Poor RAM management in Photoshop CS4 - need help!

[Overfocused]

I have done numerous hours of research over the years only to give up and come back to this subject later on. I will try again!

I must ask: is there ANY way to get Photoshop CS4 to automatically flush used RAM after closing image files? I'm tired and annoyed of CS4 eating more and more RAM without freeing anything after an image has been closed. An image shouldn't still eat up memory when it isn't even open anymore. It seems to be terrible RAM management of the program itself and how Adobe has forgotten to write that little snippit of code to clear the RAM after an image has been closed.

I know this is not because of:

Cache levels

Setting too large of a saved history state; purging history cache or any kind of cache still never frees RAM

A lack of updates; I have been up to date with CS4 very punctually as they were released

The computer I am on; this poor RAM management has been around since CS2 and it's the same on the last 4 computers I have used

Does CS5 still do this too?

[Hudechrome]

When I first went to work for them, it was with some reservation, but after a few rounds of contracting, I became a believer of sorts. Reminded me of how Tektronix thought about it's future, that is until the founder, H Vollum, left for good.

Problem with Intel is I can't afford them! And I did get to look at AMD products with this newer awareness. After all, they are the ones that snookered Intel, and that story is rather intersting, at least the tribal knowledge version!

But this is way OT.

Apologies and back to the regularly scheduled broadcast!

[Paulo Skylar]

While LCDs technically do not have a vertical sync, both OSes and GL drivers impose some "vertical refresh" timing for compatibility and buffer flushing.

Technically, LCDs do have a vertical sync.

LCDs, just like CRTs,  are raster scanned displays. This means that in addition to needing pixel data they also must have a line sync and a frame sync signal, the latter often being called the vertical sync signal or refresh signal.  Both are essential. These sync signals provide blanking intervals between each line and each frame. You will find the specs for these sync signals in every display interface standard in use today.

The checkbox for vertical sync in the GL preferences is there only to provide (or not, if not checked) a synchronization between Photoshops data refresh and the OS's monitor refresh.

The main point being that the GL preference switch for vertical sync does nothing at all to the monitor vertical sync signal. That check box should more correctly be labeled something like: Coordinate Photoshop refresh with Monitor refresh.

Paulo

[Hudechrome]

Cross posted, Paulo.

Seems logical to me. I couldn't figure out why it was even an option!

[Hudechrome]

It's been a long time since I've had to deal with vertical and horizontal sync, but the whole purpose is to be sure that all systems operate together. I spent many an hour chasing down problems with rolling images that should have been in sync but wasn't!

[Paulo Skylar]

Precisely !

[Guest]

Lawrence,

Asus M4A79T Deluxe, AMD 965 processor

I had 4 gigs of RAM on my gaming computer and was running at normal factory timings and voltage settings (1.5V). I added another 4 gigs later on and the performance dropped a little. So I bumped the voltage .1 volt and everything was fine. I don't over clock the RAM as it is very tight to begin with and stayed with the normal timing. Also the 965 processor will only detect up to 1333MHz so I had to manually adjust the RAM to 1600MHz in the Bios and also the timings too.

Overfocused,

As far as Gateway Laptops they give very little options to mess with in the Bios.

[Hudechrome]

We are in a similar context with respect to mobo and cpu. You havethe 790 chipset, I use the 770. You have the Phenom  IIx4, I use the Athlon IIx4 (630).

Most likely my system won't detect above 1333 either, but the rated freq for my ram is 1333 so I know I have to bump things manually, which I did. When the cpu is overclocked, the range of ram rates changes, and it went from 1333 to about 1466MHz.Then I dropped it to the next level down which results in a rate of 1172, but the Latency settings go from 9 at 1333 to 7 at 1172, resulting in an overall increase in performance (7 clock cycles instead of 9). It also required the Command Rate of 2 instead of 1, in Auto command rate it picked 1 which resulted in a BSOD when running at 1466. So I have set the Command rate to Manual at 2.

Overall, then, the memory operations have likely slowed a bit but I have double the capacity which more than offsets the data rate loss.

I may consider upping the voltage as you did anf going back yo the faster settings, yet I'm not feeling as if I have lost any noticeable speed in general operations like on the Internet or Open Office.

I do wonder, however, if when the Command Rate is set to Auto, does the system decide that rate based on the demands of the moment?  Is it dynamic? Why would it have picked an unstable Auto Command Rate when overclocked?

From the overall discussions here, having a seminar in Memory Management sounds like a good idea.

Note: The system is overclocked 10%, from 2.8 to 3.08GHz

[Guest]

The RAM timings were set in auto but when I looked at the timings they did not match manufacture rated specs so I had to manually set those. Also the command rate would never work at one so I left it manually set at two. Leaving the command rate in auto did not make a difference but I went to manual anyways. I did some research on my board and people who installed 8 gigs on that board bumped the volts up a tad too.

[Hudechrome]

If ram was running at rated frequency and the timings different, were they higher or lower? So long as stability can be maintained, dropping the timing will increase performance. In any case overclocking will set it up for better timing

Other than that and the volts, we are pretty similar. I suspect your BIOS and mine are very similar as well.

Are you OC and how far?

[Guest]

The RAM timings when set in Auto were way loose. I don't over clock the RAM at all.

Now I do use the AMD overclock software utility and just bump everything up to 3.6 (from 3.4). However, the RAM stays the same. If I go above 3.6 then the system becomes unstable but then I am running a stock cooler too. So 3.6 is the sweet spot for a stock cooler on my system.

The only time I use the over clock is when I am playing FSX flight simulator or DCS A-10C or my other simulators as it really makes a difference. I also set the priority to "above normal" for the games too in task manager. Anything higher and Windows 7 becomes unstable. The ATI 5870 I don't over clock because it makes little difference according to some websites that tested them. Plus it was expensive and I didn't want it to turn into a brick. The drivers AMD puts out help a lot better

I run PS on my Vista ultimate 64 bit upstairs work machine. No overclock is done on that. PS runs perfect for what I do. That has a X4 940 processor in it with 8 gigs of RAM. It has a older 4870 x2 Video card but it runs great. PS only uses on GPU on the card. 

[Hudechrome]

I worked extensively with the AMD overclock utility. It's far more comprehensive than the Intel version, but in the final analysis if you run dual boot on that machine, you cannot use the utility because of it's expectations of the BIOS before bootup. Dual boot confuses that. Asus validated it as well.

It's fun knowing what really goes on in stuff like overclock, and what has to happen if you want to accomplish it from the OC directly, bypassing the user's need to address BIOS.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on.

Dual Boot OC is a piece of cake with the i7. You can have one stock, the other OC, or even different OC's for each Operating System. Just dial them in.

I haven't checked AMD for any updates to the ir utility.

[William_Curley]

I have been having this problem on my 32 bit machine, but when I run it on my 64 bit its fine.

[Overfocused]

Grr. Of course. After enabling GPU enhancement, my tool cursor disappears if I set it to larger than 200 pixels while in full screen and toggled the screen mode to show only the picture. It shows my tools in any other display setting though.

What's up with that?

[Chris Cox]

The large cursor disappearing sounds like an old (2 years now?) NVidia driver bug that they fixed.