Photoshop CS4 very laggy

[Crashoran]

Anybody else experiencing the same? A quick google search tells me this is happening to almost all users. Everything in the program is sluggish and slow, moving and zooming images is "blocky" and staggering. All the graphics stutter. Disabling openGL doesn't help.

Anyone found a fix?

[bondarnes]

I checked task manager and found that had over 60 processes running, mostly in the background and CS3 was getting slower by the day. I shut down as many as I could and everything runs faster, even TPF. I'm down below 40 now.

[MicWayWal]

Originally Posted by Crashoran

Anybody else experiencing the same? A quick google search tells me this is happening to almost all users. Everything in the program is sluggish and slow, moving and zooming images is "blocky" and staggering. All the graphics stutter. Disabling openGL doesn't help.

Anyone found a fix?

Nick,
You can always go do a search and find problems with a program, so I have stopped doing that, it makes my head hurt. I have not heard of any widespread problems with CS4. Doesn't mean it is not so, I just haven't heard it yet.

Do you have a dedicated PC for image manipulation?
My sluggishness went away 10 years ago when I started using 2 PCs on my desk. One for everything computers do and the other for image manipulation ONLY. I keep this PC as pure and clean as I can. No other programs except for those necessary to manipulate images. No browsing, no mail, therefore no need for virus protection, NO NOTHING. It has 4GB of PC memory and 2GB video memory. It also has a dual core Intel processor which PS was built around. It screams. I have no issues.

Issues that could be causing some of your problems:
Lack of memory - I have heard you should have at least 4 GB of memory
Video memory - Should have a video card with at least 1GB of memory. This will speed up video refresh as you work
Use Intel processor - PS built these latest CS versions to take advantage of Intel's architecture, other processors will run slower
To many programs running - Like Don mentioned PCs can get clogged with these programs. Start only what you need.
Older OS - CS4 was built to take advantage of Vista, XP will slow it down
Close PS at least once a day - If I keep PS open and work and work and work, it gets slower. About twice a day I restart PS. No need to reboot Vista it runs great.

[AndrewCCM]

CS4 runs fine on my XP-64bit machine. I do have issues with Lightroom 2.2 slowing down over time and finally closes itself down.

Not many people I know have a 1GB video card at this point in time unless they are a serious gamer. I personally use a nVidia 8600GTS (256MB) and it runs just fine.

My machine specs..

Asus MB, 2.4Ghz Core2Duo, 8GB RAM, XP-64, Nvidia 8600GTS (256MB)

I think the best thing I did was switching from XP-32bit and 4GB RAM to XP-64bit and 8GB. Vista has been nothing but problematic for me in the past. I do plan to give it another try soon when I order my next machine.

FWIW

[KdLaneJr]

Plug-ins can cause the issues you've described. Which ones do you have installed?

[SHIFTcanadian]

Andrew, I know the feeling with vista, HOWEVER,

Try going to 64-bit vista if you havent....for some reason it runs magically on my pc when doing this and I have a similar setup to yours. Ive used 32bit XP, 64bit XP, and 32bit Vista and 64 bit Vista is by far the best out of them all. It makes 64bit CS4 run like magic.

[Crashoran]

Looks like it's fixed now

For some reason turning on "Force Bilinear Interpolation" under OpenGL options removed all of the issues I experienced.

My laptop specs: Nvidia geforce go 7600 256mb, 2gigs RAM, 1.66GHz Core2Duo, XP Media center edition

[AndrewCCM]

Glad you got it fixed... Mine kept disabling the GPU... Now I know why... According to Adobe, XP-64bit drivers are not written to support OpenGL. News to me.

[janetg]

good to hear the info about v64...i'm about to have to do a reload and was thinking of going to it... just need more ram!

[Crashoran]

It's pretty sad the operating system most people use that has all supported drivers and runs stable is almost over 8 years old now! Just thinking about Vista scares me.

One more question: The video card drivers for my HP laptop are not supported by Nvidia, the website tells me to refer to the HP website. But HP's drivers for my card were last updated in 2006. Does anyone know if I can get some updated drivers for it somewhere? I can't seem to find the right one. (Geforce Go 7600)

[phillip ino]

Get a Mac! I have no issues running both CS4 and Lightroom 2 at the same time on my 2G intel core duo iMac with 3G ram. Also, you want to go to Preferences>Performance and allocate more memory for CS4, it should help.

[AndrewCCM]

Nevermind

[AndrewCCM]

Originally Posted by Crashoran

It's pretty sad the operating system most people use that has all supported drivers and runs stable is almost over 8 years old now! Just thinking about Vista scares me.

One more question: The video card drivers for my HP laptop are not supported by Nvidia, the website tells me to refer to the HP website. But HP's drivers for my card were last updated in 2006. Does anyone know if I can get some updated drivers for it somewhere? I can't seem to find the right one. (Geforce Go 7600)

I was under the assumption the latest nVidia driver package supported pretty much all over their later model chipsets. My PNY 8600GTS (nVidia) was just updated with the latest driver build (Jan 8th, 2009) directly from nVidia)

[Roy]

I haven't even thought about CS4. I can run CS3 just fine on my laptop with Vista business 32 bit 2gb memory but after replacing the hard drive on my desktop which is a slower Intel pentium 4, 2.4 GHz and updating the OS to XP Pro 32bit, CS3 is really slow. I was not expecting that. Wish I could find a solution that doesn't involve hardware upgrades.

[jeffkohn]

edit: nevermind, just noticed you're talking about a laptop, not a desktop