cs4 brush lag – problem solved

RW
Posted By
Rudolph_Wijburg
Jan 1, 2009
Views
825
Replies
15
Status
Closed
I downloaded the evaluation version of Photoshop CS4. Like many others, I found it unusable. The main problem was an enormous lag in using the brush: when painting, I had to wait for several seconds to see the result.

I tried all suggestions: update drivers for graphics adapter, update DirectX, hacking the registry, deactivating antivirus software…. No matter what I did, with or without OpenGl drawing activated: the brush was terribly slow, unusable really…

So I gave up and went back to CS3: works like a charm, no problem. A shame though, and regretting some nice CS4 features.

Wanted to give it 1 more try, and this time looked at some BIOS stuff. Tried a few things with no luck UNTIL ….. enabling palette snooping. That did it: CS4 flies, no more lag….. feels even a bit faster than CS3.

Asus M2V motherboard with Athlon 64 X2 3800 and AMI BIOS, NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT graphics adapter, Windows XP pro with SP3, 2 GB of RAM

Hope this will help others !

Happy New Year, Gelukkig Nieuwjaar, Bonne Année,

Rudolph Wijburg (Dutch, living in France)

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CF
chris_farrell
Jan 1, 2009
Enabling Palette snooping? A quick google found that this is for really old ISA vga cards…..I wonder how it affects performance of new gpu’s.

Still, if it works for you and helps others that’s a GREAT call there Rudolph.
RW
Rudolph_Wijburg
Jan 1, 2009
yes, isn’t it amazing? I don’t see any relation with the openGL stuff, it was just trying everything I could think of and then a bit more than that… + some luck I guess…. but it works fine ! My computer and graphics card are about 2 years old.
DN
David_Nicol
Jan 2, 2009
Er…can you provide instructions? Where and how does one enable palette snooping in BIOS? I’m willing to give it a try.
RW
Rudolph_Wijburg
Jan 2, 2009
This depends on your BIOS. When booting press F2 or delete. In the bios config screens go to something like "PCI/PnP setup". There you should find this option. By default it is disabled. Enable it, press F10 to save changes and reboot. Good luck !
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 2, 2009
note you can disable your machine if you do the wrong thing in bios.
CF
chris_farrell
Jan 2, 2009
Making adjustments to the bios can be risky….if you run into problems you can reset it via the clearCMOS jumper on the motherboard.

I checked my Asus P5Q deluxe, out of curiousity, and it doesn’t have the snooping palette setting. No biggie as my system runs well with CS4.
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 2, 2009
you can reset it via the clearCMOS jumper on the motherboard.

if you have the manual and know where the jumper is. might be worth finding before fiddling if you’re not 200% comfortable…
CF
chris_farrell
Jan 2, 2009
Definitely right there, Dave
M
martinkrz
Jan 3, 2009
Please see my post about addressing lag by turning off desktop composition in Vista.

<http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b76966/0>
DN
David_Nicol
Jan 3, 2009
On second thought, now I’m scared off from making changes to BIOS. As for the "solution" regarding Aero in Vista…well, I and the three others I know who have terrible performance with Photoshop CS4 are all running Windows XP SP3. It is definitely not so simple as being a Vista/Aero problem.
RD
Ray_Daley
Jan 30, 2009
I Feel everyones pain!!!!

After using Photoshop CS4 since it’s release with virtually no issues and really enjoying the new features I started Photoshop this morning and experienced all of the issues in this thread!
Extremely slow and lagging brushes.
Jittery Zoom tool operation.
Text – very slow! I could type a 5 letter word and sit back in my chair and wait for it to catch up!
etc. etc.

If this would have been like this when I installed I would have immediately reverted back to CS3, completely unacceptable!

Turns out Microsoft update installed a new set of NVIDIA drivers!

I went to the NVIDIA site and downloaded the latest drivers, installed them and now everything is good again.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (2400 MHz) Operating System: Windows Vista (TM) Ultimate, 32-bit (Service Pack 1) DirectX version: 10.0
GPU processor: GeForce 8500 GT
Driver version: 181.22
Total available graphics memory: 1790 MB
Dedicated video memory: 512 MB
System video memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 1278 MB
Video BIOS version: 60.86.48.00.16
DE
David_E_Crawford
Jan 30, 2009
Ray,
Make sure you change the windows install update settings to let you choose to download and install. Otherwise you will be going thru your whole process again.
LH
Les_Helgeson
Feb 1, 2009
Rudolph, thanks for the tip! I, too am running an Asus board (Intel based P4C800-E Deluxe) with an ISA graphics card (Asus N6800).

According to the BIOS Setup section of the User Guide: "When set to enabled, the pallete snooping feature informs the PCI devices that an ISA graphics device is installed in the system so that the latter can function correctly". Pallete Snooping is disabled by default.

I believe this explains why Open GL does not function properly on some systems. Why this feature is disabled by default on boards with non-integrated video is strange, though.

BTW, BIOS changes are no big deal if you have a Users Guide and a reasonable degree of reading comprehension. If not, ask someone who does that can assist you. Asus tech support is first class.
HH
Hugh Hansard
Feb 3, 2009
Interested that snooping works on this issue. It is really a board-level BIOS setting and should not be visible to PS in it’s interaction with OGL. Can you provide HW specifics?
HH
Hugh Hansard
Feb 3, 2009
As a side note, snooping is independent from OGL. The Engineering team is working the OGL and lag issues. Progress has been made.

Beta 2 (which I think folks can get upon request) is quite a bit more OGL friendly, but it does not cure all. I (for one) can not use OGL without a steep performance hit. Everyone needs to know their OGL level and compliance. AE ships with a compliance checker. I would think that it could be a download from Adobe — or maybe some shareware site. You really need OGL 2.1 or above. If not, game over –> just bite the bullet and get a new card.

H

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