Photoshop CS4 is a disaster

i What resolution do you normally run CS4 in

Whatever the max for the monitor. Today I used a 24" Samsung LCD Flat Screen, with the resolution set at max. 1920x1200.

I did no toying with the nVidia controls. Install OS, install nVidia driver, install CS4, run it.

I don't like the Samsung, and perhaps all LCD's because of the excessive contrast and brightness at default. It wasn't calibrated, so I have to hold off final judgment.

I saw absolutely no lags, even over 100% mag.

What I am trying to establish is a baseline system that will run CS4 as expected. Because of all the work I have done using the i7 system as my job, it was only natural that eventually I set aside some time and run a test, as I did with my own 32 bit systems. The differences are startling.

What is sorely needed is a formal evaluation with a rather complete testing matrix; an an almost obscene cost. (not to mention the ennui on the part of the people actually doing the testing!) I lucked out in that I could setup a system that worked "Out of the box".

What might happen as I load up Vista with other apps can only be guessed at.

I also did no printing from this system.

Hi guys.

I have been reading allot of post's around these forums with people having problems with Photoshop CS4 running slow. I had the same problem hence why I have been here reading. Lagging brushes, zooming, scrolling, flickering images etc etc.
I, of course cant say where the blame should be placed BUT I did manage to sort my lag issues. Ill state my current set up and then tell people how I fixed it for me.
Hopefully it will help someone.

System -
Windows XP pro (sp2) not installed sp3 yet. 100% clean install. (Installed last week, no fonts other then system fonts and no other programs apart from CS4 design package - its still runing fast now with 200+ extra fonts and other software installed)

4GB DDR3 1066 Ram (3.25 used)
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33GHz 1333MHz
1GB GTX 280 PCI-E Mem 2210MHz GPU 602MHz, 240 Cores.

GPU driver = 180.48 (the very latest)
PhysX driver = 8.10.13 (the latest)
DirectX = 9.0c (latest version)

Main monitor = 27inch at 1920x1200 res
Second monitor (dual view) 22inch at 1650x1050

Ok so I have semi decent hardware but it was still lagging to the point where it was almost unusable but what I found was this.
By using the
b "NVIDIA Control Panel", going in to
b "Manage 3d Settings" and editing Photoshops 3d settings the lagging problems stopped.

The main setting that seemed to make a difference to me was the "multi-display/mixed gpu acceleration" which I changed form compatibility mode to "single GPU multiple display" mode.

All texture filtering and antialiasing is turned off. "Maximum prerendered frames" is set to zero.

After changing and playing with the settings I now cant get Photoshop to lag other then on extremely large files.
Brushes with color and opacity jittering with wet edges all at the same time on large docs are in real time. Images have also stopped flickering when using the hand tool or just moving the window itself.

Both with dual view and single screen desk top.
With multiple files open at once and in lots of diff res's.

The problems seems to have stopped so I can only assume that, for myself my GPU driver was trying to somehow process my images with extra 3d stuff even on 2d images and forcing these options off has done the trick. Its almost like the driver is seeing the whole of Photoshop as it would a PC game or other fully 3d program.

Lawrence... Since you have no performance problems, could you try going to a high resolution to see how PS performs. My current theory is that screen resolution is effecting performance drastically.

What resolution do you normally run CS4 in?

Here's some feedback on the i7 system with respect to video cards and the brush performance.

I'm running it on Vista 64 Ultimate with no other apps.

First of all, Brushes. On my home machine, an AMD single core with XP pro 32 bit, I have two problems. One is the truncated circle, the other is the bad gray value when cloning in an 18% gray range. It would switch automatically from a black circle on white, a white circle on black, and an unfortunate, fixed gray on gray.

Different matter on the i7 machine. No truncation, but there is only a black circle no matter what the background color is, until I hit caps lock, then hit it again. The circle now changed to white, no matter where it is placed, but tries to shift to another color when the cursor is moved. Exit PS and open it up again and the brush reverts to the original condition. Not very promising!

As to the video cards, I found a rather startling result, given the wide spread nature of performance among video cards/drivers. I have none.

I have my own card on hand, an nVidia 7300. At the lab, we have 7200 and 7100 versions laying around. I have the latest driver installed for the 7 series. What was starling is that it didn't matter which card is installed, the system showed none of the problems discussed throughout this forum. That is, I could substitute any of them and if there are subtle differences, the drivers reload for that particular card (or corrected for the card) and I see no change in anything, including the a fore mentioned brush problem. IOW, the system is completely stable with respect to swapping 7 series cards, and if the brush problem is video related at all, it follows the card as well.

This is true also when trying out different platforms/cpu combinations. All I need to do is swap the HD among them, assure that BIOS is set at default (and in one case, set to a significant overclock) and run.

So, there you have it. So far. If I absolutely had to have CS4, I would invest in the Intel board and the 2.66GHz processor. No need to spend for the faster ones, overclock is simple and pretty stable (up to a point!) But really, I didn't even know that one of the boards was over clocked until I did a BIOS check before closing out the test.

bump

You mean "cold es" Brew! ;)

yup. and cold as a...

Any snow there, dave?

We are expecting really cold (for Portland) days ahead. Lows in the teens. And snow.

>Can an os have an unrecoverable error that causes no problems at all?

it depends on what caused it. ;)

Can an os have an unrecoverable error that causes no problems at all?

Actually a reasonable question, as I often encounter statements that indicate something serious happened, but the computer goes merrily along.

Or does it?

Then there are the messages that simply close the app, but not the os. The os does try to keep a distance from those events, and when we have dueling software, well, I would concede your point.