UI performance – question to developers

AH
Posted By
Alexander_Havrylyuk
May 5, 2005
Views
1157
Replies
40
Status
Closed
Photoshop developers,

In CS2 there is new interface elements in tool windows, which decrease the UI performance of the application at least in my case: Windows XP, Celeron 1.7 and ATI Rage Fury Pro video card 3-5 years old. It is not up to date system, but I was comparing the UI performance and apperance to Adobe Premier Pro. The UI apperance is similar, but Premeir renders UI much faster. Is it because Premier uses DirectX to render interface elements? Why can’t Photoshop do the same? What is involved in UI rendering in PS CS2? Video card or CPU? What component I should upgrade to get the descent performance in UI rendering?

Thank you.

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DM
dave_milbut
May 6, 2005
do you normally keep the info palette open? if so close it. how does it perform?
AH
Alexander_Havrylyuk
May 6, 2005
The same way. Info palette doesn’t make any difference in my case.
DM
dave_milbut
May 6, 2005
bummer. i was hoping we were on to something. 🙁
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 6, 2005
I`m also wondering why the redraw of the picture is so much slower in CS2 compared to CS. If you change to fullscreen mode by pressing the F key for example it takes around 3 times as long to completely show the picture than in CS.
Also the cursor is much slower. I know, that I now can see it even on a 50 % gray. That`s great. But isn`t it hardware accelerated (graphics card) anymore bcause of that?
Stefan
DM
dave_milbut
May 6, 2005
I`m also wondering why the redraw of the picture is so much slower in CS2 compared to CS.

the thing is, it’s not for me. it’s faster and others have reported it’s faster too.
DN
Daniel_Neeley
May 6, 2005
Display rendering was slow for me too with my Nvidia GeForce Ti 4400 (1.6GHz P4) but after updating the video driver to the lastest version, everything sped back up.

Give that a try.
CC
Chris_Cox
May 6, 2005
It shouldn’t be any slower – but we changed a few APIs, and those may have problems on older video cards or video card drivers.
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 8, 2005
Updated the driver of my Geforce 4 4600TI to the newest version (71.89), but nothing changed. The userinterface ( Display rendering and cursor and palettes ) is still much slower than with PS CS1.
Stefan
DM
dave_milbut
May 8, 2005
try turning off font preview in edit> prefrences> type. (uncheck the Font Preview Size box) and let us know if that helps…

dave
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 8, 2005
Thanks Dave, but it doesn`t help.
BTW, the cursor is so slow, that very often it changes to the "normal" arrow instead of "brush-size". If I wait lets say 0,5 sec before I move my brush it works correctely.
I compared it to CS1 and it`s night and day.
Stefan
DM
dave_milbut
May 8, 2005
stefan is your info palette open? if so close it.
RE
Robert_Enns
May 8, 2005
I have a GeForce FX 5500 with the same driver (71.89) and all is well. Perhaps the video card itself is at fault.

Rob
DM
dave_milbut
May 8, 2005
i’ve got the fx 5200 and it’s working fine too.
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 8, 2005
I closed the info palette but nothing changed.
I`m also sure, that my card is not faulty. It´s working perfectely with each software I have (3D and 2D ..including PS CS1).
Is there any way to check wether the cursor is still hardware accelerated? Stefan
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 9, 2005
Okay,
closing the Info palette solved the "slow-cursor-problem". Will there be a fix to this? The rest (redraw and palettes) are still slow.
Stefan
DM
dave_milbut
May 9, 2005
I closed the info palette but nothing changed.

Okay, closing the Info palette solved the "slow-cursor-problem".

heh! cool!

Will there be a fix to this?

I hope so, I believe they’re aware there’s a potential problem with the info palette. I think i first learned of it here from chris cox (adobe ps engineer).

The rest (redraw and palettes) are still slow.

🙁
CC
Chris_Cox
May 9, 2005
Stefan – we haven’t been able to reproduce the cursor problem you’re seeing. And we can’t fix what we can’t reproduce. But we’re still looking into it.

The redraw and palettes has thus far always been tied to a bad video card or video card driver.
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 9, 2005
Chris,
I have to admit that I have a rather slow PC.It`s a P3/733MHZ/512MB RAM. My video card however isn`t that bad (GF4 4600) and has the latest driver. I can imagine, that you won`t see a problem with a fast CPU although there may still be a difference between CS1 and CS2 in redraw etc..
On a fast PC it may be only measureable but not "visible" that there is a difference. CS1 userinterface "felt" very responsive even with my slow PC. But CS2 does not. Stefan
CC
Chris_Cox
May 9, 2005
On even our slow systems – we don’t see a problem like you’re describing.

There has to be something on your system causing it, but we don’t know what it might be because we don’t have your system.
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 9, 2005
Do you have a GF4 4600 on one of your systems and can you test that? Thanks for your help Chris!
Stefan
CC
Chris_Cox
May 9, 2005
I’m asking around for one of those cards right now.
D
deebs
May 9, 2005
Wow – the stock warehouse must be mega!
CC
Chris_Cox
May 9, 2005
No, but NVidia isn’t too far away 😉
DM
dave_milbut
May 9, 2005
stefan, have you tried disabling things in start> run> msconfig? to see if something might be slowing you down?
CC
Chris_Cox
May 9, 2005
For one person, just setting acceleration to zero SPED UP Photoshop’s redraw. Definitely a driver bug….
CC
Chris_Cox
May 9, 2005
(but it was a GeForce2 Go)
DN
Daniel_Neeley
May 9, 2005
"stefan, have you tried disabling things in start> run> msconfig? to see if something might be slowing you down?"

An even better program for that is startup control panel:

<http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml>
F
font9a
May 10, 2005
Chris,

What does this mean?

For one person, just setting acceleration to zero SPED UP Photoshop’s redraw. Definitely a driver bug….

Which acceleration are you referring to?

I am using an ATI X850 XT with the latest 5.4 Catalyst drivers (version 6.14.10.6525). I experience both the cursor problems and the palette/redraw problems. Closing "Info" helped the cursor problem, but not the redraw problem.

— font9a
CC
Chris_Cox
May 10, 2005
The video card acceleration control.

What we’re talking about here is most likely similar to what I just saw: palettes take several seconds to redraw (hit tab twice, and it should redraw instantly – if not, something is wrong with the driver).
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
May 10, 2005
The acceleration referred to is "hardware acceleration" in Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Troubleshooting. Turning this down from full to off is used to prevent the display driver from using the video card’s specialized screen-drawing firmware, and instead do all display processing in Windows, in order to determine whether there is a driver or hardware problem. When hardware acceleration is turned off, the display is typically slower because Windows has to do all the work, but if the problem that is encountered goes away this means that it is related to either the card or the driver. In the case mentioned by Chris, the video sped up when acceleration was turned off, which probably means that there was a real problem with the card or the driver.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
May 10, 2005
Chris beat me to it!
F
font9a
May 10, 2005
Ok. I turned Acceleration to "None" and I see no speed change wrt to screen redraws. I am guessing that the palette redraws in CS1 were 5-10 milliseconds (instant to my eyes) where in CS2 they are 30-50 ms. Dragging a screen around in CS1 caused no white areas under the screen, ie. redrew instantly. In CS2 it’s about 30-50 milliseconds to redraw the screen under the window. The mouse cursor also often moves faster than the window it’s dragging in CS2. This never happened in CS1.

thanks for all your help so far.

— font9a
DM
dave_milbut
May 10, 2005
An even better program for that is startup control panel

except it’s not part of windows and i’ve never heard of it… and i usually don’t click on strange links … 🙂
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 10, 2005
Dave,
there are no unnecessary programs running in the background. I check that from time to time via msconfig and taskmanager. As soon as I get to my PC at work I will check to turn off the hardware acceleration.
Chris,
if it turns out to be a driver issue (and since nvidia is not far from you) can you get in contact with them to solve the problem or tell them about it?
Stefan
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 10, 2005
Just turned hardware acceleration off. Nothing changed.
Stefan
CC
Chris_Cox
May 10, 2005
OK – make sure your drivers are up to date.

And let us know what model of video card you’re seeing this on.
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 10, 2005
Chris,
Geforce 4 Ti4600 (Gainward)and the newest driver from nvidia`s website. S´tefan
DM
dave_milbut
May 10, 2005
stefan, from another thread, chris is trying to get a hold of a couple nvidia cards to test, the 4600 is one of them (i think the other is 4400?)

dave
CC
Chris_Cox
May 10, 2005
Yes, the 4600 and 4400 are known problems (even with current drivers).
SK
Stefan_Klein
May 11, 2005
Chris,
I can now be a bit more specific about my cursor problem (which btw. can be solved by turning the info palette off…..what I don`t want)
to quote myself:
"the cursor is so slow, that very often it changes to the "normal" arrow instead of "brush-size". If I wait lets say 0,5 sec before I move my brush it works correctely."

After a bit more testing I found the following:

It always changes into the normal "arrow", if I use the brush and the previous brushstroke is not yet recorded in the history palette.
Turning off the history palette doesn`t help.
Stefan

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