Adobe Community: Brushes Stokes Lag Severely, CS6

Lady Kaguya

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Brushes Stokes Lag Severely, CS6

Jun 28, 2012 11:52 AM

Tags: #photoshop #help #adobe #delay #lag #brush #slow #cs6 #strokes

Things that I have tried:

Updated to the latest tablet driver
Updated to the latest adobe patch
Updated to the latest GPU driver
Set to 'Basic', in Graphic Processor Settings
Completely unchecked Graphic Processor Settings
Closed out of all programs/processes
restarted computer multiple times
cleaned computer of any possible virus threats
Thoroughly have read various FAQs/other members threads here or elsewhere on the Internet

My system:

Windows 7 Proffesional (32bit)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.10GHz

4.00 GBs RAM

Geforce 9600 GT

Wacom Tablet, intuos4

Notes:

It lags significantly--huge problem for a illustrator, it makes it completely unusable. If I do a quick stroke, or multiple ones for colouring/so forth, it can take a good 3-10sec lag.
Everything else in PS seems to run fine. Start up is semi-quick, files load/save, filters work, etc. All at the same pace I was used to when I used CS2. Except brush strokes.
Other programs I got (Illustrator, Flash, etc) work fine. When I use brush/mouse for those, it does not lag.
It will lag even if I use my mouse.
The smaller the document/brush size, the better it works. However I cannot compromise with that, as I usually have to work big or use large brushes.
I only use one graphics card

I'm drawing to the conclusion that my GPU is either too outdated or is not properly supported. I can understand a lag at high resolution, but it was doing this at even a small one, e.g. 1000px by 1000px. Though I know I don't have the fanciet of computers, I was almost sure I met the requirements.

If anyone can help, that would be great.

6349 Views 36 Replies Latest reply: brad5151, Aug 14, 2012 1:11 PM

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1. Noel Carboni,

Jun 28, 2012 12:20 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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While display driver glitches can, I'm pretty sure, break just about anything, I don't think the painting/brushing process in general uses the GPU much.

Have you checked for updated display drivers from nVidia.com? I ask because some folks check Microsoft.com and those would be almost certainly outdated.

FYI, I can't invoke any noticeable lag in a 1000 x 1000 pixel image, even with a brush almost as big as the image, so it's not a systemic problem with Photoshop CS6.

-Noel

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2. Noel Carboni,

Jun 28, 2012 12:21 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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One other thing... What do you have your Brush Spacing value set to?

-Noel

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3. Noel Carboni,

Jun 28, 2012 12:30 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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I lied - two other things... Are you using the Mixer Brush, and if so are you using Sample All Layers?

-Noel

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4. Lady Kaguya,

Jun 28, 2012 2:16 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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I just realized I had some awkward typos on the topic page. Apologies.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is suspicious. I can understand if I had a outrageously huge canvas or some such, but a lot of times I don't even use the specific tools that may require a lot of GPU/Memory until the end of the drawing or when I do graphic design specific stuff, but not when I'm just drawing with a brush tool.

Anyway:

- I get all my display drivers directly from nVidia, not through Microsoft.
- Brush spacing value is set to 2% with the round point stiff; 25% with plain round (haven't fully tested out custom brushes yet)
- I have been using a regular brush--though I just tried my hand at the Mixer, and it lags as well

just something of note, with the 'Plain Round', it doesn't lag (I just realized this). With the fancier Round Point stiff, it does. I upgraded from CS2 so I am way out of the loop with the fancier stuff. Why can't I seem to be able to use that particular brush, compared to the older one? I obviously upgraded for the reason to use all these new features, it's a shame if I can't, especially since I feel that my computer can handle them (unless I'm wrong at that).

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5. Noel Carboni,

Jun 28, 2012 2:34 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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I don't have a preset brush called "Round Point Stiff", but I have one called "Round Point", with which I can set the stiffness.

Even with the largest size posssible, and with an increased count of bristles, etc. I can't get any visible lag in a 1000 x 1000 pixel 16 bits/channel image.

I have a reasonably modern, powerful workstation, but unless your computer was built 10 years ago I can't imagine going from "no perceptable lag whatsoever" to "3-10 seconds". What I don't have is a tablet, I'm brushing with my mouse.

Just to verify we're on the same page, this is how I'm testing...

I may have misspoke earlier. I don't know for sure that the bristle brushes don't use the GPU. I have a modest Visiontek ATI Radeon HD 5670 1 GB DDR5 video card that's a couple of years old.

-Noel

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6. Lady Kaguya,

Jun 28, 2012 5:47 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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Here's a screenshot of my brushes, and me testing out the brushes:
8x10
With the blue, I tested out my 'Hard Round Brush' (the second one from the top); I don't get too much lag except if I make the brush super large (but still not wher I want it to be but won't be picky). Red I used the seventh one, this one will lag something terrible, even at a small size.

I've tested out a variety of brushes. It seems the 'older ones' work okay, while any that are new (or meant for my tablet?) will completely lag. I'm not sure if this is a pattern though, or if I should test out all my brushes and on different settings.

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7. Zaise,

Jun 28, 2012 11:14 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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I've also been experiencing this or something similar and reported it in someone else's thread who also has. -> PS CS6 Extremely slow and sluggish. Brush tool delay.
Trying to find commonalities, it seems to affect very different systems and software configurations. Both ATI and Nvidia cards, 32 and 64 bit, OS X and Windows. Are you using a SSD?

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8. Chris Cox,

Jun 29, 2012 10:36 AM in reply to Zaise

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Out of curiosity, did any of you seeing a brush slowdown enable "Allow Tool Recording" in the actions palette?

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9. Lady Kaguya,

Jun 30, 2012 8:43 PM in reply to Zaise

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I am 97% sure I am not using a SSD.

As for that AP, just looked over it, and did not see Allow Tool Recording, unless I somehow missed it.

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10. Zaise,

Jul 2, 2012 1:57 AM in reply to Chris Cox

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I don't have it enabled.
I'm currently working on a new document and am experiencing less lags. It's 8 bit Lab instead of 16 bit Lab and ~200MB instead of ~900MB on disk.

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11. Chris Cox,

Jul 2, 2012 9:19 AM in reply to Zaise

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Darn, that would have been too easy an answer (tool recording creates a LOT of data, and can slow down brushing).

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12. Noel Carboni,

Jul 2, 2012 12:02 PM in reply to Chris Cox

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For what it's worth last night I went through a whole BUNCH of brushes and tried a lot of different stuff (basically, all the presets). It all seemed pretty interactive, even with the biggest possible brushes.

Keeping in mind I don't have a tablet, I did notice that changing Spacing to 1% can cause some slowdown over the default 2% - and of course it makes strokes smoother in some cases. At 1% and with the largest possible brush sizes the lag became noticeable, but overall I'd say the worst of the brushes was still pretty responsive. I wouldn't say it pushed things into "unacceptable" territory.

But that got me to thinking - a mouse just moves a cursor. A tablet does other stuff, like changing pressure, brush angle, possibly rotation...

Could using a tablet just generate a LOT more events or at a faster rate than a mouse?

-Noel

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13. Zaise,

Jul 2, 2012 12:33 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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Noel, we're talking about standard behaviour being impaired beyond normal. Slowdown with large and complex brushes is normal, but it's of a different nature. Simple brushes used with a tablet are expected to run smoothly. As I mentioned in the other thread, when I experienced the problem, it also affected very simple brushes, and even made opening a menu in photoshop visibly laggy. My problem may be different from the one described by the thread starter.
I'm not sure, but keeping within my RAM limit, the problem may not be appearing. Slower performance is of course expected when exceeding RAM, but it never presented in the way it seems to now. If anything, I expected faster performance after installing an SSD and more RAM.

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14. iwouldntknow,

Jul 2, 2012 5:53 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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Noel Carboni wrote:

For what it's worth last night I went through a whole BUNCH of brushes and tried a lot of different stuff (basically, all the presets). It all seemed pretty interactive, even with the biggest possible brushes.

Keeping in mind I don't have a tablet, I did notice that changing Spacing to 1% can cause some slowdown over the default 2% - and of course it makes strokes smoother in some cases. At 1% and with the largest possible brush sizes the lag became noticeable, but overall I'd say the worst of the brushes was still pretty responsive. I wouldn't say it pushed things into "unacceptable" territory.

But that got me to thinking - a mouse just moves a cursor. A tablet does other stuff, like changing pressure, brush angle, possibly rotation...

Could using a tablet just generate a LOT more events or at a faster rate than a mouse?

-Noel
it won't really replicate the same thing it if you're not using a tablet, because pressure sensitivity adds a whole other layer of complexity to everything the brush is doing.

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15. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 3, 2012 10:50 AM in reply to iwouldntknow

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oh this is torture, i just want to draw away on this pretty new photoshop, and it's just not working. not good for waiting clients too. i think i've tried everything.

and just for the record on my part, I tried using brushes with a mouse, and I still had the exact same problem.

since i'm out of the loop with the new features, what is this allow tool recording deal anyway? i'm not sure what to do about that suggestion, honestly

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16. conroy,

Jul 3, 2012 10:59 AM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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In the menu of Actions panel, ensure Allow Tool Recording is not ticked.

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17. Noel Carboni,

Jul 3, 2012 11:01 AM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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Thinking "outside the box"...

You could conceivably throw a little money at the problem, and upgrade to a new video card to replace your aging 9600. I'd suggest a VisionTek ATI Radeon HD 7750 as an example of a good, modern card that's about twice as powerful as your current card, and surely doesn't suffer from the same driver glitches. Or if your computer has a capable power supply and you have a little deeper pocket, the 7850 model is quite a bit more powerful still.

I don't have a 7750 myself, but one of its predecessors, a less powerful 5670. If I'm seeing smooth brush strokes with this card then it's pretty clear ATI cards run painting in Photoshop pretty well.

Of course, this assumes the problem isn't in the tablet driver or something else that will remain invariant.

-Noel

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18. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 3, 2012 4:17 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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Thanks for explaining that^; I just checked, and I do not have it ticked.

I'm leaning to the assumption that it's my card. It should have worked okay, but yes--aging and prone to less assistance when it comes to updates, plus glitches and what not. I have been wanting to upgrade for a long time anyway. I can think of no other options at this time. Though granted, I'm more of a Nividia person, no hard feelings on Radeon. (unless someone wants to encourage the use of a Radeon over Nivida?)

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19. iwouldntknow,

Jul 3, 2012 4:27 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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Lady Kaguya wrote:

Thanks for explaining that^; I just checked, and I do not have it ticked.

I'm leaning to the assumption that it's my card. It should have worked okay, but yes--aging and prone to less assistance when it comes to updates, plus glitches and what not. I have been wanting to upgrade for a long time anyway. I can think of no other options at this time. Though granted, I'm more of a Nividia person, no hard feelings on Radeon. (unless someone wants to encourage the use of a Radeon over Nivida?)
did switching off gpu accelleration make a difference to the tools you're using? i find it's more down to raw cpu horse power rather than gpu for brushstrokes... it may payoff waiting for the little bugfix upgrade photoshop gets a few months after release (if you can)

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20. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 3, 2012 5:14 PM in reply to iwouldntknow

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I did fiddle with the option and it didn't change much--so i guess from that perspective it could just be some rare bug?

I can always tolerate waiting. I still have CS2 to draw. Like I said, all the other options do fine, and even some of the old basic brushes. It just seems like the more advanced ones (meant for the tablet?) cause the drama.

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21. Noel Carboni,

Jul 3, 2012 7:07 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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I prefer ATI over nVidia. I develop OpenGL software and have found the ATI drivers of a higher quality, generally speaking, than nVidia's. You might have an easier time with the software if you buy a newer nVidia card. Sometimes changing brands can be touchy, since one has to go find and ferret out all the old nVidia software before the ATI software will work perfectly.

That said, it may be moot... Iwouldntknow might have a very good point above: I've been tacitly running on the assumption that your system has a fairly powerful CPU and we should be able to compare our systems fairly directly, but though our clock speeds are similar I neglected to notice that you have 1/4 the number of cores I do, and that could make a substantial difference in how quickly things will run. I can't definitely say a video card change would make a big diffference for you in this matter.

-Noel

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22. Noel Carboni,

Jul 3, 2012 7:09 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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Lady Kaguya wrote:

I did fiddle with the option and it didn't change much

Not to belabor the point, but very specifically: Did you close and restart Photoshop after you turned off the [ ] Use graphics processor setting and before testing? That could mask changes you'd otherwise see.

-Noel

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23. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 3, 2012 8:12 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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Noel--yes, I did, multiple times and for each option change I did. Good to think about that, but sadly, already tried.

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24. PECourtejoie,

Jul 4, 2012 1:24 AM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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Lady Kaguyga, what is not standard on your machine? dual screen, is Ps installed at the default location? does an anti-virus run? any other programs?
Does the other who report issues also use AMD processors?

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25. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 4, 2012 8:41 PM in reply to PECourtejoie

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I can't believe I haven't thought what drive it mattered I installed it on. Right now I have it in a non-default area, external drive. I'm assuming that's not the most prefered place to put it?

In terms of other programs, I've tried literally killing almost everything off. I have also tested it out concerning the usability when an anti-virus is on/off.

Might as well try to typical uninstall/reinstall routine, and move it to my main drive.

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26. station_two,

Jul 4, 2012 9:01 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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You should always respect and honor the default installation location.

Adobe applications really want to be installed in their default location on your boot volume, the same volume where your OS resides.

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27. Chris Cox,

Jul 4, 2012 11:21 PM in reply to station_two

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>>> Adobe applications really want to be installed in their default location on your boot volume, the same volume where your OS resides.

If that solves the issue, I'm going to have strong words for somebody in Adobe....

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28. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 5, 2012 10:27 AM in reply to Chris Cox

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I was really hoping it would help, it seemed like the best solution. Sadly, I am still having trouble with the majority of the brushes.

Here is a screencap of the brushes that do not work. There are a few others as well hanging around, but this is the biggest bulk of them. I haven't tried custom yet, but it is frustrating because these are the brushes (I think anyway) that are meant for a tablet, and hence are perfect for my illustration work--but well, lag too horribly for me to use.

I actually found a Radeon card laying around in my house, surprisingly. It's a msi radeon 5450 md1g. I'm pretty sure it's a better card than mine, but not sure by much or if it would do much good?

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29. iwouldntknow,

Jul 5, 2012 10:41 AM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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have you tried exporting the brushes that you work with in cs2 (save tool presets) and imported them into cs6 to see how they run for you (import tool presets)?

also worth checking the preferences/ performance to see if ps is set to use an amount of your ram in the "ideal" range?

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30. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 5, 2012 11:23 AM in reply to iwouldntknow

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the default brushes I normally used in CS2 are also in CS6 and they work fine. Checked out some of my custom brushes as well, and they all work fine besides a bit of lag when they are super large, and that's understandable. For some reason they just don't like these sort of brushes shown in that picture on CS6 (meant to pose as a brush, pen, airbrush, etc).

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31. Lady Kaguya,

Jul 6, 2012 9:42 PM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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Just a update; I'm currently running the Radeon card I found--nothing much has seemed to change. I mean, could be a bad/faulty/cheap card, but seems that the card concern isn't the source of the problem.

I would try next to updgrade other parts, but it confuses me how other people have this program with lower comp stats (unless I'm mistaken) and it seems to work fine for them.

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32. iwouldntknow,

Jul 7, 2012 5:11 AM in reply to Lady Kaguya

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hmmm. all that comes to mind is maybe getting one of those benchmarking apps that tests your whole system. maybe some driver conflict is throttling some component's speed down. perhaps reseat your ram and run memtest. but it really does sound photoshop specific if even your mouse is lagging. if you're seeing lag at 1000x1000 i don't think it could be underpowered hardware.
really the next step up for you hardware wise, would be a 64bit system that'd let you use more than 4gig of ram.
would it be practical for you to swap in a new c drive and reinstal a clean system to see if that fixes it?

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33. Noel Carboni,

Jul 7, 2012 7:01 AM in reply to iwouldntknow

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+1 to iwouldntknow's idea about doing a system benchmark. Perhaps the problem lies in all our assumptions about what kind of performance your system is providing.

I like the Passmark benchmark because it seems pretty thorough, and you can compare scores to many others who have run it. You can run it as a free trial.

http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm

-Noel

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34. brad5151,

Aug 14, 2012 11:37 AM in reply to Noel Carboni

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i am using photoshop cs6 extended on a fast pc with windows 7. when i select "Sample All Layers" and paint a stroke, photoshop slows to a crawl. i get the wait icon and a small stroke can take 2 or 3 seconds to appear. a large stroke can take much longer. this does not happen with photoshop cs5.
i tried turning on and off "use graphics processor" in the preferences (with a restart), but that did not change anything.
i am working with a large document (6300x5100) with 7 layers. but like i said, i can do this in cs5 on the same computer without a problem.
this has to be some sort of bug i think.

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35. iwouldntknow,

Aug 14, 2012 12:14 PM in reply to brad5151

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"sample all layers?" is this the smudge tool rather than a paint brush?
there is definately a bug in the cs6 smudge tool that makes it significantly slower, and it's behaviour different
see here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4317763#4317763

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36. brad5151,

Aug 14, 2012 1:11 PM in reply to iwouldntknow

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sorry. wish i could edit my old post. this is using the "mixer brush tool".

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