CS6 out of memory message

[John_Guastella]

I'm having a problem with my recently installed copy of PS CS6 (with the latest update).

My system:  PC with Intel Core i3-540 (not over-clocked: 3.06GHz) and 4GB RAM running Windows XP SP3.  The graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD5450.

The problem: When I first launch Bridge and CS6, everything is working fine.  But after 10 minutes or so, ACR starts acting up.  Specifically, edits become increasingly sluggish and ultimately the image won't transfer into PS.  Instead, I receive the message: "Could not complete the Open As command because there is not enough memory (RAM)".

I do not have any other programs open (aside from Bridge) when this happens.

I would have thought that 4GB of RAM would be a sufficient amount of memory.

One more point: I am not using the boot drive as the PS scratch drive.

Two more bits of information: (1) I have the Memory Usage slider set to 80%; (2) Cache value is 1,024.

Thanks in advance for any help you folks can provide,

John

[Noel Carboni]

John_Guastella wrote:

I would have thought that 4GB of RAM would be a sufficient amount of memory.

You'd think that, but modern 64 bit systems are often populated with 16 GB or more to provide Photoshop enough breathing room to really sing.

Have you tried it without running Bridge?  I'm not sure what all functions you use from Bridge, but it might be more efficient just to use Explorer to integrate your image file activities.

Also try actually knocking Photoshop's RAM usage DOWN, say to 60%.  Yes, that sounds counterintuitive, but it can help leave more room for plug-ins like Camera Raw.

XP is getting a bit long in the tooth.  As you have seen, most GPU acceleration isn't available with Photoshop CS6 on XP.  Perhaps you might want to start looking at moving to a current OS.  Not sure I can recommend Windows 8 with a clear conscience, but Windows 7 is pretty solid.  A 64 bit OS can actually run Photoshop a little better even in a 4 GB machine than a 32 bit OS.

-Noel

[the_wine_snob]

With XP-Pro, a 32-bit OS, one cannot use a full 4GB of RAM, but then "memory" is not only RAM, but also Windows Virtual Memory, or the Page File.

1. How much RAM do you have allocated to PS?
2. Is your Page File dynamically, or statically managed?
3. What is its size?
4. Where is it located in your HDD's?

Good luck,

Hunt

[John_Guastella]

Noel, Bill: Thanks for your suggestions.  I appreciate that two of the most experienced members of the forum would take the time to try to help me.

Before addressing some of your specific points, I'd like to comment on Noel's suggestion that my computer needs upgrading.  I actually am planning to build a new, Ivy Bridge-based computer specifically for photo and videoprocessing in the next month or two.  However, in the intervening time I had hoped to get some photo processing work done on the current computer.  This expectation seemed completely reasonable based on Adobe's own recommendations for CS6 , which describes three computer specs labeled "Good", "Better" and "Best".  Adobe's recommendations also list XP as a "Good" OS, without indicating that it must be the 64-bit version.  My current computer falls squarely in Adobe's "Good" category, which IMO means the problems I've encountered shouldn't be happening.

Now to the troubleshooting suggestions...

Noel: The default PS RAM usage was set at around 70%.  Increasing that value to 80% or decreasing it to 60% did not solve the problem.  As far as Bridge is concerned, it is an established part of my raw file workflow, so I don't plan on abandoning it.  And neither should I have to, since I've been using Bridge without a problem (with PS CS5) on my ancient 2008 MacBook Pro for nearly two years.

Bill: The Page File currently has "Custom size" selected with the following values: Initial, 2046MB; Max, 4092MB.  The Page File current location is the C: drive (the System drive).  I don't see in the Page File dialogue box the choice of dynamically or statically managing the Page File size.

After spending some more time processing images last night, it seems that the problem is with Camera Raw, and not PS itself.  I opened up multiple psd files in PS and worked on them for an hour without a single hiccup.  In contrast, ACR became sluggish and unusable after working on more than two images (in sequence, not simultaneously), and ultimately ACR simply refused to transfer the image to PS or froze completely.  The only solution was closing and relaunching PS.

John

[the_wine_snob]

John,

While contemplating your new system, and especially as you mention Video editing, this article might be worth a read: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/947698?tstart=90

Also, there is a very active Adobe Hardware Forum, and though much of the material is based on running Premiere Pro, PS will benefit from most of the suggestions. I would post any hardware-related questions to the Adobe Hardware Forum: http://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere/hardware_forum?view=discussions

Good luck,

Hunt

[Noel Carboni]

John_Guastella wrote:

Noel: The default PS RAM usage was set at around 70%.  Increasing that value to 80% or decreasing it to 60% did not solve the problem. 

Just to verify:  Did you make sure and completely shut down Photoshop after making changes to those values?  Don't be afraid to try a more extreme value either, e.g., 50% for Photoshop.  If that does make a difference it would be telling.

Since Bridge can host the Camera Raw plug-in, depending on just how you're running it the Photoshop settings may make no difference.

Just between us chickens, Camera Raw has been getting less and less efficient lately in kind of a hurry.  I think they are just thinking of more and more features to put into it, and as a result it wants a bigger and bigger system to run on.

FYI, I'm about to upgrade from a 16 GB 8 core system to a 48 GB 12 core system myself to try to keep up with the demands of all this software.

-Noel

[Mark_Solesbury]

Hi

I would also like to report that this error is driving me mad.

I simply cant use Photoshop. I cannot save a a PNG without seeing this error. PSD, BMP JPG are all fine, but PNG error evertime with the out of memory message.

System is a Dell Latitude D820, 4gig ram, Win 7 32bit, Quad I7 @ 2.4, Nvidia 4200M.

Ive changed the settings as above, and still see the error every time.

[fnordware]

Mark_Solesbury wrote:

I simply cant use Photoshop. I cannot save a a PNG without seeing this error. PSD, BMP JPG are all fine, but PNG error evertime with the out of memory message.

Hmmm, I wonder if you'd get a different result if you tried SuperPNG.

[Mark_Solesbury]

Evening

I just tried your plugin and it works perfectly with no errors.

Adobe - Learn from this.!

[Noel Carboni]

I'll bet it doesn't create (and fail to clean up) a dozen or so ..._MVM_... files either.

-Noel

[station_two]

Sorry to report that SuperPNG had the opposite effect on my Mac, once I relaunched Photoshop. 

It actually introduced the spurious Not Enough RAM error message described above, both on trying to save an image as PNG and in trying to open existing PNG files.  It made no difference whether Adobe's PNG plug-in was installed or not.  (Yes I dutifully re-launched Photoshop every time.)

Removing it and re-installing Adobe's PNG plug-in cured the problem every time.  Tried it about six times.

Interesting that PNGs should give that kind of an error.

Photoshop 11.0.2, Tiger 10.4.11.  Well over 10 GB of memory available.

2.5 GHz Power Mac (PPC) G5-Quad; 16GB RAM; mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 1,700MHz 512MB VRAM; ATTO ExpressPCI UL5D LP SCSI card; Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 boot drives; intrusive Spotblight, Dashboard and Time Machine permanently disabled; dual 22" CRT monitors; USB wireless 'n' available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet; FW flatbed scanner; 2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner); various internal & external HDs; FW Epson 2200 and Ethernet Samsung ML-2850ND printers; 2 X Back-UPS RS 1500 XS units.

I did not run it on my CS6/SnowLeopard Mac-Intel system (MacBook).

[fnordware]

Oh no! Sorry about that.

My best guess is it's because you're running OS X 10.4 and the plug-in is built for the 10.5 Mac SDK. It's a requirement for a plug-in that will work in 64-bit. Even though you're not using 64-bit (or even Intel), the plug-in on the website has PPC, i32, and i64 code included, so I need the 10.5 SDK.

If you're really interested in getting SuperPNG on that machine, email me and I can send you a version built for 10.4. And it that doesn't work, well, it is a free plug-in after all.

[station_two]

OS X 10.5.x, Leopard, is a disaster on a PPC machine.  It totally breaks SCSI and it dropped the Classic environment.  As you can see in my machine specs, I do have a bootable 10.5.8 volume, but I haven't used it in a long time.  I'll probably erase and re-format that volume to use it for storage.

I'll try emailing you from your web site.

Thank you!