CS4 Clone Tool NOT Multithreading and CS4 Slow on i7 965 Processor

M
Posted By
MikeZA
Feb 15, 2009
Views
442
Replies
9
Status
Closed
I noticed for the first time that the new clone tool in CS4 is not using all of my processors on my new i7 965XE processor. In fact it uses only one processor and this makes it run incredibly slow. I have also noticed that CS4 in general is rather sluggish on this hardware which is supposedly one of the most powerful processors available. I am running the i7 965XE with 8GB of Ram and still find Photoshop rather slow. I would expect it to be super snappy on this hardware, perhaps I need to optimise settings somehow, does anyone have any suggestions or is CS4 not equipped to properly address the i7 processors yet???

Any help appreciated.

My version of CS4 is 11.0

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Chris_Cox
Feb 16, 2009
No, the fact that it sometimes uses multiple processors and sometimes doesn’t either means that the area to be cloned is very small, or that the operation does not benefit from using multiple processors (and many do not). Photoshop does use multiple processors whenever it can, and when the task at hand would be sped up by using multiple processors. In some cases those operations go by so quickly that they don’t show sustained usage of the additional processors (you would need to sample processor usage at a much finer level to see it).

Throwing multiple processors at many common tasks slows them down — because the task isn’t starved for CPU power, but for data coming from or going to RAM. Most of the tasks in Photoshop are highly optimized, and spend more time waiting on RAM than waiting on CPU calculations. But the operations in Photoshop that can benefit from multiple processors are already threaded and do use multiple processors.

You’ve observed a simple behavior (clone tool is slow) and jumped to a conclusion about why it is slow. A more useful approach would be to simply state the problem you have observed and ask if it is a known problem, or if someone has a possible solution.

You probably should check on the existing threads about GPU support and painting slowdowns.
M
MikeZA
Feb 16, 2009
"jumped to a conclusion" ???? What the ????

Actually I asked a bloody question if you are unable to read english properly. I think you are the one jumping to bloody conclusions MATE!!! What are forums for if we have to put up with shitty responses like this.

Thanks but NO THANKS !!!
JS
Jeff_Schewe
Feb 16, 2009
And I can’t believe you are reacting this way when one of the Photoshop engineers takes the time to answer your friggin’ question, doooode! It’s you that needs an attitude adjustment.

Fact is, your original post was wrong and you did jump to conclusions…(some of which Chris was happy to disabuse you about).

So, you want help or you wanna be a pissant? Your choice bud.
M
MikeZA
Feb 16, 2009
TO SET THE RECORD straight, I was not busy with a willy nilly cloning job, I was busy doing very intensive cloning on a PSD file 850 Mb in size. The ENTIRE time I was cloning (30+ minutes) ONLY ONE processor was being used and that processor for the entire 30+ minutes was running at about 85%-100% usage.

Jeff, I again refer you to properly read my original post.

Nowhere am I jumping to conclusions, I am merely "stating" what I experienced and I ended my post with a very clear question namely

………. "perhaps I need to optimise settings somehow, does anyone have any suggestions or is CS4 not equipped to properly address the i7 processors yet???"

What is so WRONG about noticing that Photoshop only used one processor on a very intensive cloning job.

What is jumping to conclusions about that ???????
JS
Jeff_Schewe
Feb 16, 2009
What is so WRONG about noticing that Photoshop only used one processor on a very intensive cloning job.

Believing the activity readouts for per processor activity for one thing…and Photoshop has 3 main bottlenecks, CPU, Ram and Disk I/O, with 8 gigs of ram (you don’t mention whether you are running Vista 64) any slowdown could be the result of any one or combinations of the bottlenecks slowing you down. Which, Chris was trying to lead you down the road of discovery…but no, you jump on him and I’ll wager it’ll be a cold day in heck before he’s around to hold your hand again.

You want help, ask for it…you want to strut your attitude, you go right ahead–you’ll be doing it all on your own bud.
DS
Dennis_S
Feb 16, 2009
Mike,

Just to get back on topic, do you have OpenGL enabled in the Performance Preferences? You might try turning it off if it is on or vice-versa. Cloning goes faster on my machine with it off but I usually leave it on for the new features it brings in CS4 (continuously variable zoom, flick panning, birds-eye zoom, rotation, etc.).

The one potential bottleneck that Jeff didn’t mention but Chris did is the video card. The video card plays a more important role in CS4 if you are using the OpenGL features. What video card are you using and how much video memory does it have? Have you checked it against the list of verified cards that Adobe has published?

< http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb 405711>
CC
Chris_Cox
Feb 16, 2009
Mike, could you take a moment to reread your original post?

"CS4 Clone Tool NOT Multithreading"
"In fact it uses only one processor and this makes it run incredibly slow."

Those are not observations and represent two direct conclusions, both of which are incorrect. The first conclusion is that the clone tool is not threaded for multiple processors (it is). The second conclusion is that the lack of threading is what makes the clone tool run slow on your system (almost certainly not the case).

Implied in your statements is a third conclusion: that using more processors makes things faster (rarely true). That is a common enough fallacy that I felt the need to offer a more detailed explanation to help you and other readers understand more about the issues involved. I tried to keep that explanation short and simple.

I gave you an alternate hypothesis (small clone area) that could have explained your observation, since you didn’t provide enough details for us to rule that out.

I also gave you more information about what is going on under the hood to help you understand why you observed what you did on processor usage.

Then I pointed you to existing topics that offer a much more likely explanation for the slowdown you are seeing.

If you had described with the clone tool slowdown without the incorrect conclusions and without phrasing most of your post as accusations, you probably would have gotten useful help from other users more quickly. Even my first instinct was to ignore your post, but it sounded like you were confused, a bit angry, and needed some help.

I am sorry you read things into my post that I did not intend. I’m simply trying to help you understand what you observed, and find a solution to the problem you described.
MP
Mark_Phell
Feb 17, 2009
I was surprised to actually see anyone in engineering posting here, and was very surprised when I posted a suggestion, fully expecting to be talking into a well, and got an actual reply. It’s an unexpected change to post on a board like this and have a sense that it might actually help.

So, how about not spitting in his face for the effort?
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Feb 17, 2009
There are a bunch of questions about the configuration of your particular setup Mike.

What mobo?
What ram speed and configuration? The i7 runs with ddr3, and the best boards run them in sets of three in specific slots on the board.

If you have the Intel board, and are running 8G, do you have the black slot populated? If so part of the time the system will run as single channel. If this is your configuration (Intel DX58SO mobo, all slots populated) RAM will slow down. I haven’t much experience with other than Intel boards, but if you are running 4 sticks of 2G on any board, that problem may also show up as well.

As a test, place 3 sticks in the right slots, pull the fourth and try again.

I ran CS4 on the DX58SO "Smackover" board, 64 bit Vista, a 920 processor overclocked with 6G 1333M (3 2G each) in the right slots and it ran like crazy. So fast that on a 250M file I had to check History to be sure the tool ran!

If you have tried to overclock the board you may want to set the system to defaults as well.

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