25.6 crashes on launch GPU issue

FIXED: This time I'm more confident. Launch started 10 out of 10 times. 

My thoughts have always been that even setting PS and Sniffer to use GPU, there was a timing issue on launch. So how about forcing a delay during launch? By forcing PS to ask what Scratch Disk to use with a CTRL/ALT held during launch (and sticking with the selected Scratch Disk), this delay is sufficient. 10 out of 10 is to me a FIX. 

UPDATE:

I've been testing the raising of the Cache Levels "fix". So far working much better. Once it launches it seems to work perfectly with the second GPU. The problem before was that it only very occassionally actually launched when set at the default value of 4. Now it's been raised to 6 the launch process has failed twice, but it has successfuly launched many times without a glitch and then the rendering flies.

So for me I'm happy as a failed launch is easily retried. 

.. AND  a bit more that seems to fix it. Yes, so far the NVIDIA GPU seems to be working. Early days. I'll report back with more info.

**** Further to what I'd done previously, as recommended  by D. Fosse, ALL I did this time was to up the cache from 4 to 6. Can it have been this simple ????

(Using pre-2016 in preferences)

I ran sniffer.exe. Here is the output. Looks like sniffer is finding GPU OK.

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2024>sniffer
Start sniffer 2024-04-08 13:04:23
sniffer

{10449202 ms}
Start platform native
# displays: 2
Display 0
Display: \\.\DISPLAY1
Main: TRUE
Built in: FALSE
Stereo: FALSE
Bounds: (0, 0) -> (1,920, 1,080)
Dimensions: (1,920 1,080)
Display scale: 1.25
Physical size: (0 0)
Pixel size: (0 0)
Dynamic range: (0 1)
Potential dynamic range: (0 1)
Reference dynamic range: (0 1)
Attached Device: (DeviceID name=NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU index=0)

Display 1
Display: \\.\DISPLAY2
Main: FALSE
Built in: FALSE
Stereo: FALSE
Bounds: (-1,920, -255) -> (0, 945)
Dimensions: (1,920 1,200)
Display scale: 1
Physical size: (0 0)
Pixel size: (0 0)
Dynamic range: (0 1)
Potential dynamic range: (0 1)
Reference dynamic range: (0 1)
Attached Device: (DeviceID name=NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU index=0)

# devices: 2
Device 0
Name: NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU
Preferred: TRUE
Power Envelope: UNKNOWN
Attachment: UNKNOWN
# attached displays: 2
\\.\DISPLAY1
\\.\DISPLAY2
GPU accessible RAM: 3,907 MB
VRAM: 3,907 MB
Dedicated System RAM: 0 MB
Shared System RAM: 16,985 MB
API version: 12.0 (12.0)
Device version: 12.0 (12.0)
Vendor name: NVIDIA
Driver date: 2023-12-14 000000.000000-000
Driver age: 4 months
Driver version: 31.0.15.3808
Supports UMA: UNSUPPORTED
D3D-ID: 10427

Device 1
Name: Intel(R) Arc(TM) Graphics
Preferred: FALSE
Power Envelope: UNKNOWN
Attachment: UNKNOWN
# attached displays: 0
GPU accessible RAM: 17,113 MB
VRAM: 128 MB
Dedicated System RAM: 0 MB
Shared System RAM: 16,985 MB
API version: 12.0 (12.0)
Device version: 12.0 (12.0)
Vendor name: INTEL
Driver date: 2024-01-13 000000.000000-000
Driver age: 3 months
Driver version: 31.0.101.5235
Supports UMA: SUPPORTED
D3D-ID: 32085
End platform native
{10449756 ms}

{10449756 ms}
Start platform OpenGL
# displays: 2
Display 0
Display: \\.\DISPLAY1
Main: TRUE
Built in: FALSE
Stereo: FALSE
Bounds: (0, 0) -> (1,920, 1,080)
Dimensions: (1,920 1,080)
Display scale: 1.25
Physical size: (0 0)
Pixel size: (0 0)
Dynamic range: (0 1)
Potential dynamic range: (0 1)
Reference dynamic range: (0 1)
Attached Device: (DeviceID name=NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU/PCIe/SSE2 index=0)

Display 1
Display: \\.\DISPLAY2
Main: FALSE
Built in: FALSE
Stereo: FALSE
Bounds: (-1,920, -255) -> (0, 945)
Dimensions: (1,920 1,200)
Display scale: 1
Physical size: (0 0)
Pixel size: (0 0)
Dynamic range: (0 1)
Potential dynamic range: (0 1)
Reference dynamic range: (0 1)
Attached Device: (DeviceID name=NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU/PCIe/SSE2 index=0)

# devices: 1
Device 0
Name: NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU/PCIe/SSE2
Preferred: TRUE
Power Envelope: INTEGRATED
Attachment: UNKNOWN
# attached displays: 2
\\.\DISPLAY1
\\.\DISPLAY2
GPU accessible RAM: 4,096 MB
VRAM: 4,096 MB
Dedicated System RAM: 0 MB
Shared System RAM: 16,985 MB
API version: 2.1 (2.1.2 NVIDIA 538.08)
Device version: 2.1 (2.1.2 NVIDIA 538.08)
Vendor name: NVIDIA
Driver date: 2023-12-14 000000.000000-000
Driver age: 4 months
Driver version: 31.0.15.3808
GLSL version: 1.20 (1.20 NVIDIA via Cg compiler)
End platform OpenGL
{10449938 ms}

{10449938 ms}
Start platform OpenCL
# displays: 0

# devices: 2
Device 0
Name: NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU
Preferred: TRUE
Power Envelope: DISCRETE
Attachment: UNKNOWN
# attached displays: 0
GPU accessible RAM: 4,292 MB
VRAM: 4,292 MB
Dedicated System RAM: 0 MB
Shared System RAM: 0 MB
API version: 3.0 (OpenCL 3.0 CUDA)
Device version: 3.0 (OpenCL 3.0 CUDA)
Vendor name: NVIDIA
Driver date: UNKNOWN
Driver age: UNKNOWN
Driver version: UNKNOWN
Bandwidth: 102 GB / s
Compute score: 3,729.12
Device name string: NVIDIA RTX 500 Ada Generation Laptop GPU
Device vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
Platform name string: NVIDIA CUDA
Platform vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation

Device 1
Name: Intel(R) Arc(TM) Graphics
Preferred: FALSE
Power Envelope: INTEGRATED
Attachment: UNKNOWN
# attached displays: 0
GPU accessible RAM: 15,494 MB
VRAM: 15,494 MB
Dedicated System RAM: 0 MB
Shared System RAM: 0 MB
API version: 3.0 (OpenCL 3.0 )
Device version: 3.0 (OpenCL 3.0 NEO )
Vendor name: INTEL
Driver date: UNKNOWN
Driver age: UNKNOWN
Driver version: UNKNOWN
Bandwidth: 66 GB / s
Compute score: 1,898.22
Device name string: Intel(R) Arc(TM) Graphics
Device vendor string: Intel(R) Corporation
Platform name string: Intel(R) OpenCL Graphics
Platform vendor string: Intel(R) Corporation
End platform OpenCL
{10450324 ms}

Exit code kExitNormal
End sniffer 2024-04-08 13:04:24

Well that hurt! Thank you for the advice.

My ageing workstation which still works well enough (having updated the GPU recently) was running up against the Windows 10 end-of-life, so I decided to consolidate to a Dell mobile "workstation"as my ancient Lenovo laptop was also struggling. I didn't expect to learn of this limitation that I'd face. 

I must have had my head in the sand to miss this issue. This is going to be painful and perhaps an expensive mistake if I can't find a work around. A little (!!) annoying. 

Any idea what I'd miss using the pre-2016 GPU support?

Many thanks.

I seem to be getting a little more reliability with switching to pre-2016 support. Guess I'm going to have to accept limitations in my PS use, which is my main use of my laptop. Sounds like I could be in for some frustrations to come. Grrrr ...

Actually I think it's a little more complicated than that. Remember, an application nowadays isn't written to run on hardware. It's written to standard sets of APIs, application programming interfaces. Those APIs are all Photoshop knows about. It doesn't know what's on the other end of those APIs, it just has to assume they do what they're supposed to do.

The dual GPU problem has been well known by Adobe for many years. If there was an easy way around it, they would have sorted this a long time ago. If the necessary APIs were available, they would have jumped on them.

The harsh truth is that nowadays, any laptop is a bit of a risky proposition. They all have dual GPUs now, and the integrated display is hard-wired to this system. It can't just be taken out of the equation.

This isn't a problem with desktop machines. There you put in a GPU, attach your displays to it, and that's the end of the story. If there is integrated graphics in the CPU, it's not in use and out of the picture.

It seems the assumption with dual graphics is that it's just a simple one way downstream flow, and as such it can be interrupted and redirected without problems. And that's still true for simple, consumer-oriented applications. But Photoshop/Lightroom/ACR don't work that way. They use the GPU as a data processor. The result is returned to the application and the cycle repeats. There can only be one GPU in that equation.

Thank you for helping. Sadly I'd tried all of these apart from switching back to old style GPU - that seems so retrograde. Might as well just switch it off until a fix is released.

So a new laptop with shiny new graphics card waiting until Adobe get a fix out. Anyone any idea when this might be?

Many thanks.

Yes, sounds like a GPU conflict, very common occurrence with laptops.

The standard advice is to disable the integrated GPU completely. See section 6 & 7:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-gpu-graphics-card.html