resolved. The video card is unlikely to be the culprit.
Vladimir,
Pull out 1GB of your RAM and Photoshop will work fine. I assume you’ve got four 512mb pieces installed and are working with a dual channel DDR RAM motherboard. Note that to get proper performance you’ll need to keep 1 piece of RAM in the 1st slot of each RAM bank.
Sorry to tell you that you’ll have to return 1/2 your RAM because Photoshop will NOT work with it. I have yet to find a single Photoshop user with dual-channel DDR RAM who’s had success with running with 2GB. I think it’s a RAM timing issue. Too bad Adobe does not seem able to offer a workaround..
Russell
Adobe would do its users a tremendous service by specifying a machine configuration that DOES work well with PS CS.
That way we could all go out and buy or assemble a proper Photoshop machine, rather than expecting the app to run properly on the machines that used to run PS7 so well.
If you pick up a sense of sarcasm, good. It is intentional.
Ok, ok…I was on a ranting roll last night when I posted the above, and I apologize.
I’ll try and make the best of it, even if it does mean I have to buy a new computer to run PS CS. It’s only money, after all…
Having spent nearly $1000 earlier this year for the additional lGB of Rambus ram I’m very reluctant to just yank it out now. The system ran well with this configuration using 7. And now to discover that this move may have been counter productive is very disheartening. When I requested an ideal system configuration last year from this forum, the mantra was always get as much memory as you can – which I did.
It would be nice to build an optimal and stable system that would last at least 3yrs or go through 2 PS upgrades, but without guidance, we’re all shooting in the dark. And even with guidance we’re shooting in the dark. The suggestion to have Adobe specify an OPTIMIZED system configuration specifically for PS is an excellent idea rather than just list the minimum. I too would heed any Adobe recommended configuration even if it meant switching to a Mac! I don’t care what’s inside the box as long as it works as advertised.
I wouldn’t go yanking out any of my hardware just yet. They’re aware that people are having problems and I’m sure they’re working on it.
Vladimir,
Having spent nearly $1000 earlier this year for the additional lGB of Rambus ram I’m very reluctant to just yank it out now.
It was just a suggestion to see if that worked. I’m still stumped as to whether it’s a RAM issue or a Photoshop one. No other app complains when I put 2GB in my system. Dave Milbut suggested I run with RAM usage set to 45% but I’ve now successfully run PS with only 1GB RAM set to 100% usage, just to see what would happen. So it can’t be a problem with RAM usage set too high or not having enough RAM.
For my test I try to save a 65mb file as a progressive JPEG and I get a ‘not enough memory’ error with 2GB installed with RAM usage set as low as 60%. The same test works just fine with 1GB set to 100%. Go figure..
I’m also running Rambus RAM in my other system and was regretting not sticking with that technology (run a P4T-E with 4x 256MB modules) until I read your post. Your post made me think that it may not be only dual-channel DDR RAM that’s dragging Photoshop down, which is encouraging. FWIW I get the same problem with PS7 so perhaps your issue is somewhat different. I sure wish someone from Adobe would jump in to tell us what 2GB Wintel WinXP systems they’ve successfully run with. I bought all Intel products (mobo, chipset, processor) thinking this would be Adobe’s first priority for compatibility. It would appear not to be so 🙁
Russell
I know this is sour grapes and everyones heard it before but after 2 months of using PS CS and appreciating the shadow/highlight function and photo filters I’m going back to 7.1. Slow is not the word for this program (yes it has it’s own physically separate drive as a scratch disc -100GB’s worth). The clone tool is a joke as I mouse click and then wait for the program to catch up and show me where the select point is. Everything, from start-up to filter actions take forever. I could be wrong but this program almost acts like a Beta release? I will be supremely P.O’d if they charge us for the fixes under the guise of an upgrade/update. Sorry but I had to say it.
Bill
Bill,
One thing I did early on was to stop the file browser from automatically making thumbnails:
For File Browser preferences I turned OFF the background processing, turned OFF High Quality Preview and set ‘Do Not Process Files Larger Than’ to "0".
It’s really too bad about these CS issues. I’m making great use of the 16 bit features and the shadow/highlight tool saves a lot of time with certain kinds of image.
I agree that it’s disappointing to read about so many problems and I’m not alone.
Russell
Thank you Russell. I’ll give it a try and see if it speeds things up. As a photographer I appreciate Adobe’s efforts but it is becoming very frustrating. Thanks again.
Bill
Vladimir, I have a 2ghz pentium 4 with 1gb of Ramm(4 256 modules),and just one 60gb hard drive that is not even partitioned(I had a problem with the partitioning software for some reason). It runs almost as smoothly as with 7 so I think your problem lies with either your memory or your hard drive configuration. I think you should try giving photoshop a hard drive for its own scratch disk instead of having a partitioning system for your second drive. Also if you are using non-branded ram that might be a problem too. I also get the disk full message occassionally. I think it is a bug that can probably be ignored.
For what it is worth, I have gotton low memory prompts and slow performance as a result of virus side affects. I have a 2.4 G, 120 GBHD and 1 G of Ram and when I took care of the virus problem, CS moves right along. Before snatching out hardware or dropping big bucks on power honey, try some basics. Upgrade your anit virus and make sure there are no programs running in the background.
Just an opinion.
Before snatching out hardware or dropping big bucks on power honey, try some basics. Upgrade your anti virus
My virus software (F-Prot) is very up-to-date and my working methods are quite bullet proof. FWIW I’ve not been infected by a single virus in more than 15 years of computing (bang bang touch wood!!) and I began with an IBM XT 8088 which is in the basement somewhere next to an old Osborne 1.
The fact that you’re running only 1GB RAM might explain why you’re not having a problem using 2GB RAM.
Poor performance with systems using 2gb RAM is a consistent element of this and similar threads elsewhere on this forum. But you’re right – viruses can affect computer performance and practicing safe computing is important to everyone! Who knows.. perhaps it IS a virus that’s not been discovered yet, cannot be detected by current virus software, and came bundled with PhotoshopCS …. ye never know (Twilight Zone music fades in..)
Russell
You could be right on with the undetected virus slant. The one bug that caused my low memory prompt marched right through my Symantec 2003 Corporate Edition. There was nothing to indicate that it was a virus. I knew what I had and what my system was capable of. Low memory was not an option. It only took a short while to find the patch, but who would have guessed. With thousands of little worms designing new viruses daily, it is very possible.
I learned through Vaio forums that over ram caused problems. I was about to max out my system when I read about the problem. I thought it was a Sony problem, but now I learn from you that it crosses all product lines. Weird!
FWIW, the machine that I’m seeing slow CS performance on (Win2K, Athlon 1.33mhz, 1.5 GB SDRAM) is not generally connected to the internet. I’ve only connected it to the net about 3 times in the last 2 years (to activate software like CS), and it’s never been used for email or surfing. I realize that it’s possible to get viruses from other sources, but in the case of this particular machine, I highly doubt it. (PS 7.01 flies on this same machine.)
Nick
I guess the point I was trying to make is not to get too technical when first starting to solve a problem. If you are an avid Photoshop user or utilize it in a business, you most likely have a separate machine that is not affected by outside sources. In your case, Nick, try removing 512 of the memory if you can and see if that makes a difference. Russell seems to have some pretty good stats indicating that too much Ram is a very real problem. It will not cost you a dime and only about fifteen minutes of your time.
Now, I will shut up.
Paul, no reason to shut up. <g>
I did try removing one of my 512 sticks of RAM, and nothing changed. PS CS is slow for me. I’ve posted this before, and am hesitant to post it again because I get swatted down for posting in the "wrong" thread. I’m A) Trying to HELP! and B) Hoping that Adobe will figure out the problem.
I have emailed Chris Cox with all of the pertinent specs. He ignored me or I ended up in his spam bin or he’s too busy or whatever.
I’ve been active or lurking in this forum for years. This version of PS is the first one that has caused me problems, and I’m surprised. Mostly because I’ve followed all of the advice that I’ve gotten here, from Adobe and others.
Nick
Nick,
Sorry to hear it wasn’t as simple as removing a stick of RAM. Wish I could help you. Other than RAM issues, other things that seem to cause problems are:
– Setting an "additional Plugins Folder". Pointing it to the old v7 folder appears to be a bad idea.
– Having the browser working in the Background slows v8 down a LOT. Some folks prefer to just let it run on it’s own overnight, I prefer to turn Background Processing off.
– Not having enough hard disk space for the much larger scratch disk that v8 creates
Good luck 🙂
Russell
Thanks, Russel. I have no additional plugins folder designated. FB is not allowed to run in the background, and no high quality previews.
PS CS scratch is on a second hard drive with its own 5GB partition. Does that seem too small to you?
Nick
PS CS scratch is on a second hard drive with its own 5GB partition. Does that seem too small to you?
I assume that you’ve designated other disks/partitions as 2nd, 3d, 4th scratch disks so I don’t think it matters much if the 5GB partition runs out. Plus it seems that Photoshop no longer requires contiguous space for its scratch file. Apparently this requirement ended a few versions ago, so this makes that scenario even less likely.
It might be worth picking up a cheap 40GB drive and doing a clean install of only the OS and Photoshop to see if that works. This would at least determine if it’s a Photoshop issue or if the problem lies elsewhere. I use a removable HD tray which makes switching hard disks easy.
Russell
Yup, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th scratch disks are assigned to other partitions.
Thanks for the suggestion about the 40GB drive, but I don’t have a removable HD tray. Switching/adding HDs is not something I’m comfortable enough to do just for troubleshooting.
It’s odd. I know that some folks are having CS performance problems on XP machines. CS on my XP machine runs fine; it’s my Win2K machine that’s boggy. (Unfortunately, I seldom use CS on my XP machine. That’s my internet machine and it has an LCD flat panel, which is not much good for critical color work.)
Nick
Vladmir:
You need a third drive for scratch. Two drives is not enough. Read Blatner & Fraser’s Real World Photoshop X if you want more info about this. You have a great specification for your computer but you’re not utilising it properly. You need one drive for the OS, one drive for an appropriately sized paging file (huge paging files just slow things down anyway–who is giving all this advice about large paging files?) and one drive dedicated for scratch. Your scratch drive could be from 6 – 10 GB’s, that’s all you need.
Now, about all that RAM. Get a ram disk driver and dedicate about 512MB’s of that RAM to the drive. Set it as your primary scratch disk (your third hard drive will be secondary) and sit back and watch the speed demon Photoshop will become. Seriously.
You can get a ram disk driver for about USD 34.95. Check out the Super Speed link below:
<
http://www.superspeed.com/ramdisk.html#buy>
You definitely do not need any more hardware (other than a third disk drive)–you just need to utilise it better. Hope that helps.
S.O.
Great just ordered Digital video collection pro.
I hope Photoshop works OK on my machine.
Machine 1- Amd 2000XP with 1.3 GB of RAM and
Machine 2- Dell Precison workstation laptop Centrino 1.7GHZ 1 GB of ram.
Will let you know how it works.
Sean and everyone, thanks for sharing your insights and comments. You guys are great.
I can appreciate the premise behind using ram creatively but I’m really not comfortable experimenting with my work machine especially with nasty deadlines looming into the foreseeable future. But that’s just me and my over-cautious ways. There doesn’t seem to be a viable solution other than to wait for a possible update if indeed Adobe recognizes this as an issue worth addressing.
I’ve had a smarter friend than I stop by to check things out and he didn’t see anything that would need to be modified as was likewise confirmed here. Virus software and updated drivers won’t fix my problem. He too was puzzled by CS’s usage of the scratch disk particularly the 585MB temp file on startup. Can anyone else confirm this?
I did pick up a WD 200MB HD that will replace my secondary 40MB drive so I can at least bump up the scratch disk to 20MB – hopefully enough for the next edition of CS. My original idea going back to when I purchased this system was to use 3 separate HDs for the OS, paging file and scratch. Unfortunately the 8200 motherboard only supported 2 HDs so I left the XP paging file on the main drive.
Sean~ Do you personally use a ram-disk as your 1st scratch-disk? Just wondering because Chris Cox has submitted remarks in ‘pre-CS’ threads to the effect that a ram-disk would not provide meaningful performance benefits!
