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.

[Guest]

Narked: Could be a faulty card?

[Guest]

What reason does Narked have to suspect a faulty video card? He's having the exact same issues as the rest of us who purchased this clunky turd.

[Guest]

D: I'm not having any issues and CS4 is anything but a "clunky ...."

[Guest]

Narked:

When you built your computer did you update directx 9.c? Vista may use directx 10.1 (after sp1 update) but it also uses directx 9c to run a ton of software. Updating 9c does not effect directx 10 in Vista in any way.

Also .net update to 3.5 may help you. There is also a update for C++ for 2008.

[Guest]

Have you been reading this thread? There are 720 posts on here so far. I can't take the time to count just how many of them are individual complaints about the same performance issues that render the software virtually unusable. The errors seem to have nothing to do with any specific hardware on the part of the user. ATI cards, nVidia cards, XP, Vista, laptops, desktops, you name it.

Just because you personally are not having issues doesn't mean that there aren't an inordinate number of people who are.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

Right.

But they are isues pertinent to the HW/SW/FW combinations on that particular computer.

I installed on three: one had a major problem, one ran without 3D capability, the third ran marvelously.

The first one is a AMD macchine, several years old with a PCI card. The second, a Dell workstation. The third, an Intel i7 machine with nVidia 7 series PCIe cards. Any one of three versions.

Take your pick.

In the best of worlds, an app would simply run. But we aren't there yet. :-(

[TadCh3va7]

Wow. I'm just starting to work with CS4 after CS2 (have already left a post or two) and using the text tool in the simplest way is horrendous: I go to make changes to a text layer (in this case deleting part of it) and I have to wait to see my changes long enough that I'm wondering if my actions have had a result. Why? Why!

[Guest]

d: I've been reading a lot more than just this thread, and it is related to certain combinations of 'HW/SW/FW' as Larry pointed out. You have one of those unfortunate combos.

I having been building my own systems for 14 years now and never had a problem, but when I built this new system I ended up replacing every component because they were faulty. I have an ATI FireGL card that is making a nice paperweight because ATI wouldn't live up to its warranty. I also had a problem with Intel. So yea, it could be a faulty card.

[Guest]

Just because the problem is related to "certain combinations of HW/SW/FW" doesn't relieve Adobe of the burden to solve this widespread issue. By that rationale, if the software only worked on one PC model that Adobe developed CS4 on and I couldn't get it to work right it would still be my fault for not having that magical combination of HW/SW/FW. As it is, there are over a dozen people in my company alone -- all of whom have different PC models with different specs -- who are almost unable to work since we've been forced to upgrade to CS4. There is nothing unusual about any of our system (all Lenovo, some with ATI, some with nVidia), and most of them are quite new.

I'm being reminded of Microsoft's "Red Ring of Death" fiasco with their Xbox 360s. They tried to pretend that the problem was not their fault or was being blown out of proportion for several years, and until it happened to my Xbox (three times!) I argued that people just weren't taking good care of their game systems. It's easy to dismiss a problem when it isn't happening to you.

[Guest]

I never 'dismissed' anyone's problems except when someone obviously bought illegal software and wanted help.

Anyways, I can't help because I got it right!

[Guest]

Nick, my drivers are current at 9.1. CCC is, as far as I'm aware, the only avenue to the various video driver settings that may affect CS4. Nothing I did there had any effect, of course: just saying that I did my homework before commenting.

[Chris Cox]

D. Rutledge - nobody is dismissing the problems. Adobe is working on a dot release, and ATI and NVidia are working on driver updates. But we can't guess at all the possible factors involved. That's why the video driver writers need more information.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

Chris, I would expect that during dev, you have debug log files enabled in several places in the system. Is it possible for the user to enable that logging and send the files to you?

Second, how about a bug reporting tool, customized for your needs from a source like Bugzilla? Debug log files, screen shots etc properly can be inserted there.

[Wolf Eilers]

>I go to make changes to a text layer (in this case deleting part of it) and I have to wait to see my changes long enough that I'm wondering if my actions have had a result. Why? Why!

Welcome to the club! I have managed to mitigate the slow appearing text by setting my NVIDIA 3D settings to Performance. The text still lags but previously it appeared molasses slow.

Why the GPU has any effect on the Text tool is a mystery to me. (Adobe documentation makes no mention of this dependency.)

[Chris Cox]

Lawrence - nope, we don't ship with that sort of stuff in the code.
And we have a bug reporting web page, but no matter what we ask for - there's never enough detail.

[TadCh3va7]

Nice name! I thought I'd see if doing the same with my Radeon X1650 would help ... nothing. If I put my cursor in a line of text and hit the backspace key once, the cursor moves back to where it will be once the letter has been deleted, but it takes up to five (not less than three) seconds for the letter to catch up and disappear. It's like working in the dark. I had no performance problems whatsoever with CS2 (I'm on Vista and if I remember correctly CS2 wasn't designed to work well on Vista) so I'm finding this to be more than disappointing.

Complicating this for me is the lack of a manual. I bought CS4 on disk instead of download and was surprised and unhappy to find no documentation with it. I can't take my desktop with me on a bus and I have a hard time working (or trying to) on my PC and at the same time searching through the online "help" and toggling back and forth between applications. Grrr.

[Guest]

Richard: There is a downloadable PDF guide for PS on the first web page.

[_Brad_Rose_]

I downloaded
PSCS4GPU_OptionalPlugins.zip
from
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb405064

It includes Disallow OpenGL Windows and Allow Old GPUS script files that are are also uninstallable.

On my machine at work (Windows XP Professional)
Allow Old GPUS did not work
Disallow OpenGL Windows got PS to work without crashing, but limits the features

On my machine at home(Windows Vista 64bit)
Allow Old GPUS did not work
Disallow OpenGL Windows did not work

my copy of PS CS4 crashes after start up and I don't think I should have to go buy the CS3 version....that is not right.

[_Brad_Rose_]

I downloaded
PSCS4GPU_OptionalPlugins.zip
from
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb405064

It includes Disallow OpenGL Windows and Allow Old GPUS script files that are are also uninstallable.

On my machine at work (Windows XP Professional)
Allow Old GPUS did not work
Disallow OpenGL Windows got PS to work without crashing, but limits the features

On my machine at home(Windows Vista 64bit)
Allow Old GPUS did not work
Disallow OpenGL Windows did not work

My PS CS4 crashes on my Vista 64bit machine after start up and I don't think I should have to go buy the CS3 version....that is not right.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

Real bummer, Chris. Those details....

[Chris Cox]

Brad - crashing at startup isn't a common problem. You should probably create a new topic so we can help you figure that one out (most likely cause is still going to be a driver, but it could also be a bad third party plugin, or a font if you're on 64 bit).

[_Brad_Rose_]

It starts up and then crashes as soon as I open a file or try to edit or a save a file.

I have a lot of fonts, how could a font be the issue.

[Chris Cox]

Brad - a corrupt font could cause a crash, or a specific type of corrupt font is known to cause a crash in Photoshop 64 bit (because of a bug in our font handling code trying to recover from the corrupt font contents).

[_Steve_But_]

I have problems with Photoshop CS4..installed fine, but when i open any image its corrupt....i am running windows vista 32bit....could this be my graphics card thats giving the problem its a ATI Radeon HD2600XT?

[_Russell_Proulx_]

I suspect that Adobe does not sell CS3 to customers who just bought PS and are having problems running the current flavour? Or will Adobe offer a downgrade to CS3 upon request?

I have a client who has just this week hired an in-house graphic artist and they use only PCs. I asked what version of PS they bought her and they said it was the CS4 suite. Now I'm worried that it will run poorly on their hardware and I feel sorry for the problems she might have to face. Perhaps it all works just fine. But it did get me thinking about this.

Dell continues to sell PCs that include a downgrade option to XP. A lot of software I use offers downgrades to previous versions for folks who have problems. I wonder if Adobe might consider doing the same for folks who can forego CS4's new features/changes and can get their work done until a 'dot' release arrives.

Just a thought ...