Robert Barnett, basically any program developed in 64-bit SHOULD run faster. The main reason when it doesn’t run faster or even slower (which is often the case) is if the programmers made a poor conversion from 32 to 64 bit. If Adobe would have rewritten the whole application in 64 bit then you certainly would have seen a major improvement. But running some conversion application to convert from 32 to 64 bit and some manual touch-ups is not what I call writing for 64 but. Probably the only area that Adobe completely rewrote is memory management.
A good example of what a true rewrite does for performance is a program like 7-zip that was completely rewritten in 64 bit and runs on average about 30% faster.
Btw Adobe’s Scott Byer wrote in John Nack’s blog a while back:
"In our testing, when an app isn’t using a large data set (one that would otherwise require memory swapping), the speedup due to running in 64-bit mode is around 8-12%."
So in some areas you should see a performance boost, although I really doubt you notice anything in regular use, this is simply not a serious rewrite of the code and except for the extended use of memory nothing more but a marketing gimmick.
except for the extended use of memory
Big exception, in my book, and an average 10% gain in speed isn’t bad either. If all I gained was access to gobs of ram, it is worth it. I would be very annoyed, however, if the apps actually slowed down!
In any case, understanding of just what is the proper comparison of the two OS’ is generally missing from much of the conversations about it.
The testing I am doing comes down to this: In Vista, I prefer the 64 bit OS, in XP, the 32 bit is preferable.
This is a narrow perspective due to what I am testing so your mileage may vary.
It’s faster on some things and slower on others.
My 7-8gb file opens in 4mins, instead of 14mins, but creating a new layer on this image and opening the layer panel takes around 4 to 5 seconds – not great as it used to be instant. Another slow down I have noticed this with the Ctrl Alt z undo as this has a serious lag, again, this is not great, but OK…just.
On the plus side I can rotate / pan this image very smoothly which make 50 – 100% editing less annoying.
EDIT: I should point out that the lag is non existent on 500mb – 1gb files.
But running some conversion application to convert from 32 to 64 bit >and some manual touch-ups is not what I call writing for 64 but … this is simply not a serious rewrite of the code and except for the extended use of memory nothing more but a marketing gimmick.
I wouldn’t put it that way. After all these years, you really don’t think Adobe would be able to convert a few thousand custom core libraries (format I/O, rasterization engine, PDF, text engine etc.) to the same level of optimization on 64bit overnight, would you? Sure, there’s potential everywhere, but as you said yourself: there must not necessarily be any added end-user value. The only area I really see screaming for some more 64bit power is the whole 3D stuff, which could greatly benefit, but beyond that? Is it really so important to have some filters run even faster, if it makes perhaps another nano fraction of speed, which the user won’t even notice?
Mylenium
As have been stated many times before 64-bit is NOT going to magically make programs running faster. 64-bit givens you access to more memory which will really only make a difference when working with large images. I don’t know why people feel that because they have more bits that all of a sudden stuff is going to run like the wind. Doesn’t happen. Slower that is possible especially with dual video cards if they are linked like SLI or something like that. I have dual ATI Radeon 1650 cards but I don’t link them (I don’t do games), I use them to power 3 monitors. I also don’t use 64-bit at this time, I am still lacking some important drivers, etc.
Robert
Staying the hell away from HD scratch is worth much more than 10^-9 seconds gain, Mylenium.
That’s assuming PS was build to not do it. Scratch disks and display tiles are a fundamental principle of the program and I don’t consider them a workaround for anything. You know, over in the video apps forums we poor souls have been begging for years that After Effects would be half as smart as PS in that regard. I also tend to think that your alleged "do it all in RAM" would fall apart as soon as you begin to deal with a number of images and document sizes that exhaust that RAM. One might say that in foreseeable time RAM will be so dirt cheap, that 32GB machines will be commonplace even for home users, but it’s not there yet. And then it’s the question: Do I burn 1000 Watts of electricity even in idle state just to work on a monster machine with lots of RAM or do I use just 300 Watts on a normal system with a scratch disk and energy saving options. It’s the same gag as with multicore processors or those monstrous graphics cards (Quadro CX, anyone?): the marketing may tell you, you need those things, but it must not necessarily do anything for your personal workflow. Those arguments really have no value if this Quadro CX has nothing to do most of the time or of 16 cores only 1 barely even peaks while you paint and likewise you wouldn’t need those tons of RAM, if all you ever do is adjusting a few photos from digital cameras. You have to differentiate between "average" users and extreme "power users", but nowhere is it written that 1% of power users must or can dictate what’s good for the 99% other users, a dilemma software devs face every day… I would tend to think that 64bit and its possible advantages are in fact very low on the list for those 99% of users, but other things are much more important to them.
Mylenium
So to get back to the original point. I have a similar system and notice that CS4 is extremely slow, to the point of being unusable. Any pop up windows or anything else to do with the interface is fine, but anything that causes a change to the main viewport like brush strokes or moving with the Hand tool is awful. Like I make 4 quick swipes with the brush tool and my stylus and counted 4-5 seconds between me lifting the stylus away and the strokes on screen finishing.
Sounds like video driver.
My video driver was updated yesterday and nVidia released it like 3 days ago. My system info: Vista Ultimate x64, Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz, GeForce 8800 GTS, 4GB RAM
I tired it on my laptop too and the laptop is smooth as silk. Laptop info: Vista Home Prem x86, Core 2 Duo, 1.5 GHz, GeForce 8600M GS, 2GB RAM
……power users must or can dictate what’s good for the 99% other users….
Wrong. Especially if you replace "Dictate" with "Drive".
Phil, is your computer new or are you running CS4 on an older machine? Can/have you run say CS3 on that machine with no such problems?
The reason I am asking is that I encountered similar problems on my machine with CS3, and it was traceable to video, but not the card; it was the PCIE slot that was bad. At the moment I have a PCI video card in it(ugh!) and soon I’ll be building a new machine.
Well I built the machine about a year ago (almost exactly). CS3 has no problems at all. I am a 3D artist so I use a lot of 3D applications like LightWave and 3D Coat without any problems either.
Brush lag is always an issue in PS ( whatever version ). I’ve never really resolved it although it has got better – my system ( q9650, 16gb ram, vista x64, 8800gts 640mb ) can just about cope with around 1/2 sec lag – I think RAM is the issue as I noticed the lag a lot more when I was using 4gb RAM. But this was on large files.
I don’t see it or I don’t recognize it, and I am on a single core 2GHz processor. To be sure, I opened a 35M 16 bit file and ran the brush around. No lag whatsoever. And this on a PCI video card where I can see a lag when moving the image frame around. It stutters across the field, at maybe a 5 to 10Hz frame rate.
Mylenium siad "I wouldn’t put it that way. After all these years, you really don’t think Adobe would be able to convert a few thousand custom core libraries (format I/O, rasterization engine, PDF, text engine etc.) to the same level of optimization on 64bit overnight, would you?"
Why do you think I assumed that? The reason why I mentioned it (and btw, I have been a professional programmer for years) is to make people aware of that. I’m pretty sure that over 95% of the people assume that the software was totally rewritten for 64 bit, I base that on the overwhelming reactions of people who assume that the software will now run much faster in 64 bit.
wings, I would hope that it was totally rewritten, but I wouldn’t hold my breath!
The Adobe engineers knew that speed increases would not be staggering and would only show at all for certain tasks. See the blogs.
But it’s a nice feeling to be running a 64bit program on a 64bit OS in spite of that.
Ok guys I spent nearly 2 days trying different video/Photoshop/Windows settings and I think I finally found a solution to my original problem. Phil try this as it seemed to fix tremendously.
First thing I did was I in:
My Computer/Properties/Advanced System Settings/Performance Settings/Advanced
Under Processor Scheduling, make sure "Adjust for best performance" is set to BACKGROUND SERVICES, not Programs. (I’m assuming this directly affects things like scratch disks and RAM usage, but hey it worked).
That by itself seemed to make a noticeable difference.
Then in my Photoshop performance preferences, I kept cranking up my "Let Photoshop Use" setting anywhere from 60% to 85% of RAM. I also had my cache settings between 6-8 or so.
So just for the hell of it, I turned the RAM usage down to 40% and my cache levels to 3. The 4 second delay when using brushes is gone. The slow redraws when moving layers around are also gone. Basically Photoshop is performing at levels I originally expected when upgrading.
Try that and let me know if that fixes things, and if you’ve been able to make other tweaks for even better performance.
Did you mention the My Computer part before? I read that somewhere and tried it and saw no difference. Unfortunately I just tried everything you just said and saw no difference. Glad you saw an improvement though. Here’s a video:
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http://screencast.com/t/ajlwuion>
You must have very different configuration from mine.
I set the RAM to the top of the range PS recommended which was 5198MB.
No problemo!
Phil, I just looked at your video and you must restart PS for the changed settings to work. By the way that IS a serious lag you have there. What are your brush settings. For best results I will uncheck everything ( smoothing, dual brush …etc ) and see how it works.
Dual brush can really slow things down….
I am able to see the difference in changes without restarting, they just don’t change enough. I didn’t have anything fancy going on with the brush. Size jitter was set to Pen Pressure and Smoothing was on. I found a small amount of scattering was applied too, I never touched that so it must have been on by default. I turned it all off and didn’t see any difference. Thanks though.
BTW It’s funny that the Scattering check box was off but it was still visually scattering in the stroke. Does the percentage slider not listen to the check box?
