Crash with multiple video cards

T
Posted By
Tang
Nov 16, 2008
Views
651
Replies
22
Status
Closed
I have three monitors connected to two separate graphics cards, an 8800GT and an FX5200 (PCI). Now, this setup works fine in regular XP Pro, with driver 175.19; Photoshop CS4’s OpenGL works without a problem save for the brush cursor bug. However, I installed Vista x64 as a dual boot for the RAM boost, and ran into a bit of a wall.

Photoshop now refuses to work at all with the OpenGL enhancements on. It loads (an improvement in itself, used to get stuck at "Reading preferences"), but it’ll freeze when I try to open a file or go to the performance settings. I’m currently using driver 171.16; I know it’s outdated, but it’s the most recent one that works with both cards in Vista x64. I’m also quite sure it’s not the problem; Photoshop works perfectly with OpenGL on if I disable the FX5200.

I’ve tried the registry key AllowOldGPUs_ON to no effect. I’ve also tried both the 64-bit and 32-bit versions, with no difference. Is it possible to get Photoshop working with both cards, short of replacing the FX5200?

Specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.50GHz
4GB RAM
Over 300GB HDD space available for scratch disk use
EVGA 8800GT
PNY Verto FX5200
Related Tags
card crash multiple video

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R
Rilla
Nov 16, 2008
Since it crashes at reading preferences, have you tried archiving the preferences? Take a look at Solution 3, step 2 of <http://www.adobe.com/go/kb404897>.

Also it looks like your 8800GT is on the supported card list but the FX5200 doesn’t seem to be on it yet (http://www.adobe.com/go/kb405711).

As you know XP 32 and Vista 64 two totally different products. I would check to see if there are any beta drivers for your PNY and test them out.

-Rilla
M
malojo
Nov 16, 2008
Hi,
maybe photoshop uses the 5200 rather then the 8800. I had the problem that my secondary graphic adapter was recognized by PS as primary ( see here: <http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b7022d/15> ).
Solution was to swap them physically but this caused some other problems in other applications.

Regards,

malojo
T
Tang
Nov 16, 2008
Rilla: The preferences mysteriously fixed themselves upon restart, so that’s no longer an issue. I did try clearing them just for kicks, to no effect.

PNY’s website gives me version 96.85 for the FX5200, as that’s the last version that "officially" support this card. Theoretically, new drivers are supposed to support all cards, what with the unified driver architecture business, but I dunno.

malojo: Hmmm… you know, I did see your thread before, but somehow it didn’t register in my head that I might have the same problem. However, I cannot physically swap my cards, as the 8800GT uses PCI-E while the FX5200 uses regular PCI. I’m interested though, what’s your status now?
M
malojo
Nov 16, 2008
Up to now I did serveral things ( see my thread ) without success. My primary is recognized when the secondary is primary but then apps which need the big card crash because they get the small one.
T
Tang
Nov 17, 2008
Odd… Well at this rate I might as well replace the FX5200. I plan on getting an 8400GS too, but the regular PCI version. I dunno whether or not it’ll fix this, but I need to shorten the generation gap between my cards anyway so I can use the newest drivers. I’ll see what happens with that. In the meantime, I suppose I can only hope that Chris Cox or someone swings by and takes note that at least a second person has this problem…
M
malojo
Nov 17, 2008
Hi,

I generall you should use the same card generation at all. I did the mistake at first installing a 7400GS and 8800GT.
Windows run fine but all applications which used open gl crashed and refused to work ( everyone including 3dsmax in open gl mode, direct x run fine 😉 ). As I changed to 8400 and 8800 the problem was gone.
However this was the issue using 2 PCI Express cards and I do not know if this is an issue using a normal PCI card and a PCI Express.
I’d like just to let you know that I had such an issue.

Regards

Matthias
T
Tang
Nov 17, 2008
That’s good to know, thanks.
FM
Fred M Stevens
Nov 18, 2008
did you try putting your Windows task bar (where the start menu and such are) on a monitor run by the 8800, and then open Photoshop?

I know this sounds odd, but I think the monitor PS CS4 tests is the one with the task bar; that’s what it seemed when I was installing it on a friend’s machine.
DM
dave_milbut
Nov 18, 2008
good thinking fred! would be a find and a half if it works!
B
Buko
Nov 18, 2008
over on the Mac side it has come to the attention of people with two cards that are different causes Photoshop to crash.
T
Tang
Nov 18, 2008
Fred: Yea the 8800GT is running the primary monitor and the FX5200 is connected to the two secondaries.
JC
Jimmy_Chancey
Nov 19, 2008
I took a look at the FX5200 specs. It shows they have shader model 2.0+, whatever that plus means. I thought the minimum spec was shader model 3.0 to run CS4. Is it possible this is part of the problem?
T
Tang
Nov 19, 2008
Quite possibly, I tried using just the FX5200 and it didn’t work either. But what really baffles me is that I have no trouble running this setup in XP. The FX5200 is most definitely a sub-par card, but I’m wondering if it has more to do with how CS4 detects the GPU. Perhaps the Vista version(?) does it a bit differently?

Which reminds me, malojo if you’re still following this what OS are you on?
M
malojo
Nov 20, 2008
Hi,

yeah im reading :). I use Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

Regards
T
Tang
Nov 21, 2008
Hmm, might be a Vista problem after all. Well, the video card comes tomorrow, we’ll see I suppose.
M
malojo
Nov 21, 2008
T
Tang
Nov 22, 2008
Alright, I installed the 8400GS (PCI). Problem solved!
Oddly enough, after doing so it was the XP version that got weird. It came up with the same problem you had, malojo: it picked up the 8400GS as the primary card. However, I went to the NVIDIA Control Panel, Manage 3D Settings, and went to the Adobe Photoshop CS4 preset, and found that setting "Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration" to ‘Single display performance mode’ or ‘Single GPU multiple display performance mode’ corrects this. Do note, however, that doing this will prevent OpenGL-enabled windows in Photoshop from working on the secondary monitors. Also note that I didn’t really notice any difference when Photoshop detected either card, and that if you leave it in either of the other modes OpenGL windows will work on the secondary monitors. Just a thought.
On the other hand, the Vista version quite surprisingly worked immediately. It correctly recognized the 8800GT without me having to change the settings from default.

So, malojo, give that a try, and thanks for all the support, guys!
M
malojo
Nov 22, 2008
Good to hear that it worked. Changing the value you said does not fix my issue. Within the System Info tab it is clearly visible that CS4 Extended uses my 8400 GT with 256 MB. I’ve seen that the performance is not so bad at all but I think only 256 MB VRAM is a bit less.

—————————-
* OpenGL Information *
—————————–
Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Version: 2.1.2
Renderer: GeForce 8400 GS/PCI/SSE2
—————————-
* HARDWARE CAPABILITIES *
—————————-
+++ OpenGL 1.2 – supported!
+++ OpenGL 1.3 – supported!
+++ OpenGL 1.4 – supported!
+++ OpenGL 1.5 – supported!
+++ OpenGL 2.0 – supported!
+++ OpenGL 2.1 – supported!
+++ ARB Vertex Programs – supported!
+++ ARB Fragment Programs – supported!
+++ GLSL vertex shaders – supported!
+++ GLSL fragment shaders – supported!
+++ FrameBufferObject – supported!
+++ Texture Rectangles – supported!
+++ Cube Maps – supported!
+++ Floating Point Textures – supported!
+++ Occlusion query – supported!
+++ Multisampling – supported!
+++ Point Sprites – supported!
+++ Non Power-Of-Two – supported!
+++ Vertex Buffer Objects – supported!
—————————-
—————————-
Maximum regular texture units = 4
Maximum COMBINED texture units = 32
Maximum VERTEX texture units = 32
Maximum FRAGMENT texture units = 32
Maximum draw buffers number = 8
Maximum UNIFORM float parameters per VERTEX program = 4096 Maximum UNIFORM float parameters per FRAGMENT program = 2048 Maximum VARYING float parameters for VERTEX->FRAGMENT = 60 Maximum float ATTRIBUTES for VERTEX program = 16
Maximum texcoord sets = 8
—
Point Drawing
————————–
Aliased point size range = [1.00000, 63.00000]
Smooth point size range = [1.00000, 63.37500]
Smooth point size granularity = 0.12500
—
Line Drawing
————————–
Aliased line width range = [1.00000, 10.00000]
Smooth line width range = [0.50000, 10.00000]
Smooth line width granularity = 0.12500

Total VRAM 268,435,456 bytes — Initializing Programmable Shading
API…
M
malojo
Nov 23, 2008
Hi Tang,

it works now. I installed the new driver, did the changes Tank descriped and now the 8800GT is recognized correctly.
Within the properties 268,435,456 bytes vram are shown.
As my card has 512 MB I am wondering if this value is correct.
DM
dave_milbut
Nov 23, 2008
512MB = 524,288,000 bytes.
256MB = 262,144,000 bytes.
T
Tang
Nov 23, 2008
Hmm, good to hear it worked, but that’s rather odd. Where did you find that information? It’s not under my System Info
M
malojo
Nov 24, 2008
Hi Tang,

to get that info you have to open a 3d file or do something 3d.

Regards,
Matthias

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