P: Cursor stuttering & screen flickering in Photoshop on high refresh rate G-sync monitors

[Earth Oliver]

If you're a nvidia gsync user and experiencing mouse stuttering in Ps (and all Adobe apps), try turning off gsync to see if that resolves the issue. 
Basically what happens is that any activity in an Adobe app will result in 2-3 seconds of micro-cursor stuttering (looks like frame rate dropping) and the occasional 3-4 seconds of cursor freeze. Disabling gsync fixes the issue. This behavior appears only in Adobe apps and none other.

{Thread title edited by moderator}

[Valeriu]

I turnet G-Sync off and the problem was solved. Thx

[ChamucoKid]

I don't see the issue with replying to an old post at all. On the contrary I see it as a contributing to preassure Adobe and Nvidia to fix this issue.

People should make an informed desision on what to buy for their work equipment and they should be aware that problems like the ones mentioned in this post exists and how long have they been around giving them an idea of how much it has been neglected.
Again, with all respect man, I think you are not correct on this one. I think people should keep this old psot alive as long as those bugs with Adobe programs and the Nvidia Studio driver are solved.

Update: I returned my 3060ti and received a refund of it. I am now looking to upgrade to a 6000 series Radeon card, I'll post a comment in the future sharing my experience and if it is any better than the one I had with Nvidia.

[janemii]

After 23.4 update, bug is coming.

It cannot be reproduced accurately. It doesn't seem to happen every time, but what's clear is that when you paint a mouse or tablet several times, such as a clonestamp, a healing brush, or a brush, the screen flashes(or flicker somthing).

I don't blink very often, but I think I did it once every 10 seconds when I had symptoms. I tried restarting and resetting Photoshop, turning on OBS, reproducing the bug, and recording it, but it didn't work. But my team members keep saying that the screen is blinking, so I think it's a bug.

Test OS is window10. And native canvas off. multitherad or GPU composite thing i know that solution. and It has nothing to do with this.

Also, our monitor is jsut normal 60hz benq SW Series. It doesn't have a G-sync function and it doesn't have to do with it because it doesn't use it. And of course, vertical synchronization is off.

There was no bug like this until the last version. I can say this for sure.

[janemii]

0:23 ~ 0:39

I can't reproduce the bug right now, so I search and attach a video similar to the screen blink that I and my team members saw. The difference from this video is that the screen blinks like that when zooming in and out, but we often blink like that when we apply brushes or clone stamp or healing brush. I hope it's for your information.

[Senarin]

I'm using Dell's UltraSharp model monitor and I also seem to have a bug. One thing that's unique is that when i use patch tool, sometimes get that blinker. I didn't think I updated Photoshop, but I thought my monitor was broken. lol

The screen blinking isn't that bad, but it's a little annoying...

[Jqqerry]

A quick one click on a mouse or tablet doesn't seem to cause that bug. The screen blinks when repeatedly painted (for example, a brush or clone stamp with a low flow setting).

And when there are one or two layers, there seems to be no such symptoms, and when there are more than four or five layers, the screen seems to blink like that while loading data. Of course, it's not normal.

[CShubert]

Hi @janemii, sorry you are seeing this.

It may help if we could see your Photoshop System Info. Launch Photoshop, and select Help >System Info...and copy/paste the text in a reply. 

Thank you,

[Miha5FF2]

I have the same problem. When making a brush stroke with either mouse or pen, the screen is flickering ever so slightly.

[Miha5FF2]

Did some research and figured out that NVidia G-Sync is causing the issue, for me at least. The only fix i could find was to disable it for that monitor, which i'm not happy about since it's my main monitor.

[defaultnel7e03hyn5z]

Buenos días, llevo varíos días con problemas en el programa. He instalado la última versión 23.4.1 con la que empezó el fallo y he vuelto a la versión anteior 22.5.8.

Despues de unos minutos trabajando comienza a flickear la pantalla y la herramienta que esté usando en ese momento. Debe ser un problema de software, porque me pasa tanto con la Wacom, como con el ratón y el trackpad... El ordenador tiene 32GB de RAM y la tableta gráfica es NVIDIA RTX 500 y el portatil trabaja con Windows 10 Pro....

Estoy un poco desesperada, ya que es mi herramienta de trabajo y llevo dos días que no puedo hacer nada 

Muchas gracias

[ChamucoKid0]

"Update: I returned my 3060ti and received a refund of it. I am now looking to upgrade to a 6000 series Radeon card, I'll post a comment in the future sharing my experience and if it is any better than the one I had with Nvidia."

So it's been a minute since I changed to a 6700xt from my previous 3060ti (got the radeon card for a quite good price second hand), and it's been working really great so far. Not any jarring visual bugs or constant freezing like before, just some lagginess that went away if I disabled "use OpenCL" on the advanced graphics setting in Photoshop which yes I did try to disable when I was using the Nvidia card and did not solve any of the issues I was having.

I can zoom in and out and pan around with no lag or stuttering, responsive as it should be, and the only times the system struggles a bit is when at work I have to handle muti GB sized files, but that is very occasional. I have EVERY radeon graphics feature enabled, freesync premium, readeon antilag, enhanced sync, smart access memory, and I don't have to disable any of those features to be able to use photoshop without it dying every few seconds.

System specs for anyone having a similar situation:

I hope this info is useful to someone at some point.

Aditional notes:
Yes I could do with a lower tier card since the OpenCL feature was very GPU heavy and disabling only gets my gpu to around 15% usage but I do game in my PC as well. Btw since there was a refresh on the Radeon 6000 lineup prices have gone really low for 6500 and 6500xt if any of you is interested in buying a gpu just to help you run photoshop or other art programs.

Also, now I have mixed RAM since I've recently put my old 16gb kit in additional to my 32gb kit, I point this out because it is not recommended to mix RAM not even between the same manufacturer or even model, so before anyone thinks that it could be related to the issues I had with the Nvidia gpu and PS, no, this is only recent and I've been using the 32gb kit for several months and I just got curious if adding the other kit might work and to my suprise it's been smooth as butter with both kits in my system.

[G-Star5FD8]

Hello,
I posted a year ago and I can see that the problem still persists for several people.

I repeat that ONLY photoshop has been doing this to me for almost 1 year since my passage on a 3080 xtreme... No problem on other software in the adobe suite such as illustrator, indesign and photoshop element etc with this same card. I even tried under windows 7 which I reinstalled with version 22 and my 3080 and RAS I did not encounter the problem. I return under W10 the problem is represented (v23) then under W11 (v23) problem also.

On this topic, 3/4 of the answers tell us to deactivate gsync... please be serious, I feel like I hear the clowns from the operators' customer services telling us to restart the box again and again.

The problem is much deeper than that knowing that it appeared suddenly and that nobody, not even the pseudo support of adobe has no other solution other than to tell us to disable gsync. I think it makes her crazy when you see the price of a yearly subscription. As if everyone had the same configs, the same components. In short, an easy solution to hide their monstrous incompetence.

Did they only send all the feedback to the devs? I do not think so. Because they don't understand what's going on here at all. I will no longer renew and even if it means having a buggy program, I might as well no longer have to pay for it.

[MC21]

Agreed. Photoshop is still the only Adobe product where changing mouse poll rate / disabling g-sync doesn't help. And even if disabling g-sync did help, why is it still a persistent issue?? G-sync came out years ago and the software should accommodate it by now.

[ZBalling]

G-sync for OpenGL did not come out 3 years ago. That was for Directx 11 that came long time ago. OpenGL VRR came recently.

It may be a common issue because in Far Cry games on static loading screens same happens on some samsung monitors, but that is a bug in AMD Freesync implementation for Display Port.

[higeneko]

I just got new monitor which supported G-SYNC.

After i enabled G-SYNC from NVIDIA Control Panel, i start seeing canvas flickering when i move/zoom canvas. This happens on both Photoshop 2022 (23.5.2) and 2023 (24.0)

Flickering stops when i disable G-SYNC.

This issue doesn't repro on other DCC tools such as Blender and Clip Studio Paint, so mostl likely it is a photoshop issue.

[G-Star5FD8]

It is the only software in the Adobe suite that has this problem. Version 2023 (v24) is still not fixed. Illustrator 2023 (v27) works very well. When I said above that they had no idea what was going on, all of this is confirmed again and again. the adobe support is made up of clowns at all levels. I remind you that this problem has been going on for almost 2 years!!!!!!!! It's just shameful to have such incompetent sav.

[PECourtejoie]

 @janemii where you able to send the contents of help? system info to the team, I do not see it in this thread?

[Michael Easter]

Turning off G-Sync worked for me Jan 2023. This really needs to be fixed ASAP. Worked on a whole project with the stuttering, was unbearable. I do game dev, so it's really annoying having to switch G-Sync on and off.

[Seth A]

i found a weird "fix" to have enabled G-sync with  no stutters/screen flickering in Adobe Photoshop/Bridge.

i had to enable 10bpc output color depth on nvidia control panel and then in Photoshop perfomance-Advanced settings-30bit display. This is the only method that worked so far ( at least on my system). 

[Tom28090059aldl]

Despite trying some of the solutions other users have stated, I could find no solution to this hideous flicketing. It is made worse by flashing bright lime green  when I move my mouse within the image. I feel this is going to cause seizures. That asolution has yet to materialize demonstrates a lack of commitment to find a solution. 

[Skyler26773656jlxi]

 Hi there! Pinging this thread again, if you're like me and want to keep adaptive sync on, try enabling older GPU mode in technology previews. Considering the description of this setting refers to GPUs that don't support DX12, maybe there's a bug in the API that's causing the problem. It does seem to either reduce performance or at the least doesn't support HFR anymore, but it's better than no GPU acceleration and lets you keep gsync/freesync enabled. Hope this helps!

[Ianzis]

Worked to me, thanks god. 

[Ianzis]

Guys, just enable 10bpc output color depth on nvidia control panel. Thanks everywone. 

[Agustin Saldias]

I don't have the option of 10bpc available, only 8bpc, so that workaround doesn't work for me. I had to disable gsync entirely as PS is unusable. Luckily I'm not epileptic or I'd be having a rough time. 

[Mohamed28835647bsdk]

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