Things I’ve already tried:
– set local printer as default
– installed Adobe’s generic postscript printer as default – deleted and reset preferences
– lowered allocated RAM %
– I use a Logitech mouse
– no other apps are running (no A/V)
– pulled a bunch of plugins and presets
– updated my video driver (Radeon x1300 w/Catalyst 8.1, driver only) – set another HD as PS’s scratch disk
– enabled the Bigger Tiles.8BX Extension
– pulled FastCore.8BX, MMXCore.8BX, MultiProcessor Support.8BX – lowered history states to ‘3’
– re-installing does not help
any more ideas ?
Russell
I’m just trying to get PS CS3 to function well enough to be usable for basic daily tasks. At the moment it’s useless except for the odd chore (create a Pan, generate a web browser from Bridge 2, etc..). The current behaviour of my CS3 installation suggests a defective application and not one that needs more performance tweaks to make it go. Especially when the same setup has CS2 performing flawlessly.
I had already read Scott Byer’s excellent PSW presentation. But you folks have seen me here before and the Compuserve Adobe forum before this one. I’m not a newby to PS and have been doing this on PCs since v2.5. I know most of the basic performance tips by heart. I’m just feeling like John Cleese in the pet shop – "This parrot is not pining for the fjords".
My hope is that someone might stumble across an easy fix or Adobe issues an update that resolves this.
Thanks for your help 🙂
Russell
The trouble is that not everybody has these speed problems.
This would indicate that this particular phenomenon is not a basic fault in CS3 (although goodness knows there are plenty of them).
If you have Bridge open, try shutting it down. That gives me a hefty speed up.
Russell,
I would keep Taskman open on the process list, sorted either on processor load, or on memory use.
You probably already done so, But I’ like to see whether it’s PS or another application that chokes the system.
FWIW, I have no performance problems on PS.
Rob
I just came back from the local ‘pro’ photo shop where they have a PC running both CS2 and CS3. After whining about having to use CS3 since buying the new cameras from them I asked if we could do the same test on their system to see if it was just as bad.
I opened a 20×30" @300ppi new image (white background) and ‘Placed’ 3 jpgs on it. Before I even got the 3’d one placed PS10 began to sputter. Once they were placed I used the move tool (auto-select layers) and tried moving the placed files around on the canvas. After 2-3 moves the whole thing froze up with "Photoshop not responding" and had to wait until it came back to life. Subsequent moves quickly locked things up again and one could see that this was not an efficient way to get any professional job done.
We then repeated the same test on CS2 and it never paused a second. I moved the placed images as quickly as I wanted as well as draw circles with the brush as quickly as a could. No problemo.
I have yet to see PS10 work properly on a PC. A conspiracy theorist might wonder if some half eaten fruit computer fan at Adobe might have snuck in a handicap to make their horse look better <g>
Russell
I’m definitely not seeing this behavior in CS3.
Must be a Canadian thing 🙂
For now I’ve just given up and will convert all my camera files to DNG and continue working with PS9. Takes 4 minutes to convert 200 12MB NEFs so it’s not all that bad.
I wish I could set up an online poll to find out how common PS10 performance issues are on PCs and perhaps determine some common hardware link among those affected. It would be interesting to learn how many serious PS users have also given up with no answers coming from Adobe or this forum. I’m REALLY serious when I say I have not seen one PC system yet that performs anywhere near as well as CS2 or previous incarnations of PS.
I can’t afford to waste any more time on this.
Russell
Call me obsessive, or at least stubborn 😉
I uninstalled / reinstalled PS10 last evening and it behaved the same. So I started playing with Image Cache setting and started with a setting of "1" (down from the default "6"). Well well … suddenly the large test file behaves the same way as it does with PS9. No "program not responding", things are snappy and I can work with it without time lags. A setting of "2" is still ok. Setting to "3" bogs things down again.
So what does this mean?
Can it be a memory issue?
Is the common thread one of memory quality/brand (I use Kingston)? Might there be a bug in Adobe’s memory usage that affects only some memory /mobo combinations?
If there are any memory geeks lurking, is there a bios setting that I can make (memory timings) that might improve things?
This is somewhat encouraging as at least one change has made a real difference which at points in a direction.
I’d REALLY like to find out what’s going on with CS3’s performance before CS4 is released so I can get at least a few days of enjoyment for my 200$ 🙂
Russell
I dunno, but this is the stuff that it used to be great to have Chris Cox around to advise us on. Too bad some people had to be jerks about it and drive him out. (long old story)
Come back chris! we miss you! 🙂
I just sent off a note to my PC supplier to see if I can borrow a 4GB Crucial kit (2x 2GB) to replace my 4x Kingston modules and see if it helps. It will be a RAM brand/part number that’s on the Intel approved tested RAM list for this mobo. It will also occupy only 2 slots that I have heard the occational claim of issues with filling all 4 slots of RAM on some motherboards (some voltage issue..) so this would ‘kill 2 birds’ with one stone.
Sorry to hear Chris Cox is boycotting the PC forum. Problem with the Web is that there’s no face behind the words to fill in the space between the lines. It’s way too easy to be misunderstood. Glass 1/2 full vs 1/2 empty…
I’ll post back whatever success I have.
Russell
Russell: Which Intel board are you running?
Sorry to hear Chris Cox is boycotting the PC forum.
I don’t know if that’s true, but we haven’t seen him since before cs3 was released, he’s usually busy before but this far after? maybe when specific adobe persons started blogging they told everyone else to "clam up" on the forums, but chris was treated pretty shabbily by some people here and i wouldn’t blame him, sad as it is, if he decided he was wasting his time here. he was a fabulous resource, especially for us regulars who could learn about some of the stuff and disseminate that out to people coming by with problems.
Hi Russell,
I dont know if I have the exact same problem as yours, but I can defiantly feel you. My Photoshop hasnt gone to Not responding, although it sure hanged frequently with large files. I tried to adjust the cache level setting like you did, but no change. Ive post a thread about the issue thats bugging me for a long time. And it seems so hard to find a solution to it, because like people said, perhaps not everyone has this problem. But the funny thing is, I have probably tried installing this CS3 on at least 10 different computers, including a Mac G5 Tiger. It does the same on all of them. Thats why I think itd be a CS3 thing rather than a memory related issue. I was too thinking about setting up a poll to find out if maybe hardware or software differences cause this problem. Id really like people who have this issue to provide their pc specs for troubleshooting. Even if they dont have the speed problem, do their hard drives work non-stop for scratch? And are their scratch files as huge as ours?
Link to the post: <
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c05d988> Photoshop CS3 always writes to the hard disk Frustrated! Not printer related issue
Derek
I’m having very similar issues and have tried nearly everything you mention above, Russel. I’m going to try the Image Cache adjustment now and pray a little.
Russell,
I tried what you did, and I don’t experience any significant problems. Some short-time freezing does occur but I don’t consider it grave.
Laptop PC; Windows XP Pro SP2; CPU Intel Pentium M 1.7 GHz; RAM 1 GB; hard disk 60 GB in two logical partitions, 2.9 GB free on first, 4.1 GB free on second partion. Photoshop CS3 settings: RAM usage 70 %, 200 history states, cache level 3.
I created a new document 20" wide, 30" high, 300 ppi, RGB 8-bit, white background (154 MB). Then I opened four JPEG images as smart objects, each was 500 x 600 pixel and 35 – 40 KB. I selected the first of them, grabbed the layer and dragged it onto the large document’s canvas which created a new layer with the small JPEG image as a smart object. Then I added an empty ("Reveal All") layer mask to it. I repeated this with the other three small JPEG images. After that, the scratch file was 1.9 GB.
Then I started selecting the various layers in the layer pallette, toggling their visibility, and moving their position in the pallette as well as their locations on the canvas around. When switching from one layer to another, Photoshop froze for about 15 – 20 seconds, then continued. After having touched and moved all layers at least once each, the scratch file has grown to 4 GB (i. e. the hard disk partion D: now is full). After that, I can select and drag the small JPEGs around on the canvas with no significant delays.
The short-time freezing upon creating and first-time moving the individual JPEG images is a bit awkward—but it’s nothing that I’d consider detrimental to getting professional work done. I guess juggling several smart objects at the same time simply is heavy weight-lifting for Photoshop. And that’s on a three-year-old laptop with only 1 GB of RAM! Bridge was not open but Windows Explorer and a web browser were. Still it’s true that Photoshop CS2 will do the same exercise in a much smoother fashion … strange. Maybe smart objects, in CS3, are "smarter" in some way and thus, heavier?
— Olaf
Hopefully you will not have to go through any issues with your board, but then again you’d get the picture right if you did.
amen.
ejsf, set a local printer to be your system default.
To me, the lag is NOT acceptable, cause I cant even draw a smooth curve line with brush due to this problem.
Derek,
Glad to hear I’m not alone 🙂 I can’t use the clone stamp on large images without the system pausing and sputtering. It’s unusable for the work I do.
I assume there are many more folks out there with the same complaint. But since no one on this forum has any magic answer (other than the network printer tip) and Adobe isn’t acknowledging that there is an issue. So they’ve given up posting the problem here and quickly leave when it’s obvious that it’s not a problem.. it’s a ‘feature’ 😉
We’ve all had the stuffing knocked out of us trying to call modern corporation’s idea of tech support (usually outsourced to folks reading answers from cue cards) so we just give up and wait patiently for a patch, which is what I had hoped 10.0.1 was bringing. But I tested before and after the update and it was the same.
My local shop is assembling a dual Xeon system next week using Intel’s new QX9775 board and will be installing CS3 on it. I’ve been invited to pop by to try my test. I’ll let y’all know if it’s any better.
Russell
Just had the opportunity to try PS10 on a pretty fast P4 3.0GHz system and it was not any better. Thought it might be a Core2 or Quad issue but it’s not.
Russell
