Changing the graphics card will not do anything most likely. The lag is easily explained as the card reloading the "texture" image (your canvas). It’s just unclear why it’s doing it, so it’s most likely some silly little switch in the graphics card settings that prevents PS to permanently hold the buffer on the card. May also simply be that you are using large screen resolution in combination with large images and run out of memory. What is your screen res? Also: do you use any color profile stuff?
Mylenium
Thanks for your reply.
I have dual screen setup. My main screen is 1600×1200, and the second screen (extended desktop) is 1280×1024. I assume this is pretty much a standard setup by today’s standards.
No matter what size of image I work on, I have the lag happening. FOr instance, I did a test earlier between CS3 and CS4. I created a new 900x900px image with only white background. I used the type tool to write a sentence using size 14 arial font. In CS4, I have a small lag when I type, compared to none in CS3. If I try moving my text layer in my image, in CS4 it is very clear that I experience lag (if I could compare it to frame rate, I’d say I have a frame rate of approximately 7fps) compared to CS3 where the same text layer moves very fluently.
This is just one example of the type of lag experienced in CS4. To me, this type of lag is absolutely unacceptable when working in PS. I really hope they can find "the switch" you are referring to. 😉
What amazes me most is that I’m sure they are aware of this serious problem in PS. The forum is flooded with posts from people experiencing lag in PS CS4. It amazes me from adobe to release the software this way. It looks like the Lightroom 2.0 release… so buggy, it was unusable for many people until they actually released 2.1 (last week, almost two months after its release). Understand I’m not ranting here, really! I am just expressing my surprise. I have come to expect higher quality level from adobe, that’s all. I just hope they’ll fix the CS4 problems sooner than later.
Peace.
In my experience screen redraw (without OpenGL) is much slower in CS4 than in CS3 (Vista 32bit/Geforce 8600GT with 512MB video Ram here). Just zoom in or out or move layer with the move tool. You can see CS4 redrawing the picture in tiles.
Same as CS3 of course, but CS3 does it a lot faster.
With OpenGL on, that screen redraw is harder to see, but it still takes place "under the hood".
Looking over the specs for that card on the nVidia website, compared to all the 8800 series, I can hardly see why his card should be so sluggish.
I guess the sluggishness that many people are experiencing does not come from a slow graphics card or a bad driver because if you turn OFF OpenGL CS4 is still sluggish and has a slow screen redraw compared to CS3.
extended desktop… Only means My windows desktop uses the two displays. Monitor 1 is my main desktop, Monitor 2 is just the extended desktop (more room to put things on the desktop).
Hmmmm…. just saw the compatibility page. Indeed, Nvidia 8800 GTS is not in there. I wonder why! All the other 8800 GT are there. I wonder why.
Hmmm, just a query: How many watts is your power supply?
windows desktop uses the two displays
OK, there are some card manufacturers’ utilities that mess with display drawing. I just use Windows’ own Display Properties panel.
I am not experiencing the lag myself
Vista Ultimate SP1 32bit
4GB Ram
Nvidia 8500 GT 512, all up to date drivers (Also not listed but fully supported) Quad Core Q6600 (2.40ghz)
24" Flat screen monitor with 1920 X 1200 screen resolution
I duplicated your example in both CS3 and CS4 and see no real difference.
Under Edit/Preferences/Performance
I am showing:
Available Ram 1643 MB
Let Photoshop Use 1150 MB (70%)
I have my scratch disk set to a 500GB internal drive with 341GB free.
Hope this helps.
Bart: Power Supply has lots of watts… 740 I think, or something like that.
John: I use Windows’ display properties for my desktop too. I don’t use any of NVIDIA’s control panel functions.
Martin: I was just asking because 450 really isn’t enough, I’m running a 750 and not having a problem, so I know that isn’t an issue for you. Sometimes it appears that some posters have a minimal PSU and it does create problems.
The power supply will crash the box if overloaded. It would really be weird if it slowed down a particular process only.
echo what lawrence said.
rem
rem
rem
@echo off
" For instance, moving a windowed image has a delay of 1 second before it actually starts moving. Type tool feels sluggish too"
yes just another reason why floating document mode in CS4 is shit.. I too notice this delayed laggy shit movement.
8800gtx 512mb latest drivers.. 1900×1200 24" (very good powersupply, btw do you think the problem could be Adobe and the lame Photoshop release and perhaps not someones powersupply jeesh ffs)
doesn’t even matter what size the image is.. could be a megapixel photo.. or a web graphic.. the delay in floating doc mode is there..
I’m seeing the delay and a lot of flickering in images, regardless of what mode I’m using (floating window, tabbed, etc.) My GPU is the ATI Radeon X1950 Pro, 512MB RAM, latest drivers. I realize it’s not on the list of tested cards, but it does support OpenGL and Shader technology. I’m somewhat limited on which cards I can use, as my mobo is AGP.
I think there could be other factors involved that are outside of the influence of the gpu. Like O/S type, how much RAM and it’s speed / FSB speed / processor type / hard drive speed and No. of drives ( separate disks for scratch file and page file etc ). Everything works together on a system and to purely focus on a gpu may not realistically solve the problem.
Now, I have resolved my initial problems, CS4 is really fast…Get as much ram as you can afford or your motherboard supports and get vista x64. Don’t bother with XP – why limit yourself to <2 gb available RAM.
I’m seeing the delay and a lot of flickering in images, regardless of what mode I’m using (floating window, tabbed, etc.) My GPU is the ATI Radeon X1950 Pro, 512MB RAM, latest drivers.
[..]
Not sure if it helpful to note this, but I have the same graphics card and all is working well here. OS is Vista Ultimate 32-bit with 4mb of ram. Scratch is on it’s own raptor drive. Cache is 10Mb. how does this compare to your setup?
Anthony.
Anthony, I’m on XP Pro, 4GB RAM, scratch on it’s own partition of a Raptor drive. I just tried raising the cache to 8, and it didn’t make a difference in the hesitation when dragging windows around. It’s not terrible, just not as smooth as with CS3.
But (and this is a BIG BUT), I just checked with ATI and they’ve posted yet another new driver for the card. I upgraded my driver about a week ago when I installed CS4, and they apparently released the newer driver the day after I upgraded. The newest driver has caused the flickering to go away when dragging images, and got rid of "junk pixels" that were left here and there.
Moral of the story: Even if you recently upgraded your driver, check again.
I’ve also sent an email to ATI support, asking them for optimum settings in the Catalyst Control Center for using the card with CS4. I did some tweaking of settings in Catalyst Control earlier this morning, but have since reset them to factory defaults. My problem is that some of the control names mean nothing to me, and I need to know which controls might relate directly to what CS4 needs.
Nick, The version of the drivers I am running is 8.10 with a date on them of 15th October which seem to be the latest ones.
If you get any info from ATI perhaps you would post it so that we can see if there is anything to be done…
Anthony.
Anthony, the only response I got from ATI was something to the effect that I had probably not installed the drivers correctly. I tried un-installing and re-installing them, by the letter, according to their instructions, and am still seeing the hesitation problem.
They completely ignored my question, which had to do with explaining what the various controls in Catalyst Control really applied to, as regards Photoshop. As usual, ATI (like most high-end vid card manufacturers) cares most about gamers.
As usual, ATI (like most high-end vid card manufacturers) cares most about gamers.
not if they keep getting bug reports. and not if they hear nvidia’s doing something about their bugs…
I’m bugged by this, and here’s why.
Adobe decided to go with this high-falutin’ OpenGL, Shader stuff. OK, fine. I like the continuous zoom and sharpness at all percentages, but it opens up a whole new can-o-worms. Who has the right vid cards? Do those vid cards have the right drivers?
I’ve been with PS since version 4. Seen a lot of complaints, and always upgraded my system according to what I thought was reasonably necessary. Yelled at Chris Cox a few times, but I hope he still doesn’t hate me.
This upgrade is a bit more tricky, IMO. I have a mobo that only supports AGP, so I’m somewhat limited. Also, I won’t upgrade to Vista until I’m sure that it’s (uh, hello, Windows users) stable and reliable.
OK, end of rant. I hope y’all know that I love PS. It makes my living for me, I’m just a bit flustrated.
Nick
I won’t upgrade to Vista until I’m sure that it’s (uh, hello, Windows users) stable and reliable.
Nick,
I think Vista is very stable and reliable. XP folks (like me) didn’t rush out to embrace it because Vista mostly added a lot of resource hogging eye candy (a la Mac) that took time and learning to turn off and it didn’t offer enough really compelling ‘gotta-have’ features that would have folks switch from what already works very well (if it ain’t broke..). Had Vista come out instead of XP ‘way back when’ then I’m sure folks would all be happily using it. Vista64 runs very well and Adobe’s now given us a very good reason to use it. IMO Vista too often gets an undeserved bad rap.
Russell 🙂
I’m having the same problems with extreme lag.
I have an nVidia Quadro FX 1500, with 256 MB RAM and the latest driver. I note that it is listed as having been tested with CS4, and the nVidia site also says it works with OpenGL acceleration in CS4.
I have only one monitor, set at 1920×1200.
Whether Open GL is enabled or not enabled, I experience extreme lag when using any drawing tools. Even after a fresh reboot, with no other apps running, I open a new file, draw a single line with the pencil tool, and the lag is at least half a second behind. When using a brush with soft edges, the lag is so bad I have time to pick up a cup of coffee and take a sip before the line finishes appearing on the screen.
I have tried every combination of settings in the GPU Advanced Settings. When I disable everything except Advanced Drawing, I notice a very slight improvement.
In the nVidia control panel, I have set everything to default. I tried various settings there, but nothing made a difference.
I never experienced any lag at all in Photoshop CS3 on this same system. I do not experience lag in Flash, Illustrator or other Adobe CS4 apps.
As an artist, Photoshop CS4 is totally unusable for me. Help!
If anyone has advice on using my specific card, finding the magic setting that I need to turn on or off, I will appreciate it.
System specs:
Windows XP SP3
2 GB RAM
Intel Core Duo 6600 2.40GHz
Available RAM (reported in Photoshop): 1677 MB
Photoshop uses: 1006 MB
Scratch discs: 132 GB available
nVidia Quadro FX 1500 256 MB
nVidia driver: 178.26 (released 15 October 2008)
NEC 2490WUXi monitor
[..]
They completely ignored my question, which had to do with explaining what the various controls in Catalyst Control really applied to, as regards Photoshop.
[..]
Nick, Sorry to hear this. Thanks for getting back to us.
By the way, I would endorse the positive comments about Vista. My only caveat all along has been that it should be a fresh install: I loaded up on day one on a new machine. To try and install it over another OS is the sure path to madness.
Anthony.
I have experienced the same problems regarding lag. I got in touch with Adobe and part of their response said, "Photoshop CS4 relies heavily on video cards, and we have noticed some
issues with some of these features."
As a matter of interest I have now installed CS4 on a machine with an old graphics card which is not recognised by CS4, and so GPU acceleration is totally disabled. Guess what? No lag whatsoever, and I have not noticed any loss of feature other than the rotate tool.
Makes you wonder why use the video card at all.
Below is a list of the Photoshop CS4 and Bridge CS4 features that are accelerated by a GPU. To read more about these features, see "GPU accelerated features in Photoshop and Bridge CS4" (TechNote kb405745).
OpenGL/GPU features in Adobe Photoshop CS4 are:
* Smooth Display at ALL Zoom Levels
* Animated Zoom Tool
* Animated Transitions when doing a One Stop Zoom
* Hand Toss Image
* Birdseye View
* Rotate Canvas
* Smooth Display of Non Square Pixel Images
* Pixel Grid
* Move Color Matching to the GPU
* Draw Brush Tip Editing Feedback via GPU
* 3D GPU features include:
o 3D Acceleration
o 3D Axis
o 3D Lights Widget
o Accelerated 3D Interaction via Direct To Screen
GPU features in Bridge CS4 are:
* Preview Panel
* Full-screen preview
* Carousel-style View
Golly! How can I live without all those features!
Rotate canvas could come in handy when making complex masks. But I never had a problem sharpening at 100 or 200%.
Instant response to everything here. NVidia 8500 GT with 178.24 released oct. 15 (Vista 64). Dual monitors at 1680 x 1050.
Anyone experiencing problems should file an official bug report:
<
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform>
I reported my problem to Adobe and got requests for more details from two Adobe engineers with 12 hours. If more people report the problem, with their system specs, maybe Adobe engineers will be able to isolate the problem, fix it, and issue a patch ASAP.
I also wrote to nVidia and got this reply:
"We have investigated and found that Adobe added a file open/close call around every draw operation and we await a fix from Adobe. When we receive a fix from Adobe we will investigate if performance still needs to be improved in our driver. Sorry for the extreme inconvenience this causes you. You may want to periodically check if Adobe has an update that fixes this issue."
By the way, like someone else reported above, I tried Photoshop CS4 on my son’s 4-year-old computer with a much older graphics card – though that card’s driver does support OpenGL – and guess what? No lag at all, with OpenGL enabled. Maybe I need to go on eBay and find an ancient graphics card, since Photoshop doesn’t work well with my new-ish one.
I’m considering taking out my new nVidia card and putting back my Matrox Parhelia :o(
Someone at NVidia is several weeks behind…. We’ll try to follow up on that.
And maybe you can suggest to NVidia that they sell their older cards as a performance optimization. (sorry, still laughing about that part)
Chris,
I truly hope you will follow up with nVidia. I’m not sure who’s passing the buck to whom on this issue. nVidia’s response to me makes it clear they consider it is entirely Adobe’s problem (and I tend to agree, since no other app I have, including graphics-intensive animation applications, has any issues like this). But your comment about "several weeks behind" makes it sound like Adobe’s perspective is that nVidia is lagging (pun intended) on fixing their driver.
Meanwhile, it’s very real to me, and is severely affecting my work flow. I don’t really want to reinstall CS3 just to have a working copy of Photoshop, but will likely do so. Though I’ll feel I wasted money on the upgrade until this issue is fixed once and for all.
I thought I would post about the following test I did yesterday. I have in my studio a dated machine (by today’s standards) and thought I would test PS CS4 on it.
AMD 3500+ (this is one core only)
2GB RAM (clocked at 333)
VISTA 64
1x 400GB hard disk (main system drive)
ATI Radeon 1600
I installed PS CS4 and did a few tests with it.
OpenGL is ON by default in CS4 on that machine. I unchecked the advanced options under OpenGL.
So far, the tests show very little to no lag. I did some typing in a 900x900px white image. I typed a few texts, and text character lag is almost not noticeable. Also, I tried moving the text layer around, and it is quite responsive. I added a glow effect on the text, and it moved the same way as without the effect.
Zooming in and out is very responsive, a LOT more than my quad core machine with my Nvidia 8800 GTS. In fact, there is no lag at all with the zooming, as opposed to my high performance machine where I always experience at least a 1 second lag before the zoom in/out.
I haven’t tried larger images yet due to lack of time. But the tests mentioned above proved to be laggy on my big machine, which is:
XP32 SP3
4GB Ram (clocked at 800, 3.25 are used by XP)
Nvidia 8800 GTS, all up to date drivers
Quad Core Q6850 (3ghz)
Strange isn’t it?
I can confirm with the machine below that CS4 with OpenGL turned off is laggier than CS2. With OpenGL turned on it’s even slower.
XP32 SP3
4GB Ram
Nvidia 8800 GTS, 178.24
Core 2 DuoE8500 (3ghz)
My experience so far;
I just installed the CS4 Design Premium upgrade this morning.
System:
GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS4 LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Nvidia Quadro FX3700 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W
Two: Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM Drives One: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 10000 RPM NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXi at 1920 x 1200
XP sp3 with all the latest drivers
The only other applications on the system at present are Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint from Office XP.
When I make a major upgrade like this, I delete my partitions off my first physical drive and do a complete reinstall so I need to add back my Solidworks and Corel Painter. I think I’ll wait on the Wacom drivers. I installed from a hard drive and the installation seemed to be smooth and in preliminary tests, everything seems to be working. I’m not really noticing any lags in Photoshop, however, when I exit out of the preferences dialog, the menu bar is always minus a row of pixels and the bar overlaps the restore-exit buttons so that you have to go to file – exit if you want to close the app. Once you click inside the document window, the bar refreshes and looks fine. It’s no big deal, but it looks a bit sloppy.
I’m not seeing any real difference with Open GL turned on or off and for me, some of the features listed for using the Open GL seem a bit gimmicky so at this point, I’m questioning benefits versus some of the problems others are seeing. I’m sure others may feel differently, but I rarely work on files any larger than 100 meg.
I have only used CS3 briefly so for the most part I’m coming from CS2 and the new interface is going to take some getting used to.
I hope this isn’t going to turn into another CS2 "it’s your video card – no it’s your application" argument, which finally got fixed in the last update after a long period of denial.
Paul
Same problem on the following system:
XP Pro SP3
Pentium D930
3 GB RAM
MSI GeForce 8800 GT
Only 1 HDD
Latest Nvidia driver
GPU acceleration on/off doesn’t make any difference
I have CS3 installed already which runs perfectly. CS4 produces all the issues mentioned so far i.e. laggy as h… in every regard. I am unable to draw a simple circle using the brush due to lag – it just produces a straight line if I am lucky.
I will be calling Adobe tomorrow to get information on how to ship the product back and get a refund. I don’t want to bother with this.
As a side note, my brother has the exact same PC as I with the sole exception that I upgraded my GFX to the 8800 GT (they are both Dell Dimension 9150 PCs) and his version runs perfectly.
Works perfectly for me with an ATI Gigabyte 4850 (Gigabyte GV-R485MC-1GH GeForce ATI Radeon HD 4850 1GB ATX DVI-I Graphics Card)
After more testing, I do see a lag when dragging text around, it’s not big, but it’s definitely not locked onto the move tool like CS2 was. Also in Open GL mode, every time I move the document window, and let go of the mouse, the document window blips, like it’s doing a quick refresh so I’m turning off Open GL (I don’t think it’s ready for prime time) So far, I wouldn’t say what I’m seeing makes this unusable, but it sure feels clumsy. I hope we get a fix soon.
See specs above in post #38
Has anyone else noticed that the problem is sporadic and seems to vary from day to day? Yesterday I found that the lag was so bad it wasn’t worth using, today it has almost disappeared. There are no programs running or not running which would explain the difference.
It seemed as though it has trouble moving pixels. Paths moved OK. A large filled circle would only move in sections before it caught up. Images from my Canon 5D brought in through camera raw could hardly be move around the screen. There was a huge lag and you see two documents for a second and then the final image starts to redraw. When moving smaller images in Open GL mode, upon release of the mouse buttom, you see a flash as though the image is doing a refresh.
Paul
Paul,
Please email me directly. I have a potential fix that I’d like you to test.
My (non-adobe) email: travlin_adam at yahoo dot com
Thanks,
-Adam (PS QE)
Adam, nice to see that you guys are on this. I’ve sent you an email as well.
Nick
I forgot to mention that I also did several other tests with older drivers and with uninstalling the nvidia driver altogether and the results were always the same, so I’m a bit hazy on how you can blame a driver if using no driver (other than the generic windows driver) still exhibits the same problem? In other words, if I turn open GL off so that I’m not using anything exotic, why shouldn’t it perform like previous versions of Photoshop.
Paul
Here’s the link to the optional GPU registry keys for CS4:
<
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=40 56&fileID=3769>
What’s worked for some people experiencing the CS4 performance lag (especially those running XP SP3) is to try using the AllowOldGPUS_ON.reg key. To use it, download the zip archive from the above link and double click on that specific registry key – DO NOT use the other registry keys unless you feel confident that you can get things back to default settings. Using the AllowOldGPUS_ON.reg key will not disable anything in the application.
Once you’ve enabled the registry, quit and re-launch CS4.
Still having performance issues? Try disabling the options in the Advanced Settings… dialog of the GPU options (be sure to quit and re-launch the app after changing these settings).
If this helps, please post here as I’m trying to determine what’s the best workaround for this problem.
Thanks for everyone’s help with this,
-Adam
I’ll give this a go when I get back from work tonight. I have alerted Nvidia about the issue, even though I am not at all sure that the drivers are to blame.
Adam: If I de-crypted the complex reg-key name correctly, the key enables some features for older graphics card as well as the officially supported ones? Why should this have an effect on newer cards like the 8800-series several of us have issues with?
I had already tried this to no effect.
Adam Jerugim, thanks for that tip. It has improved things a little bit more for me.
I have 4gig of ram, Windows Vista Sp1 32 bit, 2.4 Ghz Quad core Pentium, Nvidia 8800 GTX 768 meg, with the latest driver.
2 hard drives, the lager 700gig plus one (secondary) set as the main scratch disk. Resolution is 1900×1200 on the primary monitor and 1600×1200 on my secondary (Wacom)
I had heavy lag on drawing lines with my Cintiq 21 UX, (secondary monitor) I was able to get that right down by upping the Cache levels to 8. It pretty much disappeared altogether when I turned off the Open GL features in the CS preferences window, but moving windows was sill a jerky process because it redrew slowly.
————–
Right now after using your registry key solution, I’ve re-enabled the Open GL features and the lag is much better. It’s still not 100% perfect (there is a slight initial delay), but it’s much better.
I tried turning the cache levels down from 8. But performance decreased again then.
With this setup I’ve tried CS1, CS2, and CS3 as well. Out of them all only the old CS1 had any lag with my Ciniq, similar to CS4.
The lag that I do have still makes it an annoying experience to draw with in CS4.
Adam,
The registry key change doesn’t seem to have any real effect.
Paul
I’ve just tried the Allow old GPUs registry change and it made an enormous differnce on my system. I’m running XP32 SP2 with 4GB of RAM
and an NVIDIA 6600 graphics card. I’ve never had any problems with CS3 but CS4 was totally unusable. Screen redraw in big chunks with the checkerboard showing through, painting a curve with a brush would result in a couple of straight lines and so on. I’ve upgraded to the latest driver from NVIDIA but that didn’t help. Turning off Open GL made little or no difference.
Then I tried this registry change and wow! Everything works just fine. Zooming and drawing is a bit slower than in CS3 but now CS4 is definitely usable.
Thanks a lot Adam. You made my day!
Regards
Bengt
The registry change had no effect on my system
XP32 SP3
4GB Ram
Nvidia 8800 GTS, 178.24
Core 2 DuoE8500 (3ghz)
My home machine also is affected by the zoom lag and text lag
Vista64 SP1
8GB Ram
Nvidia 8800 GTS, 178.24
Core 2 DuoE8400 (3ghz)
The video cards are identical NX8800GTS 512M retail
I hope someone can guide me. I downloaded the .zip file mentioned above and unzipped it. However, when I double-click the AllowOld GPU.reg file, it opens in Notepad. I know my antivirus changed the .reg file association to prevent potential viruses. I also know I need to reassassociate .reg files with the appropriate program and that is my problem. What program should be used to run .reg files? I tried associating it to regedit.exe but all that does is give me error messages and does not work. I guess I could edit the registry by hand but am not too comfortable doing this.
By the way, the card I am trying to enable for Open GL is an ATI X850 Radeon (AGP).
Does anyone know which file should be used to execute a .reg file?
Thanks!
Jake
I had no change in speed when installing the reg-file.
@Jake:
You have to change the file association for the .reg files manually then. Open e.g. your "My documents" folder and choose the Folder Settings from one of the top menus (my XP is Danish, so I don’t really know what the menu is called in English – the direct translation would be "Functions").
You should then get a tab that says "File types". In there navigate to the .reg file type and choose "Advanced". Highlight the "Open" command and press "Edit". Navigate to the windows folder and find the Registry Editor and press "OK". You should now have re-assigned Registry Editor to the .reg files.
On my XP system the .reg entry is associated to regedit.exe but not on Open but on Merge! Try that.
For Merge I have regedit.exe "%1"
Bengt
I had a terrible lag like others with the 3d turned on.
I applied the reg fix and now things are MUCH faster.
XP SP3. NVIDIA 8500 GT with 512mb DDR
I have just had this message from Nvidia – "From our research, it looks like Adobe is aware of the performance problem using with some of our GPUs. They are in process of looking at a possible fix in the future. Please check their web site for driver updates."
I have an XP Pro SP3 system w/ no performance issues using the new Open GL features. The system is Intel 8400 based, 4G ram, Nvidia 8600GT w/ 256M & latest drivers. I’m using Design Premium CS4 w/ Open GL turned on in the PS preferences panel. All of the new features (tossing, smooth zooming, rotate canvas, etc.) work instantly and smoothly. I wish I could be of more help, but I did nothing special to get this performance. One caveat in my system is that I am unable to uninstall CS3 – Adobe tech support was of no help other than suggesting that I manually uninstall everything Abobe and then reinstall CS4 – WRONG!
[..] One caveat in my system is that I am unable to uninstall CS3 – Adobe tech support was of no help other than suggesting that I manually uninstall everything Abobe and then reinstall CS4 – WRONG!
Blindman: Check out this thread. I had the same/similar problem and was given the solution by Mylenium.
<
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b6d7e2/1>
Anthony.
I couldn’t even get PS CS4 to display images unless they were very small (otherwise checkerboard and prone to closing with errors) until I turned off ‘Use for Image Display’ in OpenGL Advanced Drawing (tried lots of other combinations to determine that this was the only item that made any difference). Images now display and CS4 doesn’t close with errors any more, but response is laggy, as many others have reported. PS CS3 is much more responsive and usable for me. With OpenGL off altogether in CS4, image redraw is very slow, much slower than with CS3, so completely unusable.
Vista 64 fully updated, 6GB RAM, both 32 and 64 bit versions of PS CS4. ASUS EN9600GT, latest driver 178.24 ()
Two monitors, main selected as primary.
I was on the verge of uninstalling PS CS4 until I discovered that turning off ‘Use for Image Display’ at least got me closer to CS4 working than with that item on. I’m still hoping that Adobe and/or NVidia come up with a fix (or fixes) that work for me before too long.
This completely got rid of my panning, zooming and brush lag:
Disable "Flick Panning" in the Preferences-General Tab.
Now PS CS4 is panning and zooming just as fast as CS2 for me. Hope it works for you guys.
Did nothing for me 🙁
I have found that one day it is OK, the next it is a problem again, so let me know if your fix continues
I also installed the newest geforce driver just before. But they didnt do anything, until I switched the "Flick Panning" to off.
But I guess everyone has the newest drivers, thats the first thing to check of course.
Robert,
I have found that one day it is OK, the next it is a problem again…
I’m seeing that, too, and it’s perplexing. The various problems seem to rotate in and out every few days.
Thanks Torben for the advice. I was able to associate the file with regedit this time and was able to update the registry.
Unfortunately, at least with my ATI Radeon X850 with 256MB, and with OpenGL advanced options enabled or not, images display poorly with huge squares and a totally unusable image. I guess my card is just too old …
Jake
I’ve been working with Adam Jerugin through e-mail and I want to acknowledge his effort and sincerity in trying to isolate and fix this problem over the past week. He deserves everyone’s thanks.
I tried the fix of Allow old GPUs On, and turning off all advanced features in the OpenGL settings. It made a huge improvement in the brush drawing. But I tend to be hypersensitive about lag, since I draw fast. I’d say the performance has an infintely small, but still noticeable lag, compared to CS3. Also, the issue someone else reported, of dragging free-floating windows, and a 1-second delay before they actually move…I have this problem, and it is not fixed by the workaround.
In contrast, my Bridge CS4, which also uses the GPU, is very noticeably faster than Bridge CS3 in producing thumbnails and refreshing and zooming images. Maybe the Bridge developers should help the Photoshop developers in fixing Photoshop.
I’m a bit worried now by the silence from Adam and others from Adobe. I hope they’re quietly working in the background to fix this, rather than being ordered by management to start working on CS5 development instead.
I see no lag at all when I turn off all the Open GL settings -after upping my cache levels to 8. It runs nice and fast with my Cintiq secondary monitor. But with Open GL on there is that slight lag, and any noticeable lag is unworkable when you’re using an interactive display.
And while all the enhanced features worked fine and without any lag with the Open GL turned on, lag in drawing is just not tolerable, so I’m doing without the bells and whistles.
With GPU acceleration enabled I have:
– Used different versions of the Nvidia GeForce driver
– Tried seeting the display cache to both 4, 6 or 8
– Tried every compbination of GPU acceleration settings on/off – Turned off the Flick Panning
– Used the OldGPU reg-file
– Moved my swap file to a different harddrive than CS4
– Yelled at my computer
– Called my digitizer horrible names
I am sorry to say that the two latter moves were just as succesful as all of the rest.
I have about 1/2 second lag when using a soft brush. If I switch to a hard brush I get +1 second of lag – sometimes I just get a straight line between my start and my finish point, even if I am drawing a circle.
Zooming is not as painful, but this greatly vary from time to time. Sometimes I have a smooth transition and other times nothing happens when I try to zoom.
Bridge, on the other hand, is smooth all the way. The animated multi-view works perfectly without any lagginess.
Turning off GPU acceleration off does, RIGHT NOW, show a difference in speed and is almost on-par with CS3. The speed is, however, very unstable depending on the wind direction (or whatever Adobe correlated the speed with).
Torben, do you also have a delay in typing text?
When turning GPU acceleration on, yes. Right now, without GPU acceleration, typing text is not that awful.
As mentioned by other, sometimes the CS4 version actually seems as fast as CS3, but then the weather changes…
I’ll be trying it without GPU acceleration for the next few days to see if I can a steady speed out of it – if not, I’ll reconsider sending it back.
David (and others),
I’m still investigating this issue and will continue to work with those affected to identify the cause.
The silence (at least on my part) was due to my back going out last Weds and then having to spend the last 4 days horizontal. The good news is I’ll be back in the office tomorrow.
Is anyone who is experiencing this lag located in the greater S.F bay area (ideally San Jose)?
-Adam
Pay my ticket and I’ll be there in a jiffy 🙂
Adam
If you want to take a drive to Fresno…
Paul
I got an email from Nvidia:
(Quote)
Hello Torben,
NVIDIA Software Development is aware of this application performance problem and is working with Adobe to get the issue resolved in a Adobe point release.
Best Regards,
Troy
NVIDIA Customer Care
(end Quote)
Just to clarify: A "point release" – does that cover an ordinary product update or are we talking "next generation Creative Suite"?
Is anyone who is experiencing the performance lag using an ATI video card? Or does the issue seem limited to those using nVidia cards?
this was already covered in earlier posts. It makes no difference to the lag
From Adam Jerugim:
Double click on DisallowOpenGLWindows_ON_D.reg to activate that specific registry key. Quit and re-launch CS4 to see if that helps with the lag. If it doesn’t, use the other key, DisallowOpenGLWindows_OFF.reg to get the application back to its default state.
Adam, that makes no difference for me either (I’d tried it previously, but had another with the other key for old GPUs simultaneously, even though the 9600GT is one of the cards tested by Adobe with PS CS4). Even with the OpenGLWindows key loaded and restarting PS CS4, I can even still smoothly zoom and rotate images (with 32 bit version; don’t get smooth scaling and rotating with 64 bit version regardless), but there’s no difference in the lag for other functions. I still have to have Use for Image Display disbled in OpenGL Advanced Settings for images to display (unless they’re very small).
I had thought there wasn’t a lag with my brush either, but I had done more than a few strokes. When I write something with the brush, there’s a lag in PS CS4 that’s not there with PS CS3.
ASUS EN9600GT video, Vista 64.
Hey Adam, Sorry to hear about your back. If you can convince Adobe of the seriousness of this problem and get them to pay for a flight to Hong Kong, you can test out the problem on both of my computers, and enjoy some excellent dim sum in between.
Meanwhile, I’ll be happy to send you more details of my system and to try out any interim test solutions you may have.
And to reiterate: Allow_OldGPUS_On, with alll OpenGL Advanced options turned off, mostly alleviates the brush drawing problem, but it doesn’t fix the lag in dragging free-floating windows, and zooming on images is also pretty choppy, not at all smooth as in the promotional videos about Photoshop CS4 I’ve seen.
I made some more progress with PS CS4 performance by changing the cache level. My zooming and panning have been fine (Vista 64, 6GB RAM, ASUS EN9600GT), but redraws have been slow and brush (and probably other things) a bit laggy. I also have to have Use for Image Display turned off to get an image display.
I had cache level set to 1 for accuracy of display. I set cache to 6 and restarted PS CS4. Display speed is now vastly improved, and layer masks appear almost instantly, all similar to CS3 display speed at a cache level of 1. CS3 with higher cache level is much faster again.
There’s still some slight lag for me in CS4 when using the brush (and probably other things). However, if my plugins work, I may at last be able to start using PS CS4 32 bit for real work instead of using CS3.
Cheers, John
"Hello Torben,
NVIDIA Software Development is aware of this application performance problem and is working with Adobe to get the issue resolved in a Adobe point release.
Best Regards,
Troy
NVIDIA Customer Care
"
So… Let me get this straight… Adobe didnt test Photoshop CS4 on nvidia hardware? They just released Photoshop without doing ANY QA testing?
We’re not talking about some obscure peice of hardware only found in the most remote regions of the congo. We’re talking about NVIDIA. Adobe didnt test photoshop on THE most popular graphic card maker’s hardware? Most pros are using nvidia hardware… and Adobe didnt notice this problem?
wow. sad
Well it sure is assuring to know that you can still pay Adobe your money while you wait for a fix…. Sounds like a real bargain!
sigh
MAKE SURE YOU DL THE TRIAL FIRST.
Adobe didnt test Photoshop CS4 on nvidia hardware? They just released Photoshop without doing ANY QA testing?
That remark is…well, it sort of speaks for itself.
From ProArtist:
‘So… Let me get this straight… Adobe didnt test Photoshop CS4 on nvidia hardware? They just released Photoshop without doing ANY QA testing?’
Hi Torben. Unless you’re joking, I can’t imagine why you would make such a statement. Common sense says Adobe tested PS CS4 using a bunch of NVidia video cards (and other video cards). The Adobe knowledge base gives the details:
<
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb 405711&sliceId=1>
From Photoshop, there’s a GPU entry in the Help menu to a kb page. Among all the info on that page, there are links to other kb pages, including the one I linked for you. Perhaps there are variations between different manufacturer implementations of video cards for the listed chipsets that somehow cause problems. Hopefully Adobe and NVidia will figure out what’s happening soon so that PS CS4 can live up to its performance potential for all of us.
Cheers, John
You are quoting "ProArtist" but blaming me? Please get the names straight. I merely posted the reply I got directly from Nvidia, so don’t kill the messenger!
I’m running a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO and it’s working ok but not great. I get image flickering when moving a floating window around and PS feels generally sluggish when drawing. A quickly drawn line will trail the cursor by a wider margin than with CS2 or CS3. I’m hoping to learn something by watching this thread.
A question to anyone else using ATI cards:
Will installing the full ATI Catalyst driver suite offer controls that can be tweaked to fine tune CS4’s performance? For the moment I’ve only installed the driver without the Catalyst control panel. I usually resist installing the extra video driver junk as my system isn’t used for playing games.
Russell
Will installing the full ATI Catalyst driver suite offer controls that can be tweaked to fine tune CS4’s performance?
Russell,
It will provide you with many controls to tweak, but I can’t get ATI to tell me what the controls do or which ones might result in better CS4 performance.
I’m using Catalyst Control Center 8.10 with the X1950 Pro card. I emailed ATI support asking for advice about the controls and all they told me in response was to re-install CCC.
I’d say go ahead and install CCC and see if it helps. You can always uninstall it later if need be.
Thanks Nick, I might give it a try. I just hate installing stuff that offers no advantage for what I do and potentially adds resource hogging/competing/conflicting stuff that is sometimes difficult to remove. Doing a system backup/restore is a possibility, but a bother.
I used to have the whole Catalyst Control Center installed but found that it offered nothing for me and just caused a bunch of apps to run all the time in the background. So now I just install the most resent driver.
I think I’ll wait until someone jumps in with a confirmation that it solves a performance issue with CS4. At this point I suspect there are issues that are not unique to Nvidia cards that will be corrected with an update. The price we pay for being brave 😉
Russell
You could always try the generic Windows driver for laughs! 🙂
At this point I suspect there are issues that are not unique to Nvidia cards that will be corrected with an update.
I’m hopeful for that, too. I’ve asked in another thread what ATI drivers Adobe used in testing, thinking that maybe a roll-back to those drivers would help with the problems I’m having (image content disappears after dragging a window). So far, no joy.
From Torben:
‘You are quoting "ProArtist" but blaming me? Please get the names straight. I merely posted the reply I got directly from Nvidia, so don’t kill the messenger!’
Sorry Torben. I didn’t know that Torben and ProArtist were two different people. There’s no way of telling from ProArtist’s post and even when I went back a few pages looking for your post with the NVidia response to you I didn’t find it, so gave up. This bulletin board format with a only a few posts per page doesn’t facilitate quickly searching posting history to avoid false assumptions like the one I made.
Thanks for setting me straight and good luck with sorting out your PS CS4 performance issues. Perhaps we’ll all succeed at the same time once Adobe and NVidia (and ATI, etc) figure out the global cause and develop a global solution.
Cheers, John
little off topic, but for john: you can click "show all messages" just above the new message box to show all the messages in a thread at once (or a great deal more than is standard, at any rate).
i think the actual number shown is tied to your forum preferences. click "preferences" link in the gray bar UNDER the red "post message" and "check spelling" buttons… click "miscellaneous settings" link. update maximum characters per page and maximum messages per page. i think the biggest # you can put in either is 99999. that’s what i have mine set to…
hope this helps
dave
For Dave M, thanks for your advice on forum viewing prefs. Much more useful now.
Cheers, John
no problem john. if you’re new-ish here, welcome to the forum. this is a great place to learn, if you’re willing to put up with the cranky regulars! 🙂
(you know how those "arteest" types are! ;))
you know how those "arteest" types are!
Oh please, Dave. Artiste. If it’s not too much trouble.
😛
what do i know. i’m a hacker.
Not judging by those two little pieces over in that other thread…I loved those.
they weren’t mine. fotw. (found on the web) <hangs head in shame> 🙂
For those that are experiencing the lag – let’s get back to trying to figure out the problem here – I need some more information.
Can you please tell me the following:
1. What your screen resolution is?
2. How many monitors (and what size) you’re running?
3. If any other applications (including virus checkers) are running when PS CS4 is running?
If you are experiencing the performance lag, take a look at Task Manager and see if Photoshop is the top process on the list. If it isn’t some other process may be running and taking resources from PS.
thanks,
-Adam
1. Screen resolution 1280×1064
2. Single 19" screen
3. Other programs AVG Internet Security, Spybot, Outlook, IE7, but I have also run with all other programs disabled, to no effect
PS always top of the list in task manager
Note that the lag is not just in drawing but also very bad in the text tool
1920 x 1200
Single 24" Wide Screen Monitor (NEC 24 WUXi)
No other apps running, Only Windows XP sp3 and CS4 were installed.
Nick, you may already know this, but a partition doesn’t give you performance unless the drive is not used for other virtual memory operations. I mention this since you made a point of saying your scratch was on a partition. While you can reserve space for scratch with a partition, you need a drive that doesn’t have other data going through the same bus to other partitions.
From Freeagent:
From Dave M:
‘you know how those "arteest" types are!’
‘Oh please, Dave. Artiste. If it’s not too much trouble.’
LOL!
For Dave M, yes, I’m new here, hoping to get PS CS4 running optimally. Now that I know the forums exist, I may use them for other purposes too. My web posting history is mostly to do with photography and posting in dpreview. I know all about the variety of personalities that come together to form the rich tapestry of web life. ;^)
Cheers, John
For Adam J
Core 2 duo 2.4 GHz, 6 GB RAM, Vista 64, ASUS EN9600GT 512MB with latest driver as of last week Primary monitor Eizo 1600 x 1200
Secondary monitor Eizo 1024 x 1280 (rotated to portrait) Also running Ultramon for 2nd monitor taskbar management, but disabling Ultramon doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Trend Micro Internet Security (TMIS).
Having Firefox 3 and Outlook on or off makes no difference to PS CS4 performance. PS CS3 performs fine with Ultramon, TMIS, Outlook and Firefox 3 running. No tablet installed at the moment, but I have one ready to install.
With PS CS4 32 (for example) opened and not being used, the Task Manager Process list shows the photoshop.exe CPU value changing every second or so (variable period) between 0 and 1, and sometimes 2.
I’m concentrating on PS CS4 32-bit first so I can get it working optimally with all my plugins (hopefully). No plugins installed yet except Topaz Adjust, which has been updated for PS CS4.
No discernible lag with text.
Slight delay in redrawing, only slightly slower than PS CS3 (with Use for Image Display off – otherwise no image display – oldGPU reg key loaded – made a useful difference – and PS cache set to more than 1 – made a big difference).
Brush cursor very laggy before I start drawing, then slightly laggy while drawing, unless brush is very small (no lag either way with CS3), then good while moving cursor without drawing. Switch to another app like FireFox and switch back, and the brush cursor is very laggy again without drawing.
Cheers, John
Work:
Primary monitor 1600 x 1200
Secondary monitor 1680 x 1050
Home:
Primary monitor 1900 x 1200
Secondary monitor 1280 x 1024
What do you mean by ‘top process’ ? PID number?
Noticed something interesting… Had the same problem with brush lag, clone tool lag, whatnot. Tried everything.
Had a thought – updated DirectX, there is a new Nov 2008 update. All lagging is gone. Might be a coincedence but worth trying.
XP SP3.
Kross, you may be onto something there with the DirectX update. I just tried it and it helped me to, to an extent.
I’m running Vista 64. I ran dxdiag and it said I had DirectX 10, which I think installs with Vista 64.
I ran Microsoft’s DirectX update. The web installer (Nov 08) wouldn’t work for me. <
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da 43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en>
I had to download the full end-user redistributable (Aug 08)and that installed fine. <
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C13 67BC3-4676-481A-BFAA-5C15D1D7199D&displaylang=en>
All of a sudden I can now get an image display with Use for Image Display enabled, whereas before I had to have Use for Image Display disabled. Redraws were good with PS CS3, but they’re now even faster with PS CS4.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any improvement for me with the lag for the brush, clone and heal tools (and maybe other things). With the clone and stamp tools, the new smart cursor in CS4 offsets the disadvantage of the lag, but there’s no offset for the brush lag.
I’m using a corded mouse with generic MS driver and no tablet installed (yet).
Cheers, John
Dave,
they weren’t mine
Completely irrelevant. The context was perfect, the timing perfect. That takes the twisted mind of a true Artiste. I don’t care where they came from. Give us more!
Greetings all,
I posted this on another thread but is applicable here as well. If those of you that have the lag problem could run "dxdiag" and then email that text file to danielatadobedotcom I would like to run through some of the data.
– In the taskbar at the bottom of your screen, click Start, and then click Run. – In the Run dialog box, type: dxdiag ( Click OK to run) – A dialog box displays System and display info
– Save All information (or at least System and display information)
Thanks for your feed back…
I’m starting to get a handle on some of these issues, but I need everyone’s help to try to enumerate all of the performance issues in this thread.
So far I’ve got:
#1 laggy brush response/mouse tracking w/OGL on (question for those affected: does the brush lag also occur with OGL off? In my case when I turn OGL off, brush tracking is about the same as CS3 – assuming the cache levels are set the same in both apps)
#2 slow/chunky redraw of image zooms w/OGL off
#3 delay when moving/dragging image windows (floating) around the workspace
#4 poor performance of clone/stamp/healing brush (probably related to #1)
#5 entering text is slower, as is moving text layers
Some have reported unresponsive sliders in CC panels, but I haven’t seen this myself.
If there something else I’m missing or forgetting, please let me know.
thanks again,
-Adam
Adam, when I drag an image window, the image disappears when I unclick (for lack of a better description).
I salute your efforts and communication here.
For Adam J:
I’ve emailed Daniel P with my dxdiag file. Here’s some info I included in that email that addresses your request.
Using ASUS EN9600GT and Vista 64, already had DirectX 10. I updated DirectX yesterday and that helped with some things, but not brushes.
Zooming, rotating, panning and flick panning were fine even before updating DirextX (obviously with OpenGL Drawing enabled).
Beforehand, with OpenGL Drawing enabled, I couldn’t get image displays in CS4 without disabling Use for Image Display (except for small images). With OpenGL Drawing off, redraws were slow and blocky.
After the DirectX update, with OpenGL Drawing disabled, redraws are as fast as for PS CS3 (eg toggling layer visibility or zooming). CS4 will now display images with Use for Image Display enabled, and redraws are faster than with CS3 and faster than CS4 with Use for Image Display disabled.
The brush, clone and heal tools are as responsive in CS4 with OpenGL disabled as with CS3, but are laggy with OpenGL enabled.
Entering text and moving text layers is fine for me in CS4 with OpenGL enabled.
Cheers, John
There is also the weird behavior of the menu bar (over the minimize/restore/exit portion. After closed the preferences dialog box, a ghosted image appears in front of the original bar and gets the focus.
Paul
Hi Russell.
Thanks for the link. I’ll see what that does for me, if anything. I don’t know how I missed that one, but it’s handy to have it.
Cheers, John
Yesterday, I updated DirectX to 9.24.1400.
I just updated to the latest version, 9.25.1476.
Nothing seems to have changed, except that animated zooming won’t work any more for me. Not a big deal, but seems to be a step backwards.
Cheers, John
No problem Russell. As I don’t know what you look like, you’re safe from becoming a voodoo doll for my dogs to ‘play’ with. ;^)
I actually tried reinstalling the earlier version afterwards, but of course the inst routine looks for updates, so I guess it wouldn’t go back. I don’t want to roll back to a previous Vista state, so I’ll just stick with what I now have. The animated zooming was cool, but not really of any practical value.
I’m going through my plugins to see what’s available for CS4. I just downloaded and installed the 5.0.4 update for Genuine Fractals 5 and it works fine with PS CS4 32 (GF6 will support PS CS4 64).
Now to look at some more plugins.
Cheers, John
Adam,
Some have reported unresponsive sliders in CC panels, but I haven’t seen this myself
I was one of those. Since upping cache levels to 8, that has improved to the point of being a non-issue. Guess that was it. Everything working as advertised.
XFX 8500 GT/256MB/178.24
Vista Business 64
Asus P5K/C2D E6750/8GB
I have a question about DirectX. I already have DX10, because I run Vista. But the link in one of the previous posts points to an update of DX9. Does anyone have a link to the most recent update of DX10 or maybe 10.1 (if it`s already out)?
Adam: I`d like to add some "behaviour" on my system (don`t know, if it`s "normal"):
-When I pan around in large images I often get to extremely blurred parts of the image. They get sharp as soon as panning stops and sometimes I have to release the mouse button before it gets sharp.
-Let`s assume I`m zoomed in and manipulate the image. When I zoom out I get to see the image how it looked before the manipulation for let`s say 0,5 sec. Then it gets updated.
-Let`s assume again I`m zoomed in. Now I want to use "birdseye-view" and press the H key. In large images the "zoomed-out-view" that I get temporarily is very blurry then.
I`m on Vista 32bit,Quad Core Q6600, Geforce 8600GT/512MB, 4G RAM.
For Adam:
1. Primary: 1920×1200, Secondary: 1600×1200
2. 2 monitors – 1 24" Dell 2407WFP-HC and 1 20" Dell 2007FP
3. I run Avira Antivirus in the background plus about 48 other threads, primarily related to the Win OS. The only non-OS related threads I can spot are the AppleMobileDeviceService for my phone and the Tablet configuration driver.
1. My screen res is 1900×1200 on my 24 inch wide-screen primary monitor and 1600×1200 on my 21 inch Cintiq tablet
2. 2 monitors of course
3. The only other application listed as running is my web browser. The other processes that are running aren’t very resource hungry.
I’ve changed my Windows theme to Vista Basic, and that’s improved the lag situation a small bit when I have Open GL turned on.
Basically, I can’t notice it when the brushes are small, and I con only see a slight distortion in the image when flicking it around with the "hand" tool (a horizontal ripple). But with brushes at a larger size (over 180 pixels), I CAN notice the lag.
And when I turn off Open GL, the lag is the same: Not there for smaller brushes, there for brushes over 180 pixels. And moving the image with the hand tool is very jerky and laggy- so that’s actually better WITH Open GL on.
Again: My system runs Vista 32 bit. It’s a quad-core Pentium, with 4 gig of ram, and a GTX 8800 Nvidia card.
Torben: try disabling your anti-virus software and then re-launch CS4 – that may be what’s slowing you down.
Some users have reported performance issues due to 3rd party plug-ins being installed and loaded. One thing to check -if you’re experiencing the lag and if you haven’t already – is to try disabling any 3rd party plug-ins you may be loading in CS4. Make sure in PS prefs that CS4 is not pointing to your CS3 plug-ins folder. This can also trigger all sorts of stability problems.
For Stefan K about upgrading DirectX from 10.
Hi Stefan. I’m running Vista 64 and had DirectX 10. While the MS upgrade page for DirectX says it provides upgrades to 9.0C (or something like that), I got some PS CS4 performance benefits from upgrading DirectX all the same. The first upgrade (to DirectX Aug release) finally allowed me to use OpenGL for Image Display and that sped up redraws a bit. Even with OpenGL off, redraws became as fast as for CS3, although the cache level had a big effect there too.
The next upgrade (to DirectX Nov release) didn’t seem to do anything for me except to stop animated zoom from working.
I still have a brush/clone/heal lag with OpenGL on, but not with it off (with OpenGL off, brush, etc performance seems the same as for CS3).
Cheers, John
Yesterday, I updated DirectX to 9.24.1400. I just updated to the latest version, 9.25.1476.
Nothing seems to have changed, except that animated zooming won’t work any more for me. Not a big deal, but seems to be a step backwards.
John,
To be honest I just learned today what "animated zoom" is what it’s supposed to do. I thought it was just zooming with the mouse wheel.
So I went to check to see if it was broken on my end too, having not tried it before or after doing the DirectX update. Well it works fine with PS-CS4 on XP and Vista64 (both 32bit and 64bit). So it didn’t break anything on my end.
Are you *sure* you don’t just have something turned off in the prefs? I find it hard to believe a DirectX update would kill it.
Just wanted to let you know that the update did not do any harm here.
Russell
Russell, yes, I’m sure I didn’t turn the animated zoom setting off. Animated zoom worked right up until I did the most recent DirectX update, then noticably didn’t work any more. I went to the Preferences General tab and confirmed that animated zoom was still checked (and it’s on a different tab from the Performance settings I’d been concentrating on, which means there was even less chance I would have turned it off).
I’ve just made another discovery. Animated zoom seems to work if I’m zooming from any size to fit on screen (Ctrl+0). Actually, it’s a full animation if I hold Ctrl+0 until the zooming is done. If I hold Ctrl and quickly tap 0, the zoom happens much faster and doesn’t necessarily look like a smooth animation any more. How bizarre. Before I did the Nov DirectX update (even after I’d done the Aug update), animated zooming worked for all zooming in or out, regardless of how quickly I tapped the keys to zoom to different states.
Cheers, John
Before I did the Nov DirectX update (even after I’d done the Aug update), animated zooming worked for all zooming in or out, regardless of how quickly I tapped the keys to zoom to different zoom levels.
If you choose the Zoom tool(Z)and click and hold it on the image does it starts zooming in after an initial 1 second pause? Alt+Click and hold the "-" Zoom tool on the image zooms out. That’s what I learned today to be the "new animated zoom" feature. Does that work for you?
Russell
….and don’t forget the "H" key!
try disabling your anti-virus software and then re-launch CS4 – that may be what’s slowing you down.
I am using Avira, which is one of the least ressource hungry anti-virus applications out there. It has been chosen specifically on that ground. First of all, turning off your antivirus on a PC is a pretty stupid move, and secondly this application is not causing the lag. Your application is.
Photoshop CS3 is running absolutely smoothly even if I launch the entire CS3 suite at the same time, so maybe you should focus on Photoshop CS4 and stop blaming other applications?
I know this sounds a little grumpy, but I’m tired of you guys jyst passing the blame on to other software suppliers.
To Adam Jerugim
Adam Jerugim, "CS4 lag. What graphic card will it take?" #111, 7 Nov 2008 4:01 pm </webx?14/110>
Not sure if this is already on your list of reported symptoms:
Any Floating Windows dragged and dropped over another(floating) OGL-enabled window leaves an echo image behind when moved away.
A breakdown of how and when this (along with other symptoms) occurs on my 2 systems might be of use
Symptoms Page <
http://www.gmingham.co.uk/Tech/Photoshop_v11_Symptoms.html>
Dxdiag info sent to Daniel (#110)
Many thanks for all youre doing
Russell, I just tried the zoom tool (z) as you described and it I got a continuous animated zoom.
What I was talking about was using Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- to zoom in and out, Ctrl+1 to zoom to 100% and Ctrl+0 to fit on screen. Using Ctrl+whatever, I used to get an animated zoom every time. Now it’s only when I zoom to fit on screen (Ctrl+0) and, as you said, using the zoom tool.
I mostly prefer to zoom to 100% and 1/2 fractions, ie 50%, 25%, 12.5%, etc so that I get less artifacts, although 33% and fit on screen can be useful for viewing colours, etc.
Cheers, John
John Harvey,
thanks for your reply about DirectX.
ADAM:
-When I pan around in large images I often get to extremely blurred parts of the image. They get sharp as soon as panning stops and sometimes I even have to release the mouse button before it gets sharp.
-Let`s assume I`m zoomed in and manipulate the image. When I zoom out I get to see the image how it looked before the manipulation for let`s say 0,5 sec. Then it gets updated.
-Let`s assume again I`m zoomed in. Now I want to use "birdseye-view" and press the H key. In large images the "zoomed-out-view" that I get temporarily is very blurry then.
I`m on Vista 32bit,Quad Core Q6600, Geforce 8600GT/512MB, 4G RAM. Is that behaviour "normal"? Does a faster card change it?
I mostly prefer to zoom to 100% and 1/2 fractions, ie 50%, 25%, 12.5%, etc so that I get less artifacts
I thought the whole point was that CS4 gets round that by showing accurately rendered images at any percentage!
Adam,
In Windows XP, with Directx 9.0c (note that this is the latest odfficial update obtained through Windows update; the August and November 2008 updates seem to be well-kept secrets by Microsoft).
#1 laggy brush response/mouse tracking w/OGL on (question for those affected: does the brush lag also occur with OGL off? In my case when I turn OGL off, brush tracking is about the same as CS3 – assuming the cache levels are set the same in both apps)
Answer: Brush tracking is almost like CS3 ONLY under this circumstance: OGL on, all Advanced settings off. If I either turn OGL off OR turn OGL on and any Advanced settings, lag is terrible.
#2 slow/chunky redraw of image zooms w/OGL off
Answer: same as for #1. Best response with OGL on and no advanced settings. Not good with OGL off
#3 delay when moving/dragging image windows (floating) around the workspace
Answer: no difference with OGL on or offf, or with any advanced settings on or off. The delay is always there.
torben, no one told you to REMOVE your AV program, they suggested temporarily disabling it as a troubleshooting technique.
I know this sounds a little grumpy, but I’m tired of you guys jyst passing the blame on to other software suppliers.
it’s not passing blame, it’s good trouble shooting. it’s not pretty stupid, it’s standard practice to eliminate as many variables as possible to make it easier to spot problems. and if you turn something off and the problem goes away, guess where the problem lies?
if you’re that concerned about viruses (and it doesn’t sound like you are since you use a no-name av software) just unplug from the internet before shutting it down.
‘Xactly, as dave says. More than once, in trouble shooting a problem, I thought I was down to one changeable, and in fact there were more, screwing up the test.
However, getting a computer system to hold still and change only one parameter, well, good luck!
You gotta try anyway. 🙂
As I stated in an earlier post, running with ALL other programs disabled has no effect on the CS4 lag problem, so it is nothing to do with AV.
Speaking of performance issues, I have the reverse in CS3:
Lawrence Hudetz, "One for the Books!" #1, 6 Nov 2008 9:41 pm </webx?14/0>
If any of the Adobe folks are interested, take a look and tell me what you think. I realize this is a side issue, but it is in the general area of performance issues which seem confusing to resolve.
As I stated in an earlier post, running with ALL other programs disabled has no effect on the CS4 lag problem, so it is nothing to do with AV.
no problems, it’s just that a lot of people come in asking for help then when given advice or things to try, you get hit with "it’s not that" out of hand without them even cheeking it out. why bother asking then if that’s going to be your (in general, not you specifically robert) take on it?
Maybe I was unclear. Turning off the anti-virus does not change anything on my machine – it has been tested. My main point was, that you guys are pretty fast to pass the problem on instead of thinking "hey – maybe it IS our program that has a fault". If a game producer creates a game with outdated graphics that runs like c*** on my "better than average" GFX card, I don’t blame Nvidia for making poor drivers or my AV for magically stealing more CPU power (or GPU power?!?) when I run that specific game…
I am no rookie the PC business and I fully understand that you did not mean for me to uninstall the AV. That does not change the fact that
– Diabled anti-virus programs are pretty useless. Wouldn’t your next suggestion have been to do something about the AV if my answer had been positive?
– Avira is very low performance consumer. 1.7 MB of memory consumed when running and no CPU usage that can be recorded.
– It would still indicate that YOUR software has a fault if the CS3 suite works flawlessly with AV enabled, but CS4 does not.
On my system everything pretty much slows down when OGL is enabled. Brushing is as slow as cloning, dragging is sluggish, zooming speed varies greatly. With OGL disabled everything is faster, but not on-par with CS3.
Torben
Just had a silly idea… If your videocard is a PCIe type do you have another PCIe slot available on your motherboard where you could try it out? I know that’s probably a pita to try. But I just wonder, with all the disk IO and other stuff that CS4 does, perhaps it’s exposing a resource conflict that otherwise never poses a problem?
Russell
Torben:- Diabled anti-virus programs are pretty useless. Wouldn’t your next suggestion have been to do something about the AV if my answer had been positive? – Avira is very low performance consumer. 1.7 MB of memory consumed when running and no CPU usage that can be recorded.
By all accounts Avira is pretty good. However, that doesn’t indicate that it may be needlessly scanning areas. For example, there is no reason for an antivirus program to scan the Bridge Cache folder or the Photoshop scratch drive. If scanning of those areas are turned on in your antiviral program and it is possible to turn off scanning in those areas a performance boost may be realized.
– It would still indicate that YOUR software has a fault if the CS3 suite works flawlessly with AV enabled, but CS4 does not.
Tain’t necessarily so. CS3 did not use OpenGL. CS4 does. It is entirely possible that PS CS4 is exposing poorly written areas of a driver particularly if that area of the driver hasn’t been extensively tested. In this instance PS CS4 is exposing the problem, not causing it.
I’m also having trouble with PS CS4’s performance. Not any of that OGL issues, but when I have floating windows in PS and try to move any one of them the window first doesn’t react for about 1s, then it very, VERY, slowly follows the cursor.
I noticed that the issue is different using mouse or tablet, with tablet it’s even SLOWER and more sluggish!
Also, where did the right-click menu for image size and canvas size dialogs dissappeared? Why do I have to use the main menu or shortcuts? It used to be convenient this way!
I forgot to mention that I’m NOT running Aero on Win Vista Business x64, Photoshop CS4 is also x64. I have a GeForce 8800 card, 8GB of RAM, a few TB of HDD storage and two HP displays (20" + 24").
When I enable Aero the lagging gets much better, but still there. However, I don’t want to turn on Aero in order to experience a pleasant work-day in Photoshop.
You may have to. What’s the problem?
It’s well to keep in mind the first rule of testing:
Correlation does not equal causation.
Example: CS3 runs fast, CS4 does not. Therefore CS4 is the problem.
Just installed CS4 on an XP Pro SP3 box with Asus A8N32-SLI-Deluxe MB (NVidia chipset), NVidea GEForce 7600 GT video card (drvier v 6.14.11.7824), AMD CPU (2.20 GHz Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core), 2 GB RAM.
Have moderate to severe LAG in CS4 with brushes, cloning, sliders and redraws.
Tried upgrading Direct X from v. 9c to v. Nov2008: did not change LAG. Restored to v. 9c: did not change LAG.
Tried changing Symantec antivirus to Avast Home 4.8: did not change LAG. Tried restoring Symatec Antivirus and turned off live protection: produced moderate improvementin LAG.
Any suggestions on how to eliminate lag and make CS4 usable will be deeply appreciated. (I feel like an idiot, having spent a lot for this product only to find it is not usable.)
Just tried the registry tweak suggested by Adam Jerugim to enable old graphic card support. This change made a major improvement in the LAG I was experiencing. The LAG is still present, but it is minimal enough to make CS4 usable.
Thank you sooo much Adam Jerugim for this suggestion and for the link to the reg files.
Correlation does not equal causation
That should really be the subtitle of this forum.
A few of us have tried to point this out, but often to no avail.
CR Henderson: It is entirely possible that PS CS4 would encounter poorly written areas of a driver particularly if that area of the driver hasn’t been extensively tested.
Yes, that might be one scenario. Nvidia has been on the market with their OpenGL driver for quite some time. Nvidia has has OpenGL support in their CS package for 2 weeks. All blame-passing aside: Do you seriously think Nvidia (or Avira for that matter) is the obvious one to call first?
How do you propose that Avira influences OpenGL performance, when it does not affect 2D performance (seriously – I want to know)? I am assuming that everybody in here aren’t using the same AV as I, so you might have to make it a general consideration.
Hypothetically – isn’t there a very slight chance that OpenGL programming just isn’t Adobe’s most powerful asset right now?
In relation to Bridge the CS4 version runs perfectly with all bells and wistles enabled. Thumbnails refresh instantly and the multiview (CTRL/SHIFT+click images) is a joy to use. There is absolutely no problem using OpenGL in that application.
Hello,
I got Photoshop CS4 on the 5th of November (I am german). Guess I am one of the first here. My English is not so good, but I want to tell you that I have the same problem as often mentioned in your discussion. I guess, that in the next future many of the german users will have these problems too, when they get the software.
So: my PC runs with XP Pro, has a 3 GH CPU, enough space and 2 GB Ram, Photoshop uses about 1200 MB Ram. I experimented with these settings: no change. Photoshop CS 3 runs without performance problems, as well as Photoshop CS and earlier versions. I updated my NvideaGeforce 7600 GS Card Driver these days, so it runs with the newest driver. I tested these registry keys for older GPUs which are mentioned in this discussion, I tested all, what was recommended here, but it didnt work. Brushes and so on have huge lag, with liquify filter I can not use my Wacom Intuos tablet. But Mouse or Pen Tool, it makes no difference in performance in the other cases.Tearing Windows brings many duplicates on the screen. I also updated the tablet-driver, but it made no difference. The lag is also in the sliders of the adjustmentlayers (very annoying) and also in darken lighten adjustment dialog box. Attemps with OGL open on or off , settings in the advanced settings made no big difference. I sat here hour and hours wasting my time with senseless attempts, all were in vain. AntiVirus enable or not: No change. So I really hope that Adobe brings out an update soon, which solve these problems. Than perhaps I also can appreciate the new functions that Adobe advertised so intensive, but now I feel like I have paid for that I am a Beta Tester I am disapointed. I took comfort in the fact, that I am not the only person, who has the problems with PS CS4.
Astrid
Your English is fine. Better than most of us could do German!
Although posting here in a language other than English is discouraged, there are one or two German speakers here if you get stuck for a word.
You have obviously discovered the variety of problems reported here with slowness and lag in CS4. I can only suggest that you keep checking back for fixes or trouble-shooting help.
Viel Glück!
John,
Thanks for your friendly message!
For Adam Jerugim
I wrote down the properties of my Computer for a better summary.
PC with Windows XP Pro, Service Pack 3
CPU 3 GH
Hard disk with 160 GB space, partitioned into 3 drives.
8 GB only for temporary files from Photoshop (partition) Photoshop is installed on another partition
Windows is installed on the third partition
2 GB Ram (1,2 for Photoshop)
Wacom Tablet Intuos 3 with the newest driver
Independet (from Tablet) wireless Mouse with wireless keyboard Nvidea Geforce 7600 GS with the newest driver
Screen resolution:
1280 x 1024 Pixel, Quality: 32 bit
1 Monitor
Free Anti Virus Personal (disabled it makes no difference) Free Zone Alarm (disabled it makes no difference)
Bridge is running with good performance (when disabled it makes no difference to Photoshops slow performance)
No other programs run when photoshop is on.
Torben said:
It would still indicate that YOUR software has a fault
Torben, FYI, Dave Milbut and most others here are not Adobe Engineers. Normally, engineers have their title under their name.
Astrid, 8Gb seems small for a scratch disk.
PECourtejoie
Perhaps I did not find the right words.
It (Partion with 8 GB) is the second Volume only for the temporary files of photoshop. Nothing else is on there. The first volume for the temporary files from Photoshop has 50 GB free space.
I `d like to add a very strange experience I just had:
Normally flick-panning was always stuttering a bit and I thought ….okay that`s the way it is, because I don`t have a really fast graphics card (8600GT/512MB). I have been retouching a picture for about an hour as I started to do some flick-panning again. And I couldn`t trust my eyes: Flick-panning was smooth and absolutely perfect! I thought, maybe there`s something "special" about that picture. So I openend another picture. Flick-panning was stuttering again and so I went back to the other picture and also here flick-panning was stuttering again! I really have absolutely no idea what caused this behaviour. It was the first time that flick-panning was that fast and smooth and just perfect. And I did nothing else than opening and closing another pic and it was stuttering again!
So how shall we ever know wether our cards are simply not fast enough or it`s just something that`s not right within PS?
Stefan, as others have mentioned on this forum (myself included), some of this strange behavior does come and go. For me, it’s mostly the disappearing window content. One day it happens, the next it doesn’t.
You`re right, Nick. It comes and goes. I`m wondering why none of the beta testers (or the Adobe engineers) had any problems before the software was released. The forum is full of GPU problems.
The forum is full of GPU problems.
nobody comes here to say "yay! everything works fine!". (except the regulars.) you get a very distorted view of "problems" from within the forums.
I have to say that I have been using CS4 since it’s release date and have not really had any issues.
HP m9000t
Intel Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
4GB of ram
Vista Ultimate 32 bit
Nvidia GE Force 8500GT 512MB
Gateway 24" flat panel 1920×1200
Vista Aero Glass – On (I know but I like it) 🙂
1st Scratch disc on a 500GB internal drive (not the same drive as the operating system is on) with 307GB free.
2nd scratch disk on my C (operating system drive) 500GB with 339GB free. Available Ram 1646MB – Photoshop uses 1136MB (69%)
Open GL on – Advanced setting on
History States 10
Cache Levels 4
Flicking, Panning, Zooming all work better and faster than it did in CS2. I do have a very slight lag when moving a window (slight enough that if I didn’t spend so much time reading these forums I probably wouldn’t have noticed).
Then about a week ago, I wanted to really try to tax CS4 to see if I could get it to reproduce any of the issues people are having here.
I opened an 18meg multiple layer (40 layers to be exact) project that I have saved and I went to work on it.
Flicking, Panning, Zooming all worked fine. Then after about 15 minutes of working on the file the window went blank!
Nothing I tried would bring it back. I saved the file, closed Photoshop and restarted it then went in and changed my cache from 8 to 4.
I restarted Photoshop again and loaded the same file and could not get it to disappear again.
Today I opened a 429MB 30" x 40" (9000 x 12000 pixels) 300dpi with over 50 layers most of which have layer styles applied to them.
With this file I notice the screen redraw when Flicking, and when Zooming but for the size of file I don’t think it was any different in CS3.
I worked on it for about 20 minutes and can not make it dissappear.
I feel fortunate that I am not having issues and this post was not to gloat in any way. I just see a lot of people here with a lot higher end graphics card than I have are having issues so it really makes me wonder…
I hope this may help someone.
Torben:Yes, that might be one scenario. Nvidia has been on the market with their OpenGL driver for quite some time. Nvidia has has OpenGL support in their CS package for 2 weeks. All blame-passing aside: Do you seriously think Nvidia (or Avira for that matter) is the obvious one to call first?
First, nVidia has until recently put out mostly garbage for drivers for Vista x64 which doesn’t make me believe that their software development team is better than Adobe’s. I would guess that most of their OpenGL efforts have gone into supporting gamers. That is a radically different environment than image editing where each pixel counts.
Did you actually call Adobe? I’ve been in discussions with a couple of Adobe engineers on the problems of lag in PS CS4. They are aware of it and are working to define the constraints of the problem–something that must be accomplished before a valid ‘fix’ can be determined and implemented.
So yes, I started with Adobe under the assumption that PS CS4 is at fault. But I did not disparage the program or their efforts. To do so is counterproductive. Adobe has much better tools for determining the source of problems in their software than I and for me to call nVidia right now would probably result in them finger-pointing. If Adobe can show that the problem lies in the implementation of OpenGL in the video card driver then I will communicate with nVidia and request a fix ASAP.
Torben:How do you propose that Avira influences OpenGL performance, when it does not affect 2D performance (seriously – I want to know)? I am assuming that everybody in here aren’t using the same AV as I, so you might have to make it a general consideration.
All AV programs operate by placing various hooks into the OS. *Anytime* that is done there is great *potential* for problems. The most common of those problems will be cleared up in the first few revisions of the software–often before a customer sees it. More subtle problems with race conditions, multitasking, etc. will usually be discovered only through intense use. Perhaps CS4 is the first program providing that environment.
Torben:Hypothetically – isn’t there a very slight chance that OpenGL programming just isn’t Adobe’s most powerful asset right now?
Hypothetically anything. Insulting the company you want to solve a problem is likely to help getting the problem solved.
Torben:In relation to Bridge the CS4 version runs perfectly with all bells and wistles enabled. Thumbnails refresh instantly and the multiview (CTRL/SHIFT+click images) is a joy to use. There is absolutely no problem using OpenGL in that application
I don’t use Bridge–I use Lightroom–but I was not aware that Bridge uses OpenGL to edit images.
—
All I’m saying here is don’t rush to judgement and condem Adobe because one of their new programs appears to operate improperly. Report the problems to Adobe. If they fail to fix the problem or if they determine the problem is in external software and fail to put pressure on the external company to provide a fix then further action would be necessary.
Using the incredible power of Graphic cards was requested by a lot of users, but the problem is that there are MANY parameters that might render their use problematic:
Card Version (processor)
Implementation (custom cards design: cooling issues…)
Firmware version(it can fix or create issues)
Driver version (again, there are nVidia/Ati drivers, and Custom drivers by the card manufacturers. Then some users reported that the version of Direct X installed had an importance (I did not know that Direct X had an influence on Open GL.
So stating as many details about your setup is important to help engineers find a common denominator. There seems to be a breakthrough… so patience is a virtue. Give constructive input!
I am having problems with CS4 crashing. I have the 8500 GT video card. When I restart Photoshop back up it says that photoshop has a problem with video card or open GL and needs to turn it off. I already had it turned off. But it crashes every time after about 10 minutes of work in photoshop. I guess I will start with Adobe and see what they tell me.
Any Nik Software plugins?
The troublesome part of the Nik Plugins is the Selective Tool. Adding a tilde ‘~’ in front of the Selective Tool folder-name will prevent the Selective Tool being run. The plugins should then work OK, albeit somewhat slower than on CS3.
I am using an XFX Geforce 6200 512Mb AGP card in Windows XP and CS4 is quite a bit slower than CS3. Surprisingly, Bridge CS4 seems to run almost as well as CS3, but with slightly slower full screen previews, i.e., zooming to 100%.
OpenGL Drawing is selectable in Photoshop preferences on this setup but is basically unusable, causing Photoshop to hang when opening an image, with the processor going up to 98% usage.
Driver is the latest 178.24 Nvidia one.
OK – fixed it.
Found that selecting ‘OpenGL Drawing’ but de-selecting ‘Use for image display’ and keeping the other check boxes ticked in ‘Advanced settings’ allows OpenGL to be used. Photoshop CS4 is now working pretty well, zooming is excellent – nice and smooth. I would say CS4 is on a par with CS3 ATM and well usable, at least for my setup.
BTW, anyone having trouble with Nik plugins should check they have the latest builds updated to work with CS4.
Ian D said:
"Found that selecting ‘OpenGL Drawing’ but de-selecting ‘Use for image display’ and keeping the other check boxes ticked in ‘Advanced settings’ allows OpenGL to be used."
Ian, I had the same issue with having to uncheck ‘Use for image display’ until I updated DirectX, then ‘Use for image display’ all of a sudden started working when checked.
I’m using an ASUS EN9600GT video card with Vista 64.
Cheers, John
Hi John.
Thanks for the tip. Actually I’d already updated the DirectX to the release that came out Nov/Dec – i.e., the current one. Taking your advice, I re-installed it but still no luck with ‘Use for image display’ ticked. It just hangs on opening an image again.
I think I spoke too soon before anyway. Although the zooming and opening of an image is fixed with ‘Use for image display’ un-ticked, I get a very-laggy brush when using the clone or other brush tools.
One other thing I have noticed is occasional corruption of the Minimise/Restore/Close buttons at the top-right of CS4.
Ian.
Martin, you are not alone, by no means!
And your card is fine.
Some forum members are on an unstoppable mission to defend Adobe until the cows come home.
Don´t let them shut you up.
Cheers!
Erbs
OK – found out that un-checking ‘Show overlay’ in the ‘Clone Source’ panel fixes the laggy brush and clone tools.
I have the exact same problems listed here and have been back and forth with Adobe support on the issue.
Windows XP 32-bit SP3
4 gigs of RAM
Core2 Duo E6600
512 meg GeForce 8800GT
Panning, zooming, image re-draw in general is extremely slow. Painting a "circle" results in a 6-7 sided blob. I’ve also noticed the menu bar display corruption. Working on files from my Canon 40D are painful enough, trying to work on my 1-2 gig panos is out of the question.
I’ve tried every fix listed here as well as everything suggested by my Support thread.
Can I ask if all those who are reporting lag are sure that OpenGL really is active in their document window? You can tell by whether or not the flick scroll or rotate view tools work. If they don’t, it is probably because the graphics card settings are incompatible with Photoshop’s OpenGL mode.
Recent NVidia drivers come with a set of presets for Photoshop CS4 which NVidia have determined, in their wisdom, to be optimal for this program. If you change these settings sufficiently then this disables OpenGL. However Photoshop does not flag this up and will show OpenGL as being active in the Performance/Preferences window. (I reported this in another thread <
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b73e84/7> where this specific issue was raised.)
The fact that the OpenGL box is crossed in this window is therefore not an indication that OpenGL is active. Maybe you all knew this, in which case I’m sorry for butting in.
PECourtejoie:
While i agree that adding GPU support to Photoshop is a serious undertaking, but varying hardware should not be that much of a factor. Most of us are running Nvidia or ATI cards. That narrows it down quite a bit.
3D animation applications have been using GPU support of many years and they seem to run very well on a wide selection of hardware and system configurations.
This is complicated, but it should not be this difficult to get Photoshop running well on ATI and Nvidia cards on todays hardware. It just shouldnt.
This is a programming problem of course, and adding GPU to photoshops legacy code was more than likely a very complicated process and in that process… things break and go wrong.
Adobe will get it right… in time.
I would say everyone should stick with CS3 until they do.
CS4 really is a very poor performing application. Some people say it runs very well, but i wonder at what resolution they’re running and how demanding they are of photoshop.
It does seem like many do see the same problems… And considering your own argument of… varying hardware and software configurations…. If its true that we all have different hardware and software installed… then why are we all seeing similar problems?
Varying hardware is not as much of a factor as varying drivers, varying firmware, and varying options for the drivers.
Please keep in mind that most people aren’t seeing big problems with CS4.
Yes, there are problems for some configurations, some situations – and we’re trying to find the causes and solutions.
As for "many do see the same problems": not really. We’ve had at least 4 completely different "slowdown"/"laggy" causes identified. Your high level descriptions of it may be the same, but the specifics are not the same. That’s why we keep trying to get people to provide more specific details.
Recent NVidia drivers come with a set of presets for Photoshop CS4 which NVidia have determined, in their wisdom, to be optimal for this program. If you change these settings sufficiently then this disables OpenGL.
See this: Wolf Eilers, "CS4 and nvidia 180.48 driver – disable PhysX GPU acceleration" #8, 6 Dec 2008 11:32 am </webx?14/7>
I know not everyone is having problems and I know you folks are on top of it.
Its interesting to know that the symptoms may be the same, but the causes are not.
Are you saying all of this is driver related and not PS at all?
Ok, So I’ve been using Photoshop for years and have alwaysspecified Matrox Dual Head video cards (currently using P-750 series, not much RAM, but enough for two high res 22" monitors and very fast screen redraws. This series of cards is dual headed and can operate independant color corrections on either monitor, so it has always been great for image editing and Matrox drivers have always been relatively stable, probably among the best. Unfortunately, these Matrox cards are not GPU intensive and have relatively no 3D acceleration. — So now, CS4 doesn’t have a GPU to lock onto.
But is that what is causing all the slowness with brushes and using the hand tool to move the screen? (using the sliders on the right and bottom of the frame seem to work just fine.)
I may need to go with nVidia or perhaps one of the new ATI options. This system is a dual Opteron with 6GBs (5.6 reported)workstation, SCSI drives with triple 15K RAID stripe for swap disk. Runnind Windows XP64. (I ‘ve been running CS2 for 2-3 years in 64bit mode very well). Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks
Doug Abdelnour
ProArtist – I am saying that some of it is driver related, some of it may be Photoshop, and some of it we have no idea what’s going on (mostly because we can’t reproduce the symptoms on our systems).
Is Adobe close to a fix yet? Some entries that I read on this forum seem to suggest that the folks having the performance lag problem with CS4 are in the minority. No way can this be true. I suspect it is the other way around. We need to start an excel spreadsheet showing opsys and equipment, with the final two columns being CS4 RUNS GREAT and CS4 RUNS LIKE CRAP. I believe that there would be more checkmarks in the runs like crap column for sure.
I have two machines, purchased last December from a small outfit called Dell that may have sold one or two of the same machines to others….a dell xps 1330 and dell vostro 400, each with plenty of processor and memory, both running xp sp3 … CS3 runs like a dream … CS4 has the performance / lag problems mentioned in this thread.
I don’t want to do a bunch of testing, turning things on and off, etc. I want Adobe to fix whatever is wrong with CS4 so that it runs like a dream on these recently purchased machines the same way that CS3 does. Right now, the Adobe take seems to be that (probably) millions of machines out there need to be fixed to work with CS4. No, no, no … CS4 needs to be fixed to work with the machines. And please, no arguments about all the variables with all the windows machines out there … they managed to get CS3 to work didn’t they? They can do the same with CS4, even if they have to reverse their decision to mess with the GPU.
I will check back periodically, but like many others I have given up for now and will not upgrade until they have things fixed. I am an Adobe stockholder so I really do hope that they come up with a fix soon because the sales decrease caused by this problem is going to cause further erosion in the stock price.
I had problems too, using an nVidia 7300GT but a quick trip to nVidia and the latest beta driver solved the problems for me.
Roger
Don’t know if this will help anyone, but I had a major lag issue when I upgraded my memory from 4GB to 8GB (I run Vista x64) As soon as I switched to more memory, I started having the lag. I tested my memory, and it clocks fine and is not throwing errors. As soon as I switched back to my 4GB of memory, problem solved, no lag, Photoshop CS4 working, panning, zooming and rendering as expected.
The whole reason I went to Vista x64 was to increase my RAM. Usually that gives a significant increase in performance, but NOT in this case. PS CS4 was unusable with 8GB RAM.
Anyone else having this problem?
I assume the 8 gigs of ram is all the same "exact" ram?
Did you go into your bios and check the ram voltage to see if it set to what it is suppose to be? Example: 2.1 volts.
Also let’s say, for example, that your ram is rated at 4-4-4-12 timings. When you look at the timings in the bios does it match what it is rated at?
Carter Harkins: The whole reason I went to Vista x64 was to increase my RAM. Usually that gives a significant increase in performance, but NOT in this case. PS CS4 was unusable with 8GB RAM.
A few Intel motherboards had a problem with 64 bit operating systems if the installed RAM was greater than 4GB. That is supposed to be fixed in the latest BIOS (it was for my DG965WH) so if you have an Intel motherboard that could be an area to investigate.
Some good news!
I’ve also had very bad performance issues with CS4 ( brush lag etc…) but it appears to have been fixed now.
After getting nvidia’s new drivers (182.06) I noticed less lag when drawing with the 64bit version. OpenGL was greyed out, so no opengl features, but at least lag was reduced. 32bit with OGL was laggy as ever.
Today I noticed the new 11.01 update (
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4292). After installing it, lag on the 64bit and 32bit (with OGL on, mind you) is completely gone!
For reference, I’m running Vista 64 with a 8800 gt 512 MB card. Settings for the OpenGL in Photoshop 32bit:
All of the check boxes ticked except for "Vertical Sync" and "Use For Image Display".
So good job Adobe. All that is left is to fix OpenGL support for 64bit version.
