Incredibly slow performance on Photoshop (New install, 3900x & 2080ti)

[UndefinedScope]

Hi all! Been using photoshop since 5.0, so it's been a while 🙂 And lately have been noticing how the program just seems to be getting slower and slower at doing very basic things.

At first I thought it was time to upgrade the workstation, an nvidia 1070 with 7700k intel, 16gb ram and ssd scratch and work disks, so moved up to a 12 core ryzen 3900, nvidia 2080 ti, 64gb ram and m.2 ssds. Nothing changed, adobe 2020 seems to run even slower. On a simple 72dpi 2560x1440 canvas moving a shape or image around slows down to a crawl. The same thing is happening on two laptops that are similarly specced to my old workstation.

I uninstalled 2020 and went back to 2014 and things are very snappy and working perfectly fine so this is clearly a problem with the software. Tried on 4 well specced workstations and early CC versions work fine while the latest are incredibly sluggish.

Is anybody having the same issue? Or has any tips on how to make things speedy again, its kinda crazy to think that hardware is not making a difference anymore in performance.

edit: Using the latest nvidia release drivers 441.66, Amd chipset drivers and Windows 10 pro fully updated. The latest test is on a fresh install with no other software but Adobe CC, also other Adobe programs run fantasticly fast, its just Photoshop.

update: installed the latest drivers again but in studio mode this time (clean install, ddu to remove all driver instances, etc) and NO change whatsoever. Moving an object around the canvas is laggy and slow. Enabled legacy composing, didnt change anything. Tried to enable and disable gpu use and no change.

[D Fosse]

The rest of us don't have these problems. It's snappy and instant in every respect here, as fast as it ever was.

But there's a clue here, in the fact that you see it on two different systems: take a long and hard look at what's common between them. The usual suspects are drivers, third-party plugins and extensions, and installed applications in general.

On the face of it, this sounds very much like a video driver issue. Do the 1070 and 2080 use the same driver?

True story, bear with me: I had a problem with PS keyboard shortcuts for years. They just stopped working. New PS versions, new machines - this problem just wouldn't go away. So it had to be Photoshop, right? Then I realized what all these configurations had in common: English Photoshop, English OS - but a Norwegian keyboard. That's what occasionally trips it up. Now that I know about it, I can take precautions to avoid it.

It's not unusual that a new version can expose latent problems that went unnoticed previously. New calls, new error-checking code, tightened procedures.

[UndefinedScope]

I appreciate the help! The drivers are all updated to the latest version that adobe itself reccomends, and this latest test is in a clean windows install, as in no other software or plugins whatsoever except adobe cc and photoshop. I honestly can't think of a better testing ground. What drivers are you using in Windows?

[D Fosse]

I'm using a Quadro card, which have their own series of drivers. So I'm sorry but I can't help you there.

I fully understand how frustrating this is. I've been there - not with Photoshop, but with other software. It's very tempting to put the blame squarely on Photoshop, but to get anywhere, it's important to keep an open mind and not fall into the "confirmation bias" trap where you only look for things to confirm what you already believe.

I'm pretty convinced the answer is in something that is common to all these setups. There has to be something.

Oh, btw - go directly to nVidia and get the latest driver there. Don't rely on version recommendations, and don't rely on Windows Update which is always several versions behind.

[UndefinedScope]

Oh I totally understand! I always strive tackle problems from any facet but I'm at a loss here beyond the fact that all setups are Windows and use Nvidia cards. I changed processors from Intel to Amd, so that was a big change but the problem is in both. The drivers are the ones Premiere reccomends you to install in that splash screen, and here's the thing, Premiere is running like a dream! Exported a 2m 4k video in 7 seconds, so I can clearly see an improvement in hardware with that program. But photoshop 2019-20 is varying degrees of slow on all these setups, yet 2014-17 is fast. So yea haha puzzling!

Unfortunately cannot use a quadro card because we focus on video game development and the quadro performance is not good on engine software, which is a bummer because I do miss their snappyness with design and engineering work.

[davescm]

I use Photoshop 20.0.2 with Windows 10, 64GB RAM and a GTX1080 using NVidia driver 441.28. No issues with speed here.

Dave

[UndefinedScope]

Thanks for the tip! I'll try to rollback to that, currently on 441.66.

[Guest]

I have an old i7 3770k PC with an Nvidia RTX 2060 super GPU, 32GB of RAM and have no issues with Photoshop 21.0.2

I have the latest Nvidia driver installed but I select the Studio driver and don't install the Geforce Experience

[UndefinedScope]

Wow didn't realize there was a studio version, going to try that first! Thanks!

[D Fosse]

(...of course, it doesn't have to be the video driver, it's just one of the usual suspects. It could be something else.)

[davescm]

441.66 is a Studio driver. One thing though. When I install a new driver I always pick the "Advanced" option then tick "Clean Install". That makes sure that remnants of the old driver are not left behind inadvertently for use with the new.

Also, like Ged, I don't install the Geforce experience software.

Dave

[Guest]

Dave there are 2 diffferent versions of the 441.66 driver, Studio and Game ready

[grshooter]

I too have been having problems with SLOW startup of Photoshop.  It just took over 4 1/2 minutes for it to load and allow me to use the text tool.  I HATE the cloud based programs.  I have used photoshop since version 2.0 back in 1991.  Never had an issue until Adobe forced everyone to go to cloud base programs.  Bought and paid for every upgrade since then and miss the days when the program was up and running within 30 seconds of starting it.

I saw the comments from D_Fosse and don't believe a word of it.  Since the cloud services began it has been a turtle in startup and performance over all.

[D Fosse]

The application itself has nothing to do with any cloud. It's installed and runs from your local machine just like it always has. There's no connection to any "cloud" at startup.

The only new thing is it has to go online once every 30 days to verify the monthly payment - but even if that's missing it will still continue to work for two more months.

Really, why are people making such a big deal of this subscription model? Everything else you use these days is subscription based. Just look around you.

[UndefinedScope]

Actually no Photoshop since a few versions back is connected to your document cloud and is constantly referencing it to save, styles, documents and other settings. Typekit is a big part of the always online functionality. You were able to disable this before so you might have never noticed it. On 2020 this cannot be disabled and is very apparent throghout the user experience, just try saving a style and youll notice the cloud library tab opens up with the style saved there. Tbh it's the one culprit that would explain the deteriorating performance as hardware gets better.

[D Fosse]

The point I'm trying to make is that if you have problems, this isn't it. It's working fine for the rest of us.

[UndefinedScope]

How is it not it? The general assumption that it's working fine 'for the rest of us' is not helpful and harmful, there's hundreds of posts in this forum of exactly this problem on both Mac and Windows with 2020. Please if you somehow got blessed by the software lottery, good on you, but dont spread missinformation for users that are trying to understand what is going on. All CC programs rely heavily on the cloud to run, especially now with the learn functionality and online libraries, having functionality rely on server pings is bound to bring up problems. Maybe the question we should all be asking is what is our internet speed at our specific locales? Because who knows that might be a culprit with the new versions. Dismissing this as a possible outcome is not helpful.

[D Fosse]

You don't want to see it, but we're actually trying to help you. You've already made up your mind, which is the one absolutely dead certain way to not find the answer. You're stuck in your troubleshooting process. It's a dead end. Do yourself a favor and don't dig your heels in.

[UndefinedScope]

What are you talking about? I'm diligently trying every single solution, see my updated post. You're just not actually trying to help and are dug in with"its working fine so the problem is you".

[davescm]

Hi

@UndefinedScope - you mention libraries open when you save a style - they do but only if you check the box to "Add to my current library"

I have the same experience as Dag. Photoshop CC v21.0.2 opens quickly (less than 20 seconds) and I don't have problems with lags. My system is far from new - a 3930K with 64GB RAM and a GTX1080 GPU.
Have you many additional fonts loaded, or additional plug ins - I have a few but nothing that is slowing down loading or useability.

Dave

[UndefinedScope]

Oh I wasn't decrying the feature itself, really like how the settings are shared among the different computers via the cloud, hence why I use it. Was just illustrating that the program does use the cloud for functionality.

So to post an update I actually disabled all the extensions and prevented them from connecting to the internet, returned to legacy composing and disabled the experimental features and other internet based functionality and the program is running better. It's still lagging compared to earlier Photoshops 2014-2017 but its better.

[UndefinedScope]

I'm glad I'm not the only one, thanks for sharing your experience! Just pinged a large creative discord group and there where *multiple* cases of the new 2020 version being incredibly slow with basic functionality. If its working perfectly on some people great, but a lot of us users are not experiencing this and getting tired of having the blame shifted on user problems. I'm posting this thread from a brand new, no programs but adobe cc installed, with a machine that has 24 logical cores, 64gb of ram and 11gb of vram, on professional ssd drives, how on earth does photoshop not fly? Again other CC software runs like a dream.

[schmar]

<rant>

I can feel you man - same for me. I'm using PS "professionally" since Version 7 - so I've seem some improvements (smartobjects and filters *yea) but also A LOT of problems within the development process lately. Bugs, Slowdowns and removed Features everywhere. I also switched some workstations here to an 3900x, rtx2070 super, 64 of ram and 1TB NVMe lately and CC lags all over the place. Even Indesign became so laggy and unstable it's horrible. So sad. I dont know what the hell Adobe is doing but it's getting even worse than Autodesk lately. The last bug (composite rendering-engine update) crashed a big project right before the deadline. IDK why it was enabled be default now. Buggy changes should be OPT-IN not opt-out! Horrible sad.I really ask myself for WHO in the world is Adobe making software - Kids? Housewifes? ... or professional Agencies? I dont think so. Also most of the problems occure due to the new cloud-"features".

New Smartobject? Why dont you put it in the cloud?
Pasting new Assets? Why not in the cloud?
A new XD-File? Why wouldnt you save the file in the cloud per default?

Oh you installed an new font. Whould you like to sync it in the cloud?

NO! Also the CC-Apps are checking your license almost EVERY TIME you start an app. This also slowdowns your workflow like hell.  SO SAD!  We have 2 guys here who already switched to affinity and 10 others will follow if this pile of performance-dung is not getting better.

</rant>
[abuse removed by moderator]

[Zero40 Studios]

Same here, 

Working as a professional with photoshop from 7.0 I was using CS6 till a couple of days ago. 

I had the time to look in to the newer features because all work stopped for me know with the corona. So i got myself the newest greatest and most promising version of photoshop. 

I really like all the new features and liking the new masking tools a lot! But unfortunately i cannot work with this version because it is way to slow. And i mean it is so slow it is impossible to work with.

Hope this all be fixed and in the meanwhile I will try to revert to a 2019 version. Maybe that works. 

[sambroadleaf]

Just upgraded to 2060s and i encountered the same issue. Since going back to 960 on which everything was running perfectly is not an option, i will be switching to affinity for the next project.

Highly doubt this issue will ever be fixed all online "advices" are just clickbait copypaste articles, nothing helps.