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Consultant1027
Consultant1027
Participant
May 16, 2019
Question

Why is PS So CPU Intensive When I'm Hardly Doing Anything? (Compared to old versions)

  • May 16, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 4059 views

I used Photoshop CS6 up until now.  Because it did everything I needed and I am only an occasional 'intermediate' user, not a Graphics Professional needing to perform complex editing tasks.

So my company signed me up for Photoshop CC and I started using it on my same very powerful laptop (8th gen i7-8750H with Nvidia GTX 1050 4GB card, 16GB RAM)

What is driving me crazy is PS CC is like making my fan on my laptop go crazy off and on when all I'm doing is things like editing text, or moving a small block of text. This is editing a 672 x 1125 pixel image with a text layer an image layer and a background layer.  CS6 barely made the fan come on at all.  It's like the new architecture of PS CC is not very efficient or something.  Very disappointing.

With like two images open there are 7-11 processes showing up in the Task Manager like three Adobe CEP HTML Engine processes, two Adobe Spaces Helper, etc.  Do I really need all this stuff running!?!?  I may just re-install CS6 and go back to the 'good ole days'

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Trevor.Dennis
    Community Expert
    Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 16, 2019

    Also check Preferences > Performance. Check which GPU  is being used and that you have all the GPU options available.  If you see the onboard Intel HD instead of  the GTX1050M, then go into Nvidia  settings from the system  tray, and force it to use best settings. (I can't remember exactly where you do this, but I think it is obvious.)  Note: it is conflicting video card drivers which upset Photoshop

    See  if your Cache levels are set to the best option for the work you  are doing.  Jeff Tranberry stresses this, and says it can make a lot of  difference.

    Can you tell what specific functions are ramping up fan speed?  Photoshop uses  the GPU for some preview states  like Liquify, and switches to the CPU when  you click OK to process the full image. If you do have a video card driver issue, then you might be using the  CPU more than otherwise necessary.

    Do you tend to keep Photoshop open for long periods?  It is a bit of a RAM hog and does not release memory or even temporary  scratch files when  closing large documents,  and nor does Purging make as much difference as you'd think.   So have a  look at Task Manager > Performance, and Resource Monitor to see what RAM is being used (remembering to take this as a percentage of the memory you have allocated to Photoshop).

    Lastly look at your Scratch arrangements.   Is this a SSD or NVMe drive, and does it have reasonable free space?  Check the root directory of the primary scratch drive for orphaned temp files.  Any Photoshop temp files that either do not have today's date, or are still there after closing Photoshop, can be deleted.

    Consultant1027
    Consultant1027Author
    Participant
    May 17, 2019

    Thank you for the suggestions, but I'm guessing this is just how the latest Photoshop is. Why? I would guess many users here aren't working in a silent room with a laptop on the desk sitting right in front of them.  If either they have a noisier environment or a desktop computer where they don't notice the fan coming on and off.  That's not to say no one in this forum has this same environment, but I would guess it's not considered a problematic issue because (a) most people don't notice the cpu fan speed, combined with (b) it doesn't cause any lag in using the machine.   The CPU usage I'm seeing is in the 10-20% range.  However with previous Photoshop running, editing a similar file was in the 2-7% range.  The other thing could be that this new laptop just has a cooling policy that is more aggressive than my previous which is more apt to turn the fan speed to a higher level than the previous laptop at similar CPU usage.

    Those suggestions people have provided are good. But there are not likely solutions for the very fact the image size I'm editing is very small: 672 x 1125 pixels and I am not doing complex operations such as running filters.  Just entering and moving text.

    O/S: Windows 10

    CPI: 8th Gen i7

    RAM: 16GB (40% free)

    Storage: 512GB SSD

    GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB (GPU is recognized and Use Graphic Processor is checked)

    Photoshop RAM Setting: 71% (10GB max currently)

    History States: 50

    Cache Levels: 4

    Cache Tile Size: 1024K

    Drawing Mode: Advanced

    Use GPU to Accelerate Computing = enabled

    Use OpenCL = enabled

    Anti-alias guides and paths = enabled

    CPU usage when not actively using Photoshop typically = 4% with low to no fan speed

    Maybe it is just the more aggressive fan cooling policy of this new Dell XPS Laptop that I am not used to.

    Mike_Gondek10189183
    Community Expert
    Mike_Gondek10189183Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 16, 2019

    Might be a serialization issue, is Adobe Cloud up and running without any error?

    Are you running atleast win 7 or newer? Photoshop system requirements

    You may want to test turning off Open GL, then restart photoshop; to take effect (yes you absolutley must restart the app).

    When running  windows that requires continual maintennace against data trackers/spyware, of which may act up more with CC apps. How do you check and maintain system?

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