CS4 Extended uses wrong graphic card

Hi there,

I have 2 graphiccards here on my system ( 3 monitor ) a 8400GS and a 8800GT. Photoshop runs on my primary monitor connected to the 8800GT. When I look into the performance settings for the GPU there my 8400GS is listed. How can I change that to the 8800 card?

Regards,
Matthias

Which monitor does Windows see as the primary monitor?

The primary monitor is the "SyncMaster 226BW connected to NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT" according to the display properties.

Regards Matthias

Hmmm...I think I would just disconnect the 8400, see what happens, and take it from there. Maybe it switches cards because there is a problem with the 8800?

Hi,

when I disconnect the 8400 the 8800 is recognized correctly. When I reactivite it, the 8400 is used again.

Also the performance is much better when the 8800 is used. But it is no option disableing the second card when I use photoshop.

Then it must have something to do with priority. Both PCI-e x16? I think if you have a second PCI-e connector it might be x8, and the x16 will take precedence. Try switching them physically.

EDIT: Or failing that, there might be a way to set priority in BIOS.

Wich card is the most recent? (both by release date, and installed on your PC)

Hi,

both PCE-X are x16. However I switched the cards. The 8800GT is no in PCI-E (2) the 8400GT in PCE-E (1).
It is now recognized correctly from CS 4 Extended.

The cards were installed at the same time.

Thanks. So if anyone has the same problem this is how to fix it.

Matthias

Strange. But no matter as long as it works... :-)

I would also think you just could have "removed" the cards from your device manager and have Windows scan for them again. Assigning new device ID's in reverse order might have just yielded the result you desired.

Mylenium

I'll test that and let you know.

No, it does not work. When I uninstall the cards and driver and place them as it was at first, same problem. Change them, all fine.

Hmm, Photoshop asks the system drivers what GPU is active. Somehow it is returning the wrong one.

Can I change this on my own?

Hi,

here some news about it.
Due a unexpected system crash I had to reinstall Vista. It was installed with the 8800GT in PCIE-X1 ( installing Vista with 2 graphiccards causes errors ) the second card was physically disconnected, current drivers installed.
CS4E installed afterwards. Card recognized correctly.
The 8400GS was now installed in PCIE-X2. CS4E uses now the 8400GS again not the primary 8800GT. However I have to place the cards in the original way because I got errors from some other programs with the primary card pluged into the PCIE-X2.

Maybe there is another solution.

Well one way to avoid video card issues when you have two video cards is to make sure they are both identical cards. Myself I use two ATI Radeon 1650 Pro cards. This is information more for anyone thinking about going two video cards. It is much easier to do two the exact same than try to mix and match even within the same brand. As for "malojo" this doesn't help him one little tidbit.

Robert

Check your bios settings for the graphics cards - there should be an option to set one in sequence before the other. That may help.

I've found that option. And what happens when I change it is the following. The secondary adapter is now used as boot device ( it's the 8400GS ). Photoshop recognizes the 8800 GT as primary graphic adapter ( attention the 8400GS was set to primary and was used while booting ).
Now some other applications crash getting the weak 8400 as primary.

To show you in detail here some screens.
At first a mainboard overview where you can see the position of the pci ports.

< http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mainboardlayoutrn1. jpg>

The next picture shows how they are connected physically. The 8800GT in PCEIX 16 (1 ) - the upper port, the 8400GS in the lower 2nd.

So you agree that they are plugged in properly.

< http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=realmainboardeu9.jp g>

The next picture shows you the display properties and PS Performance Dialog when the 8800GT is the primary boot device ( so bios dialog and windows bootscreen is shown on the 8800GT.

< http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=primarysettobootyk7 .jpg>

And the last picture shows what happens when the secondary 8400GS is set to primary boot device. PS now recognizes the 8800GT as primary but it is secondary. Bios dialog and windows bootscreen where shown on the 8400GS.

< http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=secondarysettobootk d9.jpg>

In this configuration some apps cause errors because of the low specs of the 8400GT primary.

I have here also some other apps running ( f.e. Autodesk 3dsmax ). They recognize the cards correct. I've never had any problems until PS4Extended.

So any additional ideas what I can do?

One thing I notice from your screenshots is you apparently haven't installed the monitor driver for #1 (since it just says Standard plug'n'play).

But I have no idea if that makes any difference. Just shooting from the hip.

Hi,
driver installed. No change at all.

OK, I'm just about out of ideas, but that certainly makes CS4 look to be the culprit, not the computer or setup. Time for someone with a more intimate knowledge of the programming to step in here, perhaps?

One last possible workaround - as your other programs seem to be able to identify the card in PCIEX16-1 correctly, maybe try swapping the cards (8800GT in slot 2, 8400 in slot 1)) and then reversing the order of boot-up in the bios so that slot 2 boots first?

Maybe your other programs will be clever enough to recognise slot 1 as the secondary card then, because CS4 seems to want to think that slot 2 is the primary.

Hi Fred,

thanks for the hint. I tried it.
I did the following steps:

1. 8800GT was plugged into PCIX 16 (2)
2. 8400GS was plugged into PCIX 16 (1)
3. Graphicadapter boot priority changed to PCIX 16 (2).
4. Windows boots with 8800GT in PCIX 16 (2)
5. Windows connects correct drivers to the devices.
6. CS4Extended was started. Performance settings display the 8400GS again.

I did now all what I could do and I have really no idea in what way CS4E is effected. Maybe its only a display feature and the card internally works.
But I am not sure about that because I have an average framerate from 10 moving a 40000 Poly model( a created box about 12 ) where I can move it smoothly in 3dsmax with AA and AI 16x.

Regards,

Matthias

Time for someone from Adobe to put in an idea here, then. It makes no sense to me at all that CS4 behaves like this.

No additional ideas at all? :(

Regards,
Matthias

Here an update.
While within the performance tab the 8400GS is registered the "System Info" tab shows something different the 8800GT.

Operating System: Windows Vista 32-bit
Version: 6.0 Service Pack 1
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:7, Stepping:7 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2 Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2671 MHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Video Mode: 1280 x 1024 x 4294967296 Farben **(!)
Video Card Driver: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll
Driver Version: 7.15.11.7824
Built-in memory: 3070 MB
Free memory: 1284 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 1697 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 88 %
Image cache levels: 4

The Video mode is registerd wrong. The primary monitor uses 1680x1440

something I have noticed on both the Mac side and this side is that CS4 does not like two different video cards.

Hi,
an update. As the current driver 180.48 doesn't support my 8400GT any longer I changed the 2nd card to 8800GS with 384 MB.
And you now what? Surprise. Performance inside PS is now a lot better and I definitly now know that CS4E uses the wrong card at all!So it must be a CS4E problem.
My primary card is 8800gt and 512MB Resolution 1680x1050 secondare 8800gs 384 MB. 1200x1024

Attached the system settings report inside CS4E.
Pay attention to the regonized card 8800GT but with the 1200x1024 resolution. Also look at the availibly vram:

Total VRAM 402,653,184 bytes which is 384 MB. This is the memory

amount the secondary card has.

So Adobe, can you confirm this?

Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2671 MHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Video Mode: 1280 x 1024 x 4294967296 Farben
Video Card Driver: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll
Driver Version: 7.15.11.8048
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++ CONTEXT INITIALIZING +++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Detecting WGL Context: context created (HDC = 0xE1011D42 HGLRC = 0x00010000)

--------------------------------
Rendering OffScreen, sharing Photoshop GL context
Detecting WGL Context: context created (HDC = 0xE1011D42 HGLRC = 0x00010000)

.... Initializing Extensions... ... GLEW ... OK!
OK!
----------------------------
* OpenGL Information *
-----------------------------
Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Version: 2.1.2
Renderer: GeForce 8800 GT/PCI/SSE2
----------------------------
* HARDWARE CAPABILITIES *
----------------------------
+++ OpenGL 1.2 - supported!
+++ OpenGL 1.3 - supported!
+++ OpenGL 1.4 - supported!
+++ OpenGL 1.5 - supported!
+++ OpenGL 2.0 - supported!
+++ OpenGL 2.1 - supported!
+++ ARB Vertex Programs - supported!
+++ ARB Fragment Programs - supported!
+++ GLSL vertex shaders - supported!
+++ GLSL fragment shaders - supported!
+++ FrameBufferObject - supported!
+++ Texture Rectangles - supported!
+++ Cube Maps - supported!
+++ Floating Point Textures - supported!
+++ Occlusion query - supported!
+++ Multisampling - supported!
+++ Point Sprites - supported!
+++ Non Power-Of-Two - supported!
+++ Vertex Buffer Objects - supported!
----------------------------
----------------------------
Maximum regular texture units = 4
Maximum COMBINED texture units = 32
Maximum VERTEX texture units = 32
Maximum FRAGMENT texture units = 32
Maximum draw buffers number = 8
Maximum UNIFORM float parameters per VERTEX program = 4096 Maximum UNIFORM float parameters per FRAGMENT program = 2048 Maximum VARYING float parameters for VERTEX->FRAGMENT = 60 Maximum float ATTRIBUTES for VERTEX program = 16
Maximum texcoord sets = 8
--
Point Drawing
--------------------------
Aliased point size range = [1.00000, 63.00000]
Smooth point size range = [1.00000, 63.37500]
Smooth point size granularity = 0.12500
---
Line Drawing
--------------------------
Aliased line width range = [1.00000, 10.00000]
Smooth line width range = [0.50000, 10.00000]
Smooth line width granularity = 0.12500

Total VRAM 402,653,184 bytes