Photoshop CS4 is a disaster

D. Rutledge - nobody is dismissing the problems. Adobe is working on a dot release, and ATI and NVidia are working on driver updates. But we can't guess at all the possible factors involved. That's why the video driver writers need more information.

Nick, my drivers are current at 9.1. CCC is, as far as I'm aware, the only avenue to the various video driver settings that may affect CS4. Nothing I did there had any effect, of course: just saying that I did my homework before commenting.

I never 'dismissed' anyone's problems except when someone obviously bought illegal software and wanted help.

Anyways, I can't help because I got it right!

Just because the problem is related to "certain combinations of HW/SW/FW" doesn't relieve Adobe of the burden to solve this widespread issue. By that rationale, if the software only worked on one PC model that Adobe developed CS4 on and I couldn't get it to work right it would still be my fault for not having that magical combination of HW/SW/FW. As it is, there are over a dozen people in my company alone -- all of whom have different PC models with different specs -- who are almost unable to work since we've been forced to upgrade to CS4. There is nothing unusual about any of our system (all Lenovo, some with ATI, some with nVidia), and most of them are quite new.

I'm being reminded of Microsoft's "Red Ring of Death" fiasco with their Xbox 360s. They tried to pretend that the problem was not their fault or was being blown out of proportion for several years, and until it happened to my Xbox (three times!) I argued that people just weren't taking good care of their game systems. It's easy to dismiss a problem when it isn't happening to you.

d: I've been reading a lot more than just this thread, and it is related to certain combinations of 'HW/SW/FW' as Larry pointed out. You have one of those unfortunate combos.

I having been building my own systems for 14 years now and never had a problem, but when I built this new system I ended up replacing every component because they were faulty. I have an ATI FireGL card that is making a nice paperweight because ATI wouldn't live up to its warranty. I also had a problem with Intel. So yea, it could be a faulty card.

Wow. I'm just starting to work with CS4 after CS2 (have already left a post or two) and using the text tool in the simplest way is horrendous: I go to make changes to a text layer (in this case deleting part of it) and I have to wait to see my changes long enough that I'm wondering if my actions have had a result. Why? Why!

Right.

But they are isues pertinent to the HW/SW/FW combinations on that particular computer.

I installed on three: one had a major problem, one ran without 3D capability, the third ran marvelously.

The first one is a AMD macchine, several years old with a PCI card. The second, a Dell workstation. The third, an Intel i7 machine with nVidia 7 series PCIe cards. Any one of three versions.

Take your pick.

In the best of worlds, an app would simply run. But we aren't there yet. :-(

Have you been reading this thread? There are 720 posts on here so far. I can't take the time to count just how many of them are individual complaints about the same performance issues that render the software virtually unusable. The errors seem to have nothing to do with any specific hardware on the part of the user. ATI cards, nVidia cards, XP, Vista, laptops, desktops, you name it.

Just because you personally are not having issues doesn't mean that there aren't an inordinate number of people who are.

Narked:

When you built your computer did you update directx 9.c? Vista may use directx 10.1 (after sp1 update) but it also uses directx 9c to run a ton of software. Updating 9c does not effect directx 10 in Vista in any way.

Also .net update to 3.5 may help you. There is also a update for C++ for 2008.

D: I'm not having any issues and CS4 is anything but a "clunky ...."