Summary:When painting with the Brush tool, Photoshop's canvas redraw appears hard-capped at approximately 31–32 FPS, even on a 144Hz monitor with a high-end GPU that is barely utilized during the stroke. This does not happen in other applications (e.g., MS Paint) on the same machine, which render smoothly up to the monitor's full refresh rate.System specs:GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (8GB VRAM) CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 (6 Cores, 3,5 GHz) Driver version: 591.86, CUDA 13.1 Monitor: 144Hz (confirmed set correctly in Windows Display settings) OS: Windows 11 Photoshop version: Adobe Photoshop 2026Steps to reproduce:Open any document (tested on both small ~1000x1000px and larger 2560x1440px canvases — file size does not affect the issue) Select the Brush tool (tested with standard round brushes, Smoothing set to 0%) Paint continuously on the canvas while monitoring FPS via MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner Statistics Server overlay Observed FPS stays around 31–32 FPS during active brush strokesWhat I've already tried (none resolved the issue):Disabled V-Sync in NVIDIA Control Panel Disabled G-Sync both globally and specifically for the Photoshop.exe application profile (via NVIDIA Profile Inspector, using "Force Off" on both GSYNC - Application State and GSYNC - Application Requested State) Disabled OpenCL in Photoshop's Advanced Graphics Processor Settings Toggled "Enable Modern User Interface" off/on under Technology Previews Tested on a brand new, empty document with no layers, masks, or Lock Transparent Pixels enabled Confirmed GPU usage stays under 10% and CPU under 20% during the lag (via Task Manager), ruling out a hardware bottleneck Confirmed the issue is not present in MS Paint on the same hardware, which renders at full monitor refresh rateExpected behavior:Brush stroke rendering should scale with available hardware and refresh rate, similar to how it behaves in other raster applications, rather than being capped at ~30 FPS.Additional notes:I found a similar report on the Adobe Community forums (thread: "Cursor stuttering & screen flickering in Photoshop on high refresh rate G-sync monitors") where multiple users report similar symptoms specific to Adobe applications, not reproducible in other DCC tools (Blender, Clip Studio Paint). An Adobe employee (howardpinsky) acknowledged the report and said they would escalate it to the team for investigation.

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Photoshop 2026 — Brush painting capped at ~30 FPS on high-refresh-rate monitor, regardless of hardware load

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Summary:
When painting with the Brush tool, Photoshop's canvas redraw appears hard-capped at approximately 31–32 FPS, even on a 144Hz monitor with a high-end GPU that is barely utilized during the stroke. This does not happen in other applications (e.g., MS Paint) on the same machine, which render smoothly up to the monitor's full refresh rate.

System specs:

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (8GB VRAM)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 (6 Cores, 3,5 GHz)
Driver version: 591.86, CUDA 13.1
Monitor: 144Hz (confirmed set correctly in Windows Display settings)
OS: Windows 11
Photoshop version: Adobe Photoshop 2026

Steps to reproduce:

Open any document (tested on both small ~1000x1000px and larger 2560x1440px canvases — file size does not affect the issue)
Select the Brush tool (tested with standard round brushes, Smoothing set to 0%)
Paint continuously on the canvas while monitoring FPS via MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner Statistics Server overlay
Observed FPS stays around 31–32 FPS during active brush strokes

What I've already tried (none resolved the issue):

Disabled V-Sync in NVIDIA Control Panel
Disabled G-Sync both globally and specifically for the Photoshop.exe application profile (via NVIDIA Profile Inspector, using "Force Off" on both GSYNC - Application State and GSYNC - Application Requested State)
Disabled OpenCL in Photoshop's Advanced Graphics Processor Settings
Toggled "Enable Modern User Interface" off/on under Technology Previews
Tested on a brand new, empty document with no layers, masks, or Lock Transparent Pixels enabled
Confirmed GPU usage stays under 10% and CPU under 20% during the lag (via Task Manager), ruling out a hardware bottleneck
Confirmed the issue is not present in MS Paint on the same hardware, which renders at full monitor refresh rate

Expected behavior:
Brush stroke rendering should scale with available hardware and refresh rate, similar to how it behaves in other raster applications, rather than being capped at ~30 FPS.

Additional notes:
I found a similar report on the Adobe Community forums (thread: "Cursor stuttering & screen flickering in Photoshop on high refresh rate G-sync monitors") where multiple users report similar symptoms specific to Adobe applications, not reproducible in other DCC tools (Blender, Clip Studio Paint). An Adobe employee (howardpinsky) acknowledged the report and said they would escalate it to the team for investigation.

faisu887

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the thorough writeup, the 31 to 32 FPS cap matching two Windows timer ticks is a really sharp observation. One more thing worth testing is setting the graphics processor drawing mode to Advanced instead of Basic in Preferences, then restarting Photoshop, since that changed brush responsiveness for me on a high refresh display. Also try dropping the monitor to 60Hz temporarily to see if the cap follows the refresh rate, which would tell you whether it is a frame pacing limit rather than a hardware bottleneck.

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진

진혁33135194usyo

Participant

I can reproduce a very similar brush-painting cadence on a different machine, and I collected timing traces to narrow down the symptom.
Machine: Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 360, Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, Intel Arc Graphics (driver 32.0.101.9033), 2880x1800 at 120 Hz, Windows 11 26H2 build 26300.9550. Photoshop 27.9 and 27.10.0.
During brush strokes, Photoshop.exe Present intervals consistently cluster around 31 ms (median 31.2–31.8 ms across tested runs) with S Pen and cursor-based input, 9–100 px brushes, and OpenCL on/off in separate captures. These are Present intervals, not direct pen-to-ink latency measurements.
The ~31.25 ms interval numerically matches two Windows 15.625 ms timer ticks, but the internal cause is unconfirmed. A controlled global timer-resolution A/B/A′ changed other timer behavior without changing Photoshop’s cadence. Skipping a third-party hook also had no effect in a synthetic-mouse comparison.
Median GPU busy time was approximately 5–9 ms per present, and sampled UI-thread utilization did not show sustained 100% saturation. These observations do not identify the bottleneck.
The ~31 ms cadence is measured; a timer-driven redraw is only a hypothesis. Could Adobe investigate the brush display/update scheduling path? I can share summary tables and PresentMon traces. Please let me know whether a reviewed Photoshop System Info report or a screen recording would help.

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carlom22578264

Participant

I have the exact same issue. I tried upgrading to 27.11.0 and it still has the brush seemingly having a framerate cap. I mainly use Photoshop to draw and paint, so this is definitely a big issue for me.

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Srishti Bali

Community Manager

Hi @neonbuggies

Apologies for the delayed response. I’m hopeful that the issue has been resolved by now, and thank you for providing such detailed information about the issue and the troubleshooting steps you’ve already tried.

If you’re still experiencing the brush painting performance issue, please update to the latest version of Photoshop 27.9.1 and check whether the behavior persists.

If the issue continues, please share the following with us so we can investigate further:

Your Photoshop System Info. In Photoshop, go to Help > System Info, copy the information, and paste it into your reply.
A screen recording demonstrating the issue, preferably showing the FPS while you paint on the canvas.

This additional information will help us better understand the behavior and investigate further.

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Thanks, Srishti Bali | Community & Engagement Strategist, Digital Imaging | Adobe

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