Does it grey out every single time you check preferences having launched PS? Might sound like an odd question, but I've found on my own system (running an ATI 5850 Radeon with Catalyst 12.3) that it usually does have OpenCL checked, but occasionally it becomes greyed out. I just can't understand what's causing OpenCL to randomly become unavailable on an officially supported card with an up to date driver (but not quite the very latest version, because as Noel says, this is broken). Anyway, this may be of no help to you directly, but at least it shows that you’re not alone in experiencing OpenCL issues… I’m hoping future driver updates will make things more stable.

M

Same problem, but I have ATI HD5450 running on Win7 64 bit/Web Premium CS6 with latest catalyst drivers (previous 2 versions also failed). Anybody managed to find the solution?

Thanks for confirming this Chris. Hopefully the next ATI driver update (seemingly delayed, as they were saying that 12.5 would be released in late May) will fix this then.

Always a bit dubious of using beta drivers GarySki... But as the beta is now 12.6, makes me wonder if 12.5 has been abandoned altogether.

M

Thanks for the info Noel. Interesting...

M

A beta driver is not a completely untried/untested, but an update to the previous drivers to add features or fix bugs and needs testing by real users before releasing a final version; no different than Adobe releasing the CS6 beta, which I used without difficulty except for the non-beta drivers released by AMD/ATI. After rolling back my graphics drivers to the 12.2 version, I used the CS6 beta without issues. Dip your toes in the beta waters, the worst that can happen is you will have to roll back your drivers.

You need not uninstall, but use the Windows feature to restore the previous version of a driver from control panel - a "selective" restore operation, if you will. I've used it many times without is issues, but then again, your mileage . . .

I'm using the 12.6 drivers

amdocl.dll opencl 1.1 4/5/2012 10:32pm file version 10.0.923.1 12,703KB

amdocl64.dll opencl 1.1 4/5/2012 10:33pm file version 10.0.923.1 16,072KB

Chris Cox wrote:

 

There is no way to activate it manually -- it's deactivated because the driver has a serious problem.  Forcing it active would just expose you to the problems in the driver.

I gather, then, that once the GPU Sniffer—or whatever it's called—crashes, its reaction is final.  Or something like that?  I'm trying to use the terminology found in the Photoshop System Info off the top of my head.

Something that might help explain the inconsistency / intermittency is to remember that the GPU isn't just a hunk of silicon sitting there quietly waiting for you to give it work to do.  It also runs your computer display all the while you're starting Photoshop, editing images, etc.  On a Windows system, for example, besides moving data around for display on one or more monitors, all the little animations, Aero transparency, drop shadows - even the entire content of your Internet Explorer windows - are done by GPU programming.

The display subsystem has the complexity of an entire operating system in itself.  I was noticing the ATI driver updates are now getting closer to 200 megabytes each.

-Noel

In case anybody is still stuck with this issue I have found than when running PS CS6 on Win 7 64bit I need to run the 64bit version for the "Use OpenCL" option to become available. If I run the 32bit version then the "Use OpenCL" option is greyed out.

BTW I think that even though the Use OpenCL option is greyed out when running the 32 bit version of PS CS6 on a 64bit system I suspect openCL is still working if you have enabled it in the 64bit version.