CS so slow on a fast hardware!

janshim · 02-23-2004, 10:10 AM

Hello,

I rcently installed PS CS on my Dell Inspiron 8500 notebook, a P4 2.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 64Mb GeForce 4 4200 (15.4" WUXGA+ 1680x1050), Hitachi 60GB 7,200rpm disk, DVD+RW and it so unbelievably slow. I cannot even do a simple Elliptical Marquee without having to wait ages (a lot of disk I/O activity). The settings of CS are at default. It's completely put me off this software-am I missing something here?

Jan

theKeeper · 02-23-2004, 02:06 PM

Hi Jan, welcome to the community. Hope you enjoy your stay.

If you're using the default setup for PS then my first advice would be to change the scratch disk location if that's possible. Generally, Photoshop doesn't like sharing the same disk as the operating system. So if possible, set the scratch disk to either a separate partition, or better yet, a separate hard drive.

As well... make sure you're giving PS at least 70% resources. These settings are both if the Prefs under the EDIT menu.

See how these work and let us know. [righton]

MsOz · 02-23-2004, 02:30 PM

You'll also find that CS does run slow, because there is a subprocess running that analyzes content. This is part of the anti-counterfeiting code that Adobe incorporated in the CS suite.
There is no fix for it.

Welles · 02-23-2004, 04:45 PM

While I was rather incensed how Adobe added the stealth Digimarc code requested by the consortium of international bankers to 'deter counterfitting,' it isn't really responsible for the slowdowns which people are experiencing except at the moment of opening a file. It isn't actually the reason for the slowness of the programs functions. According to Chris Cox, an Adobe engineer whose word I happen to trust, the Digimarc code delays opening images by only a fraction of a second.

The biggest single issue is that so much information is paged off to the scratch disk, as Mark pointed out. Much more than PS7. This results in a virtual necessity for a second hard drive for the scratch disk volume in order to keep a reasonable performance. I do expect this issue will be addressed somewhat in a PS upgrade to 8.0.1 as performance is one of the major complaints about CS. I call it Photoshop BW (BloatWare). \:]