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.
It's not a matter of believing Chris in saying nVidia has a bug. I'm not disputing that.
I _AM_ saying that CS3, CS2, CS and all other versions of Photoshop have used a DIFFERENT METHOD OF DISPLAYING THE CURSOR which functioned without exhibiting this bug.
THAT METHOD could be "turned back on" as an option in the same way that enabling (or not) acceleration is provided as an option.
(I didn't think what I was saying was that hard to understand, but I'm hoping the caps will provide sufficient emphasis without making it sound like I'm screaming)
And to reiterate ... this bug was apparent on my laptop (using CS4) BEFORE downloading the third party driver. It continues to manifest itself even after an Augst 31st 2008 release of the nVidia driver. The one and only reason I installed this third party driver was an attempt to solve the CS4 cursor problem.
Again, from my perspective: It is a CS4 cursor problem (no other application on my laptop is exhibiting this behavior and CS3 continues to function without a problem, but I paid good money for CS4 and would like to use it).
Yes, CS4 uses a different bit of code for displaying the cursor. Normally that code is more stable, faster, has less lag, etc. than the old code. But it does expose bugs in some video card drivers. No, the old code cannot be "turned back on", it's far from that simple.
This is just a video card driver bug exposed by us using different APIs. Adobe cannot fix that, only the video card maker can fix that.
I'm using a 512MB ATI Radeon 1950XT graphics card and I get that strange cursor thing with larger cursor sizes. I haven't updated my driver since receiving my new PC 18 months ago. I don't know if it's got Open GL compatibility or not, never mind how to switch it on!
Laptop has an nVidia graphics chip, but I haven't tried that with a large cursor yet.
On my XP Pro SP3/ NVidia 8800GTX system with the latest 178.24 driver, the brush cursor is limited to 2500px maximum.
On the primary monitor the full circumference is displayed OK, but on the secondary the brush cursor reduces to the upper left quadrant above 300px and shrinks as the cursor size increases until it is gone above 2000px.
Luckily I never need such a big cursor nor work on the secondary, but the bug is definitely there.
In case it is relevant, I am running 2x1280x1024x32bit with the primary on the right and secondary on the left.
"...I'm using a 512MB ATI Radeon 1950XT graphics card and I get that strange cursor thing with larger cursor sizes. I haven't updated my driver since receiving my new PC 18 months ago. I don't know if it's got Open GL compatibility or not, never mind how to switch it on!
Joanne:
I'm using the same graphics card without any problems. However, I went to the ATI site and downloaded/installed the latest driver (dated 11th October 2008) which I would strongly recommend as something you should do...
Cheers Anthony. Is my graphics card compatible with that Open GL thing? I haven't updated a graphics driver for ages, correct me if I'm wrong:
Download the new driver. Uninstall the old one via add/remove programs. Restart the computer. Install the new driver.
I do have the problem that my PC doesn't display the start-up screens when connected via DVI. I have never managed to find out how to sort it, just that's it is caused by a vBios issue.
If I don't fully understand what I'm doing, I tend to leave well alone and avoid digging a bigger hole for myself.
I definitely need to update my display driver. With the GPU thing enabled, doing certain things causes the display to go black and the computer spontaneously reboots itself.
I've disabled the GPU acceleration until I get the new driver installed. It's downloaded, just need to confirm the sequence for uninstalling the ATI software components and reinstalling the new version.
Well, I updated my graphics driver for my ATI Radeon 1950XT and now, the PC freezes up but doesn't restart spontaneously. I think it's time to find a new graphics card.
Which one do you folks works best on XP SP3? Who has the least problems?
I can't display VGA screens while connected via DVI either. I have submitted a ticket to ATI, but I'm not holding my breath. Until now, apart from no start-up screens, I was okay.
David - no, the registry setting does not solve the cursor problem. It is a temporary patch for some people with some drivers - and it is risky because it tells Photoshop to use features even if your video card says it does not support all the necessary features. That means that the driver may crash or show other artifacts when using that registry key.
The video card driver still needs to fix the bug causing the cursor problems.
I'm having the same trouble.. Running on an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 290. Seems like the problem is only on NVIDIA cards. Has anyone had any luck getting this problem fixed? I hope it gets fixed ASAP, because right now my CS4 is basically unusable... a brush tool without a cursor is worthless.
I tried changing the hardware acceleration options in the Advanced display options dialog, and it only makes the brush even more unusable; although it does fix the cursor, it ends up leaving a white box around the cursor that stays white even when I let go of the cursor.
Seems like a problem as big as this would have come up in beta testing..
The most often heard reply in this forum is to update your video driver.
If you have as much trouble as I did (seems my laptop's video is not supported - even by nVidia!), then email me and I'll put you in touch with the person that gave me the registry setting that fixed the cursor for me. (I don't want to post it publicly because they probably want more control over the issue, but I can at least put you in touch with him)
update.. i installed not the performance drivers, but the standard video card drivers for the Quadro NVS 290 (178.26_quadro_winxp2k_english_whql.exe) and it works fine now!
Edit: I was premature in posting.. the cursor is there, but now i have an error that my video drivers are not up to date, and the GPU enhancements have been turned off. When i use the brush tool, it moves at about .5 frame a second! Help Please?
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