Inspiring

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Temp files with plenty of memory available

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 20, 2022
5 replies
5275 views

I just got an error that my scratch disk is full. As I checked, there were three Photoshop temp files in there, although I have plenty of RAM available (about 40GB). Even after starting Photoshop with no file open, a temp file is immediately created. What's that about?

Here's a screenshot of the three temp files ...

Windows

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Correct answer Kevin Stohlmeyer

The GPU is an RTX 3060 with 12GB. So that's not the reason either. Maybe it's the Ryzen CPU. Let's wait and see if the developers can get on top of that.

Again RAM is not scratch disk. Stop comparing the CPU - the "scratch disk is full" error indicate disk space not RAM or CPU.

D Fosse

Community Expert

@Atanas5CCF

Neither is "proritized", and you misunderstand the way this works. It's just a matter of capacity. If you're working with big files, there is no such thing as "enough memory". Total memory requirement will always exceed that, often by orders of magnitude.

The scratch disk is Photoshop's main memory. Everything goes there, all the time. RAM acts like a fast access cache, the content gets shifted and moved as needed. Switch to another document, for instance, or go back a while in history, and RAM contents immediately needs to change. 50 history states, each potentially adding the full file size, for several open documents - it has to go somewhere, and you need to have immediate access when needed.

This was critical in the old days when we had slow spinning drives. Today, with ultra-fast generation 4.0 NVMe drives, the speed difference is not really significant. I'm sure you still get measurable differences, but in practical use, it's insignificant. You're simply not able to press the buttons that fast - the machine is waiting for you a lot more than you are waiting for the machine. In short - the bottleneck is largely gone.

And there's one more crucial thing about the scratch disk that you're not seeing. It's what enables Photoshop to work with virtually unlimited file sizes without choking the whole system. Photoshop can handle anything you throw at it, and as long as you have enough scratch disk space, it won't miss a beat.

Kevin Stohlmeyer

Community Expert

@Atanas5CCF you're replying to a 2+ year old thread...

TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

https://www.howtogeek.com/302544/how-to-manually-clear-out-photoshops-massive-temp-files/

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Scratch disk is always allocated, whether there is enough RAM or not. Make sure you have several hundred GB free space on your scratch disk. If it's an SSD never let it get over 90% full or performance will plummet.

Andreas ReschAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for the answer. Not going to buy huge SSD's though, just so that Photoshop can fill them up with unnecessary temp files. Maybe some of that AI nonsense shouls be directed towards file and memory management.

D Fosse

Community Expert

They are removed, when I close Photoshop. I never said that they are staying. But they are getting more throughout the use of Photoshop. There seems to be a block limit of 16GB for them.

And I can see them, because I have enabled windows to show hidden files and system files. You might not see them on a restricted setup of Windows.

Again, these are perfectly standard scratch files, required for Photoshop to work efficiently. If you didn't have them, you would have a whole lot more performance problems.

If you have performance issues, this is not the reason!

It should be said that a disproportionately high share of users with Ryzen systems have reported diffuse performance issues. This seems to be specific to Ryzen. Engineers have previously said that they really want to get to the bottom of this, but they need reproducible cases. So I think this should be reposted to the Bugs section - include as much system information as possible, crash reports if applicable, steps to reproduce with precise descriptions if possible.

You haven't said what GPU, but if it's an integrated AMD GPU that could be the problem. So much Photoshop operations are performed in the GPU nowadays, and so many advanced functions are called, that driver issues could give very diffuse problems.

jane-e

Community Expert

@Andreas Resch

How much free space do you have and how big are the files you are working with?

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-scratch-disk-is-full.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/scratch-disks-preferences.html

Jane

Andreas ReschAuthor

Inspiring

Free space was about 45GB. But that's not the point. The question is, why is there that much disk space allocated with about 40GB of free RAM (with some file being openened)?

jane-e

Community Expert

@Andreas Resch

It's advised to have a minimum of 100 GB free disk space. More is required with larger files (you didn't answer the file size question). I have 1TB free space.

Sometimes folks get the message when they accidentally choose 1000 inches instead of 1000 pixels, for instance. I'm not saying that that is your issue.

When you get the "scratch disk full" message, you need to either clear space on the drive you are using for scratch space or set up a another drive for scratch space. Read the two help files for details.

Jane

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