CS2 not releasing memory

HT
Posted By
harry_teasley
Oct 20, 2005
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185
Replies
5
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Closed
I had CS2 open on my machine for a couple of days, with some large files open. It got to where it was using a gig of memory (on my 2gig of RAM system), and was very slow. I notice that PS usually is very slow after being idle for a while, and never regains its speed unless restarted.

In any case, I Edit > Purge > All, and it’s still using a gig. I saved all the open images and closed them, and it’s still using a gig. Closing and restarting gets it back to 325mb of RAM used.

So, why can’t PS release memory it’s not using anymore? Why does PS get so slow after it has been minimized to the start bar for a while?
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C
chrisjbirchall
Oct 20, 2005
Photoshop likes large chunks of contiguous memory, so it holds on to memory ready to reuse on your next image and so on. If you need that for some other program, close down Photoshop to release it.

Because many of the filters and plug-ins – and more significantly, the Bridge – run OUTSIDE of Photoshop’s allocated memory, it is important NOT to set the allocation too high.

Any more than 55% (even on a 2GB machine) can cause the whole shebang to slow down because the OS and any other apps running at the time will be competing with Bridge for the remaining RAM.

Also, make sure you’ve plenty of free defragmented space on your scratch disk as PS uses scratch heavily, even on small files.

Hope this helps.

Chris.
J
Jim
Oct 20, 2005
wrote in message
I had CS2 open on my machine for a couple of days, with some large files open. It got to where it was using a gig of memory (on my 2gig of RAM system), and was very slow. I notice that PS usually is very slow after being idle for a while, and never regains its speed unless restarted.
In any case, I Edit > Purge > All, and it’s still using a gig. I saved all the open images and closed them, and it’s still using a gig. Closing and restarting gets it back to 325mb of RAM used.

So, why can’t PS release memory it’s not using anymore? Why does PS get so slow after it has been minimized to the start bar for a while?
A lot of programming languages only release memory on exit. In all likelihood, PS has no control over this subject.
Jim
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 21, 2005
Harry – that sounds a lot like you don’t have enough RAM, or your OS swapfile is misconfigured. Photoshop shouldn’t be slow after being idle, unless other applications are forcing Photoshop memory to get paged out to the OS swapfile.
HT
harry_teasley
Oct 31, 2005
Well, I would hope 2gb of RAM would be sufficient… I generally deal in images that are 1024×1024 or less, and usually just a few at a time. I often create temp images that are 4096×4096, but again, very few of those, and I only carry out a couple of operations on those.

My OS swapfile, I’ve never hand configured it, and neither has anyone else: it is in the same state as it was when the machine arrived from Dell. What configuration of the swapfile could cause a slowdown?

And to add, my CS2 swapfile is not on my C: drive, it’s on a non-boot drive.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Oct 31, 2005
Harry, Chris has elsewhere recommended that you set your OS swapfile/pagefile manually to initial = max = 2*RAM.

And your CS2 cache should, ideally, be on a physically separate drive from the OS pagefile (if you have one), rather than just a separate partition.

Also, what percentage of RAM do you have Photoshop set to use? If it’s set too high, it can force the OS and other applications to use virtual memory; the default of 55% is often better than 90%, which causes some people problems.

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