Photoshop 27.3 Ignoring Intel Arc A770 GPU and Using CPU Instead

Question

So, Intel Arc and Adobe Photoshop… It’s ugly 🫡

When I open a simple file in Photoshop 27.3, my CPU is nuked when doing simple things (like moving a layer)… PS is laggy, hard to use and quickly becomes a headache.

Here’s what I can tell and my debug process so far :

SysInfo is attached. I’ll come back to this later
GPU compatibility says that everything is compatible
I’ve unplugged my second monitor : no results.
I checked, unchecked, re-checked “use GPU” or any settings in the Performance menu : no results.
Photoshop was re-installed many times without keeping any settings / cache. No results.

On the SysInfo file, you can clearly see where the problem is :

Composite Core GPU (comp_core_gpu): on 
Composite Core Threads (MultithreadedCompositing): on 
Composite Core UI (CompositingDocumentTabUI): off 
Composite Core Feature Prefs (CompCoreFeaturePrefs): off

And it describes the bug pretty well. Mooving the canva / a layer is a pain in the *ss. But using the quick selection uses the GPU.

My intuition (ChatGPT’s intuition) was to try an older version of PS.
And guess what ?
I now have a fully functional program: smooth, easy to use, and that doesn’t nuke my computer !

So, I’ve concluded that the problem isn’t coming from Intel and its drivers, but Adobe themselves.
On a side note, I don’t have any issues with this exact same GPU on others Adobe program…
I’ve also found out that this bug “Composite Core UI (CompositingDocumentTabUI): off “ doesn’t not only concern Intel Arc GPU but sometimes Nvidia GPU (thanks Google)

Is there any chance that Adobe could fix this ?
I mean I and many others pay a lot for the suite every year, why couldn’t it be fixed ? And why would I need to use an older version (with way less features) because I don’t have THE main-stream GPU ?

PS : I’ve already created a topic on this issue, but it seems to be unavailable now…

My configuration :

AMD Ryzen 9 7950x (iGPU is disabled from BIOS)
64Gb DDR5 @ 4800MT/s
Intel Arc A770 16Gb - Driver 32.0.101.8425
2To SSD (900Go empty)

jonathan_bdlf · Accepted Answer

Holy $h!t !You put in the right direction. My computer doesn’t have multiple GPUs.But I checked anyways thedevice manager. Where I found another graphic cards : “ParsecVirtual Display Adapter”. Which is 100% normal since I use Parsec from times to times.I disabled the ParsecVirtual Display Adapter, and guess what ?!It works flawlessly !I now have more questions than ever 🫠Why does Photoshop needs to haveoneand onlyoneGPU enabled on the system ?Is there a workaround arount it ?Is there a possibility in the futur in the “Check GPU compatibility” page to see if we have multiple GPUs enabled (and guiding through the process) ?

Aleke · Answer

Hey ​@jonathan_bdlfThanks so much for reaching out. Have you gone through the steps in this guide for setting up a computer that has multiple graphics cards?Photoshop usually does not use more than one, so the general recommendation is to disable the less powerful card. The guide should walk you through how to do that.Thanks againAlek