Living with lag - 16 bit - have we reached Photoshops limit?

docubyte  wrote Working on huge PSB retouch files

I've been complaining about unworkable lag with big projects for several years now.  Six years of that was with a 3930K system with 32Gb RAM and lots of SSDs, but for some time I have been using a 7900X system with 64Gb RAM, two 512Gb Samsung 960Pro M.2 drives with lots of space.  Both systems had the same GTX970  (I'll put in an RTX1080 when they become more available).  I let the CPU Turbo up to 4Ghz — it will go to 4.4Ghz if I let with BIOS settings, but it gets too hot)

The projects that have caused me issues had much smaller pixel dimensions, but were complex with a 'lot'  of layers including nested Smart Objects, layer styles, and lots of vector layers.  One of these projects became so slow it was completely unworkable.  I have had discussions  like this before, and people have talked about turning off rulers and other tips and tricks.  What makes it confusing is that I  'think' it is  inconsistent. 

When I first started using this system, I  was thinking that it was  not using the Scratch space, but  I have seen some fairly big Photoshop Temp files  since (>30Gb).     Worst case with a  Samsung 960Pro would be  500Mb/s, and best 3.5Gb/s.   I don't know how clever Photoshop is with using scratch space — it surely would not need to load the entire 30Gb to access a chunk of data in the middle.  I  feel sure that large scratch files are a bottleneck though.

I also feel sure that Smart Objects can present a bottleneck.   How does Photoshop handle them?  Do they live in RAM or on the Scratch drive.  That is probably fluid depending on  project size and hardware.

I TA'd for Bert Monroy at MAX in 2016, and I'd intended to ask him how he handled hardware limits with his HUGE Times Square illustration. On the day I was too overawed to speak properly to Bert (He is my #1  Photoshop hero) but what I do know is that Times Square had thousands of files which were flattened before adding in to the main project.   I have tried  a similar tactic where I open a Smart Object in a new window, and save the PSB file as a new document. Then closing that PSB and flattening the SO into the master document. This helped, but I had to either clear the cache or restart for  best effect, but it was not a  full cure, so other factors were involved.  Thinking back, the worst case was a  clock illustration that used mostly vector layers, but my understanding  from my time with AutoCad, is that vector files are nowhere near as big as Photoshop files. 

So I don't have an answer. I  totally  expected my i9-7900X system to fly and cope with anything, but that simply hasn't happened.

I have read similar accounts before, and often rolling back to an earlier version of the video card drivers fixed them. Some users reported performance issues with a very specific driver release, while others had no problems: sometimes one driver version may not 'like' your hardware combination.

Also check that the 1080ti is slotted into a PCIe x16 3.0 slot on the main board.

It is not surprising that Photoshop will process a small amount of data in a shorter period of time then it can process a large amount of data.   If you create a document with a huge  canvas size add 8000 layer some of which are smart object layers with smart filters adjustment layers, layer style, filter mask and layer mask the amount of data Photoshop has to process to re-render smart filters in order process adjustment layer, layer mask etc to render your  images composite view will be huge and will likely will bog down today's fastest powerful PCs and Macs.  All Processing Photoshop does can be multi threaded well.  Some processing need to be done in a sequence of processes.  Photoshop only run on Mac OS versions and Window OS versions. There is no Photoshop version for other OS systems that is optimize for today's super computers. Adobe does not developed a Photoshop version that tries to run in real time without any lag.

Hi

What operations are you seeing slow down?

I don't usually use files that large but I just tried a 20k x 13k image and built up a few layers (20) including smart objects - blending and adjustments. I also added a few layers of brushing and have seen no slow down. The file generated a 24GB scratch file and Task manager shows Photoshop using 13GB RAM

I have a slower processor than you i7-3930k, but similar RAM ( 64GB) and an  Nvidia GTX1080 GPU.  My OS and apps are on an SSD but my scratch is pointed to a large spinning disk.

In Preferences Performance my cache levels are set to 4 and Tile size 1024k. I let Photoshop use 70% of available RAM and GPU drawing mode is set to Advanced

If you want to link to a file I will download it and see how it performs here

Dave

Those files are big, to be sure, but your machine should be able to handle it.

Lagging in Photoshop is often caused by buggy video drivers. The GeForces are gaming cards, and the priorities are to get the latest games to work. It's not an unreasonable assumption that this requires the odd shortcut or two in the driver.

I'm not going to tell you to get a NVidia Quadro card, only to hear later "that didn't fix it". But I do have a feeling that might be it. Quadros are optimized for graphics, 3D and CAD - not Biomutant or Dragon SlayerZ or whatever they're called these days.