photoshop cs2 seriously sluggish

1257 views48 repliesLast post: 5/10/2005
I downloaded the Photoshop CS2 tryout and it's running extremely sluggish on my computer. The start-up time takes alot longer w/ CS2 than CS. When I click on a window tab on CS2, it takes at least 1 second just to switch to the other tab, it's especially sluggish when i restore Photoshop from being minimized. I have 512 MB of RAM, AMD Athlon XP Processor @ 2.13 GHz, and running Windows XP w/ SP2 and have the latest drivers too. I own a standalone version of Photoshop CS and I have no problems w/ CS at all as it runs 100% smooth. Anbody have a solution to this problem? Thanks and sorry if I have bad english skills.
#1
Must say I have experienced the same thing, adn the ImageReady doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind as to whether it WANTS to start or NOT !!

What's more... in PS-CS2 - the "Link Layers" check box has disappeared in the palette and it is a long process (comparatively) to actually perform this otherwise simple task.

Am I missing something ?
#2
To say, does Photoshop CS2 run "smoothly" on (Windows) computers only with Intel processor? Because I installed the CS2 tryout on my brother's computer running Intel Pentium 4 w/ HT Technology and it runs normal, no slowdown at all!
#3
only with Intel processor?

No. I have an Athlon and it runs just fine.

512Mb of ram is on the low side for CS2. It will run in 320Mb. But at these lower amounts of ram, anything else running in the background will starve PS of processing power. Try closing all other programs.

Other things to check: Have you got plenty of free space on the drive allocated to the scratch disk? Have you got Windows Paging file set to two times your installed ram?

Could be a bad install of course. You could try uninstalling CS2; doing a system restore to a point before the install and then reinstall the tryout.

Best of luck with it.
#4
I have photoshop's memory usage to be 55% and the first scratch disk to be on Startup and the rest None. I have plenty of space on my hard drive too, a total of 110GB, 80GB on C: & 30GB on D:, maybe i should set the first scratch disk on C: instead of Startup. I don't know how I should set my paging file though as i left it alone on default (720 for all drives).

I'm sure cs2 is installed completely fine, the installation went smooth for each time i uninstalled and reinstalled the application.
#5
Joey, what graphic card are you running? what versions of the drivers? are they the latest ones?

Mike:

What's more... in PS-CS2 - the "Link Layers" check box has disappeared in the palette and it is a long process (comparatively) to actually perform this otherwise simple task.

Shift+click or control+click to make multiple selected layers is very fast! The move tool can also help you to do MLS (Multiple Layers Selection)
#6
S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR 32MB of memory
6.14.10.28 (6/3/2004)

and yeah, it's the latest...
#7
Joey,

With only 512MB of ram you're on the bottom end of the usability scale. I think you'll find that CS2 performs significantly bette with 1GB or better 2GB.
#8
Is there a minimum VRAM requirement Ian? Adobe just says 16 bit.
#9
There is a bit of time taken up by image cacheing too

Once everything has been nicely cached I found CS2 settled down nicely

Whatever you do, don't reassign a High process priority to Photoshop.exe :)
#10
The 16 bit refers to a card that can do thousands of colours. Most modern cards should have more than suficient vram for Photoshop
#11
I have an Intel 3.0 gig CPU with 2 gigs ram. CS2 runs very well on my computer. However, the RAW plug-ins runs very sluggishly. I can barely move a slider--it doesn't move for a second or two then jumps. Scrolling is very slow. While I have been mostly pleassed with the results, the RAW's interface performance is lacking.
#12
I'm not familiar enough with the card, but we have seen some older cards have issues with the ways the new tabs are drawn, causing sluggishness.

-Scott

wrote:
S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR 32MB of memory
6.14.10.28 (6/3/2004)

and yeah, it's the latest...
#13
I believe Photoshop CS2 should be fine w/ 512MB RAM. My video card is pretty outdated, and in a way runs pretty sluggish too when i drag/move windows. You're probably not familiar w/ it because it's an on-board video card.

Scott Byer - 12:04pm May 2, 05 PST (#12 of 12)

I'm not familiar enough with the card, but we have seen some older >cards have issues with the ways the new tabs are drawn, causing >sluggishness.

-Scott
#14
I have a Clevo M3EW laptop with Pentium-M (Dothan) 1.7Ghz ,2Mb L2 On-board Cache, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb of VRAM (ATI Radeom M). On this machine PSCS2 runs like a charm, including RAW processing. No delays and slowdowns of any kind. Sorry to hear about your problem, though.
#15
S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR 32MB of memory

is it an integrated graphics card? (onboard or system memory sharing)? that might explain it. how old is the card?
#16
it's an OEM Computer (Compaq), was manufactured back in 2002.
#17
wrote in message
it's an OEM Computer (Compaq), was manufactured back in 2002.

I'm afraid you'll have to upgrade your computer to something more contemporary.
#18
Whatever you do, don't reassign a High process priority to Photoshop.exe

Could someone take a moment to amplify this statement? What exactly is a high process priority? How is it adjusted or changed? Why should PS CS not have a high priority, and what priority is best suited to PS? Thanks

shel
#19
I'm afraid you'll have to upgrade your computer to something more contemporary.

I don't know about that, but a 50 dollar graphics card might bring some improvement.
#20
I have 1.5GB RAM and a 6800GT 256MB card and it's sluggish. I had to install my older copy of CS to get things back to normal. I hope Adobe addresses some of these problems. My swap file is on another drive on another IDE cable so read/write is simultaneous and it still tags my Intel 4 at 100%.
#21
Invid Gurab - 4:47pm May 3, 05 PST (#20 of 20)

I have 1.5GB RAM and a 6800GT 256MB card and it's sluggish.

And I thought upgrading my hardware would make a difference. I just hope Adobe release some kind of patch to resolve this issue.
#22
You and me both. I love the new features but with this lag it's really not usable and that's a shame.
#23
Invid: please post the system data from CS2 in Help > System Info - just post the data from the top and trim the plug-in data. Remember to delete your serial # before posting.

There are plenty of users who are not having any problems (on either platform) using the application, so I'd like to know why your machine (and a few others) are having performance problems.

I'd be as happy as you guys to figure this one out :)

Thanks again for your help.
#24
Im using an Athlon 64 CPU and im getting alot of slow down. I have noticed that Mcafee antivirus goes nuts, and chews up CPU time when CS2 is running.
#25
Invid and Joey, do you have antivirus running in the back? other programs open? Rob, what are your system information (and videocard?)
#26
you guys might also want to trim your user names from the path folders when posting this stuff for security reasons.

maybe a moderator can adjust that for you.
#27
Pierre Courtejoie - 3:51am May 4, 05 PST (#27 of 28)

Invid and Joey, do you have antivirus running in the back? other >programs open?

I have symantec AV running in the background, but that doesn't take much resource or CPU time, I even tried disabling auto-protect temporarily but CS2 is still sluggish.
#28
Disabling my anti-virus did nothing to help with performance. Also posting my local user accounts path to documents and settings doesn't worry me one bit. Come on Adobe I know you're working on something but until there's a solution I cannot justify purchasing upgrades for all our machines.
#29
Also posting my local user accounts path to documents and settings doesn't worry me one bit

<shrug> the less hackers know about your specific machine the better. <shrug x2>
#30
Hi, I'm just join to this message, but i have the same problem. I have a P4 3.0gh 800mhz. and 512 ddr ram 400mhz, with a gforce 4 of 64 mgs. and the PHOTOSHOP CS2 work slow, i have seen in Windows Task Manager that the photoshop is using almost 190,000 to 200,000 k of my memory.. it happends with me on the photoshop cs but i was when i was working with pictures as big as 3x4 mts at 200 dpi. but now is with an smaller file. Any new idea about this problem.
#31
Invid - until you help us figure out what is wrong with your machine, we can't do much. So far all the slow downs we've seen are directly related to the video card drivers or printer drivers.
#32
Carlinhos. You're ranting again - instead of carrying out the advice given to you in the other thread.
#34
Just to back up what Chris is saying....

I have 512 ram, pent III, older machine, older graphic card NVIDIA G-force 4, and two hard drives (40GB and 110GB).

Photoshop CS2, runs like lightening compared to CS.
#35
It just occurred to me: a whole bunch of problems were tracked down to Danish users. Maybe the common factor in these is Spanish - or even just anything that isn't the vanilla English Installer.
#36
Well as far as hackers go if they can crack the PIX then so be it I'm in more peril than just them knowing where to look to see any computers local accounts. Any hacker who can bypass a PIX can just peruse any computer on the network anyway. Thanks for the concern though :)

Well as for CS2 I think I'm just going to abandon it for now and continue to use the first CS since it runs just fine. Thanks for all the help!
#37
Invid - unless you help us figure out why YOUR system is running slow, nothing is going to change in Photoshop (or your system).

Something is wrong, and we made suggestions to help you figure it out. But you've got to put in some effort here.
#38
Okay check this. The program is worthless to me at start up because it holds my CPU to 100% usage the whole time it's open until I actually open a project. Once I open a project CS ceases to be slow and runs lightning quick. If I close the project, .psd, PS continues to run lightning quick. So as far as I can tell actually using PS to work on projects allows PS to run normally even after you save and close out the project or start a new one. I have no idea why PS would stop using the CPU so much after a project was loaded and/or closed and only at start up.
#39
I believe the slowdown is caused by my onboard video card (s3 prosavage ddr), i hope the new driver release helps fix this problem :(
#40
buy a 25 dollar clone video card and use that.
#41
Invid: do you live anywhere near the Bay Area in California? If so, I'd like to come visit your system. If not, please email me directly at:

first initial of first name + last name (all lower case) at adobe dot com

I would like to work with you directly on this, as I'm curious what CS2 is doing that consumes 100% of your CPU until you open a doc. I'm not seeing this on any system I have access to, and I'm wondering if CS2 is building font previews. Do you have a good amount of fonts installed on your system?

If so, have you tried disabling the font previews from the Type Preferences to see if that helps?
#42
Okay I'll email you since I live in SoCal. Actually PS causes the CPU to run @100% without anything loaded. Once I start a new .psd or open an existing .psd the app runs great and it runs great after I've closed out the .psd. If I just run CS fresh and let it sit with nothing loaded or started the app causes the CPU to go nuts.

As for fonts no I only have the default system fonts loading up. Usually I have plenty of fonts loading up but I removed them awhile ago and PS will cause my CPU to overheat if I let it sit since it doesn't stop until I create or open a .psd file. My longest time before my CPU reaches critical is 45 minutes.
#43
My email to you bounced back btw :(
#44
If you follow his instructions (and don't include any files) it shouldn't bounce.
#45
I did, I'll resend it through a web email accoutn rather than my outlook 2003 account.
#46
You guys please, stay on the topic, use instant messaging or something because you're spamming my inbox with messages that aren't even related to this topic!
#47
Seems like we're having email issues today... you can also try my alternate email account:

travlin_adam at yahoo dot com

Thanks.
#48
You guys please, stay on the topic, use instant messaging or something because you're spamming my inbox with messages that aren't even related to this topic!

these guys (chris and adam) are adobe engineers trying to resolve this problem with a user who's willing to volunteer his machine with the problem to help. it's definately on topic.
#49