CS4 bug: brush cursor display is incomplete

[_Tony_Tx_]

Just installed CS4 under WinXP, 4G RAM.

I've set my brush cursors to show full size. The cursor displays correctly for brush sizes up to about 150 px. Beyond 150 px, the circle representing the brush size gets truncated: at 170 px, it's down to a half-circle, at 200 px it's down to one-third of a circle, and at 300 px all that remains is a small curved line segment.

[dwterry]

I finally did it!

I got no love from my laptop manufacturer, so I replaced it with a new Dell XPS 16. Finally!

[Chris Cox]

Well, I guess that's ONE way to get an updated driver.... :-)

[_Ron_Dodson_]

I was on Lynda.com, "brushing" up on Photoshop CS4's 3D capabilities when I found myself staring for nearly an hour at Chad Perkins demonstrating how to use various tools using an incomplete cursor. Never a mention, he just plowed on. It was painful. But I guess, the folks at Lynda.com haven't got the word to upgrade their GPU's. Or they have given up...

Chris, if any of your comrades want to see the incomplete cursor in action, Lynda.com Photoshop 3D is a good show.

[Guest]

This is plain great Ron. Maybe sometime the word gets out about this new feature of CS4. 179 replies in this topic and still only workarounds... Also the recent update to Photoshop did not address this issue at all.

Oh wait the word actually has gotten out, read about it here:
http://www.imaginginsider.com/?p=86058

[Chris Cox]

(why are people not reading the thread before posting?)

Ron - we've seen the incomplete cursor. We've shown it to NVidia, repeatedly. But we can't fix the bug in their driver code.

Dennis - again, the fix has to come from NVidia, the bug is in their code. NVidia thinks they now have it fixed in all of their drivers. If it isn't fixed on your system, then you have to contact NVidia and give them details so they can track down whatever it is that they missed. Ignore your laptop manufacturer and get the driver from NVidia.

(No, Adobe Gamma is dead and buried, not pining for the fjords....)

[Guest]

Thanks Chris for getting back to us. People ARE reading the thread, they are just unhappy with the responses.
Yes, it is a NVidia bug - nothing Adobe caused by erroneous doing! Problem is, that the bug ain't fixed for all Notebook manufacturers. Also the information "Nvidia thinks they now have it fixed in all their drivers" is new and I am happy that you post it here.
I am one of the lucky ones which could fix the bug by newer hacked drivers from different manufacturers, so I'm not complaining.

[Chris Cox]

Dennis - Notebook manufacturers may or may not update their drivers. But NVidia has posted notebook drivers themselves, so you can bypass notebook makers who fail to update their drivers responsibly.

[_Ron_Dodson_]

Chris - we are also aware that NVidia has posted notebook drivers themselves. We are also aware that we are in danger of voiding our warranties by not using the laptop manufacturer's recommended GPU driver. Most of us do this because we WANT Photoshop to work. You know, if we didn't experience incomplete cursors, we wouldn't have to endanger our warranties. So let's hold hands and move forward with a sense of teamwork and harmony (sorry, I didn't mean to make anybody ill). If you don't mind, I'll just keep checking the thread to see if by some miracle, a solution has been found.

[Guest]

>We are also aware that we are in danger of voiding our warranties by not using the laptop manufacturer's recommended GPU driver.

erm, don't tell them you did that? reinstall the old one if/when you need to return it for warranty?

[BJN3]

I'm still getting no brush size after 620 pixels wide. Not on a laptop, but on a workstation running an Nvidia GTX 260 card with the latest drivers per Adobe's recommendation. I assume this is another one to lay at Nvidia's feet, and if so I'll dutifully send in a bug report.

The thing is, I don't think Nvidia is ever going to address all the issues that its drivers have with Photoshop. They're way too busy trying to please the majority of their users who want their games to work better and faster. Even if we get fixes, the drivers seem to get broken at every release (I'm also getting random transparent pull down menus that leave the selection bitmap displayed unless I sleep and reawaken the computer).

Workstation users can pony up big cash for a workstation-class card with drivers that are a lot more likely to be stable and reliable with productivity apps, and where driver bug reports for Photoshop aren't going to be overwhelmed by the F.E.A.R. 2 users requests. Laptop users and folks without don't have that option.

[Chris Cox]

BJ - NVidia is listening. But we need customers to contact them and give them the necessary information, and to let them know that not all their customers play games.

[_Ron_Dodson_]

Thanks Dave - but rest assured, we are also aware of reinstalling approved drivers prior to sending anything back. But I do appreciate your advice.

I have written Nvidia 6 times with no response(every time I change to a new driver). Just wanted to get that on the record. I'm back on 179.48(Beta)now.

[_F_Sansom_]

The newest driver for GeForce 9600 GT (182.08) fixes the missing cursor problems on second and third monitors, which is good. What is bad however is now on the second and third monitors OpenGL performance is TERRIBLE. Dreadful cursor lags and blocky artifacts all over the place so you can't tell what you've painted!!!!! The bigger the cursor the worse it is..... it's not normal lag either, it's jerky and misses big blocks from the document. It is unusable!

Also in the driver 3D settings it does not automatically 'see' PS CS4 and if you add it the default Multiple screens mode is not changed to Compatibility mode (if this is not changed the window on second and third monitors will be black). This has been the default settings in all previous drivers! The program list will also 'forget' that Photoshop has been added to it, although it seems to remember any settings made. You keep having to add it again if you want to change a setting.

While I applaud the fixing of the cursor, I am totally frustrated by the performance. You simple can't paint because of lag and artifacts because you can't see what you are doing.

It's better with OpenGL turned off, but what's the point of that?!?

Since performance was fine on older drivers (just had the disappearing cursor - but I can use the crosshair cursor) I will have to go back to v182.06 till this is fixed! Urgh.

And before anyone says.... I did three clean uninstalls, cleaned out the reg, and reinstalls, turned off OpenGL in PS beforehand and everything I could think of or has previously been suggested. Without any different results.

I'll try letting Nvidia know, but since they never listen to me before I shan't hold my breath

[Chris Cox]

NVidia is listening, and working on many of these problems. They have recently identified more multiple display performance issues and are working on them.

[Mark Clarkson]

The very newest drivers *do* fix the broken cursor problem on my second screen (WinXP Pro X64).

[_Ron_Dodson_]

Marc:

I haven't seen any improvement in my M1730 with 8800M GTX GPUs using newer drivers. Can you cite any drivers that "do" fix the broken cursor on the external monitor of a laptop?

Chris:

Very good news that NVidia is working on the multiple display performance issues. Hope they don't forget those of us who have to travel and use a laptop with an external monitor.

[Mark Clarkson]

I haven't tried it on a laptop; only on my desktop machine.

[RacerX2oo3]

If anyone is still having issues with the latest driver 182.08, please verify that you do a complete driver uninstall before attempting to install this driver. Older drivers should always be removed to assure that the new driver configuration can be properly written to the system.

[akribie]

182.08 has fixed the cursor bug on my 8800GTX/Win XP Pro SP3 system, whereas 182.06 did not.

I did not need to do a clean install - installing over the top of 182.06 worked OK.

Thanks for all the behind-the-scenes effort that got this fixed. Now all I want is the CS3 cursor display that showed up much better against mid-grey than the CS4 version.

[Mark Clarkson]

Hi guys. I am seeing the incomplete cursor again with the very newest drivers (182.08) on my Quadro CX any time I have a 3D application running at the same time as Photoshop. For example, Autodesk Maya or Luxology modo.

This is even *with* OpenGL acceleration turned *off* in Photoshop.

Windows XP Pro X64; Quadro CX; 182.08

[Mark Clarkson]

I am *also* seeing the incomplete cursor again when doing 3D work inside of Photoshop. For example, when I load a .3DS file into Photoshop.

This is with OpenGL accelleration disabled.

WinXP 64
Quadro CX

[Chris Cox]

And the solution is still to update your NVidia driver, or contact NVidia and give them details so they can figure out what they missed.

[Mark Clarkson]

Hi, Chris.

As I said in my previous message, I have updated to the very latest drivers *and* the very latest video card.

And I have contacted NVidia.

Just posting updates as things go along.

[_Ron_Dodson_]

Chris:

I pleased to report that I now have complete cursor functionality on my Dell 24" external monitor attached to my XPS M1730. Full functionality was restored following an update to the Nvidia 182.08 driver (via LaptopVideo2Go.com). And I must now agree with you Chris, that the solution is to have the patience to try new drivers every day, week and month until Nvidia slides in a driver that may work on one's machine.

Unless I read that a number of contributors to this thread used the driver on non-Quatro machines, I would have by-passed this driver (and as Chris said, the "solution"). So thanks to all who contributed.

[Chris Cox]

Ron - Glad to hear that you got it working, and sorry that it took so long to get working drivers.