Photoshop CS4 is a disaster

[_ProArtist_]

I'm am just at a loss of words.

What a mess. It could not be any slower. What were you thinking Adobe?

You ripped apart the code just to add GPU support for what? To provide worse performance?

Make sure you DL the demo first... CS4 is a disaster.

The latest hardware cant even run it smoothly... Dont tell me its graphic drivers.

[Rob_Keijzer]

Two things that brought down lag considerably here was: In preferences, Performance, leave OpenGL enabled, but switch off everything under the advanced button. .

Second, switch off the rulers in the document window.

Rob

[_robert_cook_]

CS4 is a disaster. It crashes no matter what I do. I added preset actions - they crash, I add clipping paths - it crashes. I had to go back to CS2 to get anything done. What a waste.

[CR Henderson]

>Andrew Hart:Is anyone using/testing Stonehenge (ver 11.0x001DEV) supplied to me in response to volunteering to test?
If so, have you had any improvement in OpenGL-enabled performance?

>Test version:Adobe Photoshop Version: 11.0 (11.0x20081119 [20081119.cnvs.1240 2008/11/19:02:00:00 cutoff; cnvs branch])

The above is a 32 bit version. Adam didn't compile a 64 bit version for me to test. Running on my Vista Ultimate 64 system the lag problems in both the brush and in dragging the windows have virtually disappeared. I cannot be certain that any difference in brush speed or the initial dragging of the window between the 32 bit test version and PS CS3 doesn't exist only in my imagination.

The state of OpenGL didn't appear to have any noticable effect in brush speed or initial window drag delay.

[hhansard]

Using Stonehenge.

OGL has not really changed (in my setup)

Bigger Tiles has improved performance by about 10% on images over 200MB.

Generally, Stonehenge has provided some improvement in performance, but OGL is still a challenge... I get tile painting errors and slow rendering times compared to CS3.

Please note: these images can be perfectly managed in Ae or Pp CS4 with OGL enabled.

Without OGL enabled, I pulled a project from LR into CS4 that was completed in CS3 and received very similar performance to CS3. If I enable OGL, then I get rendering errors.

Hope that helps,

H

[_Andrew_Hart_]

Hugh H,

Thanks for the response. See my comments below.

Firebomb,

In some respects your settings improve performance in Stonehenge (faster-more responsive painting BUT there is still a very slight but nevertheless annoying lag of paint application following cursor location) but image flicker when moving images around the screen is still present. Horizontal Type Tool shows virtually no lag but it was the same (ie improved by Stonehenge) before adopting your settings.

In original (11.0) PsCS4 they made no improvements (image flicker persists, bad lag with painting, horrible lag with Horizontal Type Tool) but one noticeable change.

With several (6) images open I used to get a ghost image (lasting up to 1 second) remaining behind when dragging one of the images from one screen location to another but the move was instantaneous. With your settings, no more ghost images but the move now lags behind the cursor and there is no movement of the image at all for about 1 second. Simply unusable.

I also used to have (even in Stonehenge as well), and still have with you settings, this problem. With 2 single-layer images (average size 95 MB) zoomed to 100% within the working space (all panels and menus visible), Ctrl Tabbing between them results in a very slow redraw of each image about 1/2 second delay, always producing blur and sometimes (intermittently) showing transparency during the redraw.

[Guest]

I think the fact that this is post #451 in this thread kinda speaks for itself.

[Kwan Parker]

Finally received my new computer.

Without incident, successfully installed CS4 Master Collection. No lags, no flickers, no ghosting. Thus far, no problems of any kind.

Dell XPS 730 H2C
Intel Core2 Extreme processor QX9650
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit
Memory: 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, 2.5GB addressable
Motherboard 7-slot ATX (NVIDIA 790i Ultra SLI chipset)
Dual NVidia GeForce GTX 280 cards 1024MB (Driver version 177.40
CPU Liquid/TEC Cooling-ATX
1 kilowatt power supply
X-Fi PCI Sound Card
Two SATA 2 Harddrives at 7200 RPM
Blueray RW Drive
DVD-RW
Two external USB drives

Monitor: Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP set to native 1920 x 1200

Pre-installed software:
McAfee Security Center 9.0
Microsoft Office 2007 Professional
Roxio Creator 10.2 Premium - Blue-Ray
Power DVD 8.0 Blue-Ray Disk Playback

[Guest]

>Blueray RW Drive

>Blue-Ray Disk Playback

blu-ray. ;)

(the correct spelling will make your amazon searches better! XD have fun!!!)

[Kwan Parker]

Why would I be doing "amazon searches?"

What would I be looking for? :-)

In my defense, poor as it might be, I copied/typed in every description from the Dell invoice. Those Googling stuff are on their own.

Good news is, for me and folks like me, Dell/Adobe products appear to be what I hoped they might be . . .

There are no installation problem with CS4 Master collection on any computer I own.

On my XPS 400 with a Nvidia 7900GS running under Windows XP SP3, things were kinda slow, but not so much as to universally support the perceived faults with Photoshop Cs4 or with 4's support for GPU acceleration.

This is all so very technical stuff way beyond me. I only know what my machine does on the monitor in front of me . . . and what I report back.

Unlike CS3, I have experienced no monstrous installation problems at any time and no client use problems once the installation was sucessfully installed.

I'm really . . . so far . . . a really happy . . . Adobe customer.

[Guest]

>What would I be looking for?

blu ray discs to play in your hot new blu ray drive! :)

> I copied/typed in every description from the Dell invoice.

I figured. it's funny they can't even spell the name of the stuff they're putting in. wait... the drives themselves, they're not really colored "blue" are they?!! :)

[Basil_Crowley]

I guess that's the answer then. If you want to run CS4, you need to install it on a brand new computer with little or nothing else installed on it.

Or to put it another way, when you upgrade your computer, that's the time to upgrade the Adobe software. At other times, forget it.

However eventually you will want to use your computer for something else, or you will install some new hardware, or a new security package, and that whateveritis disagrees with the Adobe software and the Adobe software breaks never to run properly again.

Should we really need to run Adobe Software on a dedicated computer isolated from all other apps? It goes against the philosophy that computers should be general purpose tools running eclectic software that is resilient and tolerant and reliable.

I think the next step might be for Adobe to write their own OS especially to suit their own products. How much better would they run then??? Other conflicting apps could then be prevented from being installed.

Then they can control the hardware too.

Or maybe they should simply go back to the Macs they came from.

My point is that if you write software for PCs, it should run properly on all PCs meeting a general minimum specification, irrespective of the brand of computer or processor or graphics card or what other software or hardware is installed on it. That is what PCs are all about and it is what the software should be about too!

I'm not ... a really happy... Adobe customer ... not really, not ... at all.

[Kwan Parker]

Stupid response . . . David.

Others might judge otherwise.

[Kwan Parker]

What you ignore, Basil, is that I had no bad result installing this CS4 update on an old computer running under XP.

Not my XPS 400 nor my 730 are dedicated systems.

[Guest]

It would be interesting to hear what the Adobe engineers here really think about all this, but I'm pretty sure they have guidelines about what they can and cannot talk about.

>I guess that's the answer then. If you want to run CS4, you need to install it on a brand new computer with little or nothing else installed on it.

I'm sure that plays into it, but for most people it's just not practical to have a machine completely devoted to just PS.

I have two machines in my office. One for work (PS and other professional apps, and one for play (email, web surfing, whatever). When I installed CS4 on my work box, I got (and still have) all the lagging, disappearing window content, etc. (Both are XP Pro)

Over Thanksgiving holiday, I picked up a good deal on a Vista 64 machine at Costco. 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM. The idea was to use it to replace my aging play box. When I hooked it up, all I did was uninstall a Norton trial, then install PS CS4. It ran like a champ. No lagginess, no window content problems. CS4 booted in about 3 seconds and everything about it is faster than CS3.

OK, so the next step was to migrate the contents of my old play box onto the new Vista machine. That went without a hitch (mostly) using an app called PCmover that came with the machine. Even with the addition of the rest of the contents of of my old play box, CS4 still runs fine. This, on a machine with only one hard drive and mobo-integrated (nvidia) GPU.

Unfortunately, the new play box won't be suitable for pro PS work. It's limited to 4GB RAM, and at the price I paid for it, it just isn't very robust or expandable.

I'm not happy about the way CS4 runs on my work box, but I'm willing to give the guys a chance to fix it. If, after that, it still works the way it does now, I will be very upset to hear more of this "Update your drivers" stuff.

[Kwan Parker]

So . . . ?

[Guest]

Basil: I do not want all Adobe products to run on whatever machine a person decides it should run on, that would be an outrageous mistake. I am not having a problem on a machine that is eighteen months old (it was time to upgrade, the old machine was six years old and started showing its gums) with a graphics card that is not on the approved list but runs perfectly.

Honestly, if you think I want my installation screwed up so it can run on your lame machine, you're nuts!

[Guest]

>Stupid response . . . David. <br /><br />damn. this is my best stuff... :)<br /><br /><Rodney Dangerfield, grasping his tie><br />Tough crowd, I tell ya. Tough crowd.<br /></Rodney Dangerfield, grasping his tie><br /><br /><img src="http://milbut.org/images/Rodney_Dangerfield.JPG">

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

i Honestly, if you think I want my installation screwed up so it can run on your lame machine, you're nuts!

What have we here, computer discrimination? I think we need to start a National Association For Equality For All Computers.

NAFEFAC rules!

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

OTOH, the i7/x58 chipset kicks butt big time. Why would I want to install software that will run on an HP or a (gulp! avert your eyes!) Costco!

[Guest]

Intel Quad-Core Performance, Top to Bottom
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2336852,00.asp

interesting article comparing quads, some i7s and and a duo. photoshop cs4 is one of the tests...

[Basil_Crowley]

> Honestly, if you think I want my installation screwed up so it can run on your lame machine, you're nuts!

Actually I am saying exactly the opposite to what you seem to think I am saying.

Nothing should have to be screwed up to run anything! That is my point! Its just that Adobe seem to think otherwise. They should be writing fault tolerant software, not stuff that works on Computer A but not on Computer B, or when the wind is blowing from the wrong direction, or whatever.

I have been running Photoshop on all sorts of boxes, since its virtual inception, and I have never experienced problems such as these. While computers have got better, faster and more reliable, Adobe software has been going doggedly in the opposite direction.

This software should FLY!

[Guest]

I hate to repeat it Basil but (for the silent majority) it does fly!

[Guest]

"They should be writing fault tolerant software" and then it would not run as well on my machine.

"What have we here, computer discrimination?" Not at all, I just expect that when running professional software for my business, I will need a machine with the appropriate power.

Last year I was working a brochure when IDCS2 stopped working to the point that I had to re-boot the machine while the client was on the phone, that was embarrassing. I didn't get on the forums and complain that the software wouldn't run stably on my dual PIII 1Ghz machine with 4Gb of RAM under WIN2K thinking the engineers were a bunch of lamers because it wouldn't.

When I built the new machine with an Intel BadAxe II board it was my first 'build from hell'. I had to replace virtually every part because the quality was not up to snuff and eventually had to get a refund from Intel for the BadAxe board and switch to Asus. I didn't get on the forums and blame the software, but it took a lot of work to get the machine working like it does and it runs the Adobe Master Collection really well. I still have an ATI FireGL card that makes a really cool paper-weight. If you think Adobe customer service is bad, you try dealing with Intel.

I had pointed out earlier in the this thread that if you think Photoshop is a dog, you should try running the other apps in the collection.

[_Erbs_Bischof_]

>Is anyone using/testing Stonehenge (ver 11.0x001DEV) supplied to me >in response to volunteering to test?

>If so, have you had any improvement in OpenGL-enabled performance?

Yes, I´m running Stonehenge.
My impression:
Redraw, painting etc., animated zoom, moving objects around: VERY SMOOTH now, so there´s hope CS4 will be fixed.
Moving entire image & Zoom by mouseweheel: CHOPPIER THAN BEFORE, but
tolerable, for the time being.
I´m actually getting quite some work finished on CS4 atm.
Wonder how much longer ´til they release el patcho.

Cheers everyone, Erbs

[_Kiril_Kompanchenko_]

Liquify works well (fast as it should) even the whole CS4 lags! Try it!