Thread: photoshop cs4 slowing down

Since the problem has been growing, my first suspect would be hard drive trouble. Have you defragmented lately?

Another possibility is a corrupted preferences file. To recreate the preferences, hold down ctrl-alt-shift while launching Photoshop.

I can't think of anything else that would creep up on you gradually like that, but I do know that the new OpenGL acceleration has been known to cause significant slowdowns. That can be turned off in Edit > Preferences > Performance.

oh yes, I have tried removing the opengl, i probably should have mentioned that already.

Defragmenting should not be an issue (it gets done every few months whether I need to or not, I'll run it through anyhow to see). I will try the preferences rebuild, thanks.

Doesn't seem to be happening on the laptop yet, but that won't help since it doesn't have enough ram to work with the files I'm using for the latest set of maps.

Maybe cs3 will work better.

I still use plain ole CS but I get slow downs from 3 things:
1 lots of patterns, brushes, styles, etc loaded into the presets
2 lots of layers
3 not allowing PS to use enough hard drive space because it is pretty full

Buying a new pc with a larger hard drive fixed number 3 but I still get the problems due to 1 and 2 so I remove presets every few months and flatten things when done with them...although I'm sure you know about these work-arounds as well. BTW, guess I'll wait until CS5

Go to sys internals and get their process viewer which gives the cpu use and the interrupt use. Theres three numbers to look at. The cpu use on the app. The number of interrupts and DPC's and third the number of page faults.

Also, does the slowdown get better when any network cable is unplugged ?

Id also run memtest86 too.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896653.aspx
http://www.memtest86.com/

Oh yeah - ensure your backed up to a different HDD ! It might be imminently going to fail.

Oh yeah part 2. I just remembered, Intel chips slow down drastically when they get too hot. Check that your CPU fan has not stopped turning. Get a CPU temp monitor or just run it up and touch the heatsink. If you get burnt then its too hot Seriously tho, chips run to about 100 deg C and then start slowing down so it would have to be pretty hot.

Did you turn on the advanced options to use open GL? The rotate feature is nice but those advanced options were causing mine to chug. When I get home I can show you the boxes to uncheck that speeds it up.

Ok, nap is done, I'm refreshed and ready to tackle the problems...

presets - yes, this occured to me as I was drifting off, thanks for reminding. I'm also going to get a fons manager program I used to use so I can load them onl as I need them (i don't recall the name right now, but you could preview them in the viewer, load them or remove them dynamically, and see the effects immediately in photoshop - that was useful). I realized i have more custom patterns than I thought, so i'll start savng those and closing them out when i don't need them. Hopefully tht's the primary issue.

OpenGL: as i stated, I've turned off the opengl. i don't need sleek fancy eyecandy effects, I want functional. Non of the openGL "enhancements" seem to fit my bill for "moe functional than not" considering i have no use whatsoever for the 3d stuff, and the rest of the "it does this with opengl enabled" all appears to be stuff I can liv without just fine. I have done everything within my power to ensure that the gpu options are not and continue to not be accessed by photoshop. That was the main reason for slowdown on 95% of the results i found in the google search, and the first thing I tried.

Lots of layers don't seem the be the issue, i've tested in files with as little as 1 background layer. I originally thought that WAS the issue (600+ layers in one file, woot)

Space shouldn' be an issue either, with a terabyte drive for scratch

The heat issues, possibly. the fan is working ok, it's a variable speed fan, and it cranks up to levels where I can hear it clearly. I've taken apart the machine recently (about 2 weeks ago) and vacuumed the heck out of it to remove dust, so that shouldn't be the issue. Still I need to monitor the temp and see what it's doing, thanks for the suggestions.

I've checked the memory settings, but not the interrupts, I'll take a peek. And the network cable.. tht one will b a bit of a hassle, the back of the machone is not particularly accessible unless all the cables are unplugged so i can emove it - still, worth a try (d'oh, i can unplug the cable from the router end.. )

And backups, good idea. What's the use of a Tb drive if I don't back up

Well, if these don't solve it, I'm downgrading to CS3. My supplier is very understanding and accomodating, so we'll see what happens.

Thanks for th suggestions, I'll let you know how it goes.

apologies for the typos, I'm still waking up, heh

Well, removing the fonts and patterns seems to help, and the images are going fine as long as I'm careful with the layers. This completely cramps my style however, as I tend to be very layer heavy, and don't like losing anything in case I need to go back and edit - for example, changing the font on the map with all 200+ towns and features needing done.

I suppose what I'll have to do is work in 7 like I used to, and then if I need something done that only cs4 can do (warp text paths, etc) I'll switch over with a new document and export it back.

Blah, i thought the whole point was to make things smoother.

I tired CS4 and did not like it one bit... went right back to CS3 and never ever regretted it.

Hope you get this worked out positively.

My prayers to the Silicon Avatar are with you