CS4 Glitches - long list

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Following is a list of glitches, and oversights that I have noticed in CS4. Let me say first of all that I have a completely 'clean' system, all maintenance has been run and I have 50% drive space free - although at the moment I do not have an external scratch disk. RAM has been tested also. I have 7 gigs running 4x2.66ghz. None of these problems are particularly frequent and as a result its possible to 'get away' with them.

Glitches/oversights

• Selection glitches - sometimes when making diagonal selections or turning a path into a selection the selection is wrong - divided into Square blocks. Here is a visual sample … [URL=http://img83.imageshack.us/my.php?image=selectionproblemcr3.gif][IMG]http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/5968/selectionproblemcr3.th.gif[/IMG][/URL]

• Choosing Select All and then trying to modify a selection, for example "contract" is no longer possible. Items are grayed out in the select menu. This was noticed by someone else in another thread, but it bears repeating.

• In free transform its sometimes no longer possible to move the centre point. This problem seems to happen on larger res files, when there is a lot of RAM used?

• In addition there is a small graphics glitch with Free Transform, the center point icon now displays with two edges of a box, on high res files.

• Path points now display badly with a missing section, making them appear triangular on large files using Open GL - this makes them less clear.

• The cursor/tool alignment problem, which has been, mentioned in many threads - requires pressing of the F key to 'reset' the screen view. I'm not so sure this is a 'get a better graphics card' issue because I've seen it with too many different, and decent cards.

• Photoshop is crashing sometimes when the layer styles dialog box comes up, this usually happens when another click to close the dialog is made too rapidly. This is quite a serious crash, taking a long time for the system to resolve itself before relaunch.

• The new Masks Panel is not included in Keyboard Shortcuts yet - although I realise better shortcuts already exist for adding or subtracting masks from selections, (shift command and alt in layers panel) this is not consistent with the rest of the app, and people might want to define their own shortcuts.

• Photoshop cs4 crashing on saving on very large files maybe related to the next problem, because the symptom is the same

• Some very scratch intensive operations cause CS4 to 'jam'. This only happens when you switch to another application or use the hard drive for other activities.

• Panels can sometimes take a long time to "wake up" - before their contents appear. This is frustrating because all previous versions of photoshop have not had this problem.

• I've also noticed that Configurator panels with Actions included can occasionally after a pause, crash the app

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Mark:

I suspect that a great many, even most, of those issues would resolve themselves if you got yourself a fast HD with an empty First Partition dedicated to Scratch.

Even an external FWD used as Scratch would help.

Also, which video card are you using — and are you trying to use OpenGL?

And what percentage of RAM are you reserving for Photoshop? And how many History States?

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

While it may be true that ideally I need a scratch disk, things should still work without these problems with none. That's still a list of things that need looking at, and that's the reason I made it. Most of them are certainly bugs or oversights anyway, that have not been resolved.

Since you ask, History states 100. Cache levels 6 although this gets changed sometimes. All these settings worked fine CS2 and 3. RAM 100% because Photoshop can only use 4G and I've got 7. Sometimes I'm using open GL, sometimes not, although that can't affect any of the issues listed above. Most of the occasional crash issues are on files over 500 megs, and Photoshop should not crash at any time.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Just for an experiment try:

RAM: 70%
Cache levels: 4
History States: 60

But most importantly of all: Get a separate HD otr external FWD for Scratch.

HDs and FWDs are dirt-cheap and I can almost guarantee that a separate Scratch Drive will cure virtually all of the problems that you list.

Just try it and see.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

The OpenGL issues that you raise are different; I am fairly sure that your video card is not one of those on Adobe's list of approved cards?

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

" I can almost guarantee that a separate Scratch Drive will cure virtually all of the problems that you list. " that's just total nonsense Anne - read them again

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

It is not "total nonsense" … why don't you actually TRY what I suggested before coming to that conclusion?

And your Video card is obviously totally inadequate for OpenGL.

Which card is it by the way?

But if you want to continue to endure the problems that you are having (which I am NOT!) just carry on doing things in your own sweet way.

8/

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

My card is a Nvidia Gforce 7300 bought only 8 months ago included as the default part of a new mac pro. With a fully maintained and powerful new system you shouldn't have to ENDURE anything.

And I promise I will try your suggestions as soon as I have some lower priority stuff to work on

[Buko]

Nvidia Gforce 7300

Not supported

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Only three of those problems are potentially a graphics card issues anyway, get a life people

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

You actually will NOT be "losing 30% of my available RAM by doing it" — you will just be making sure that the operating system itself has sufficient RAM.

[Wade_Zi...@adobeforums.com]

I think this is a matter of the user not being willing to face reality.

Not trying to b rude but sometimes the truth is unpleasant. But there is a good side to this as well. If you upgrade and make things better you will work more efficiently save lot of time be able to go to concerts, meet beautiful young women who will kill you before your time and that will in turn save you a lot of taxes!

Look at al the benefits, upgrade, I bought the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT immediately when acquiring the CS4 Master Collection. When my Mac no longer support the OS I updated to a MacPro and I will update again shortly even though it will be costly as will Ann and Buko when the applications no longer are supported by the OS they can run on their system.

And these new computers when outfitted with a high powered graphic card that supports 4GB of VRAM runs over $4,000 out of the box. You can get away without that Card but eventually you will be buying and installing it.

Mark this is just life and s are performance problems and if that is a long list then I would say even if they were bugs that is a pretty short long list.

What an upgrade.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Mark,

since I'm losing 30% of my available RAM by doing it

It's a percentage of available memory (not of total installed RAM) and it is an allowance, not an allocation.

When you set it to 70%, you are telling Photoshop that it may use up to 70% of what is available at any given time after the OS and any other running applications and processes have grabbed what they need.

I'd never allow 100% to Photoshop, but you might try something between 80% and 95% if you have 7 GB of RAM.

…and there should be support for a much wider range of cards. Not heard
a reason why this should NOT BE THE CASE, Only just that it is.

The video card should have driver support for OpenGL 2 and for Shader Model 3, as well as 256MB of V-RAM for proper advanced drawing support. Hot a lot of video cards for the Mac meet all those prerequisites, due for the most part to Apple's denying its blessings to a wide variety of carts. That's why some of us have resorted to mutant, "flashed" for Mac cards originally built for the PC market.

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

I tried all these suggestions this weekend on a series of 2 Gig files - and I STILL am getting some of the crashes listed above. Photoshop just falling over when theres a lot of scratch activity. Still convinced its bugs.

About RAM settings - 70% was far too low to be realistic, and slowed the work down impossibly - I've now set it to 90 as Ramon suggested, see how I get on. Also, an interesting heads up on the pretty bad REASON's for mac video cards not being up to par with Photoshops requirements. Someones at fault, my moneys on 50% Adobe 50% Apple

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

My money is on the use of outdated video cards which don't support OpenGL2 and Shader Model 3 — both prerequisites if you want to use Open GL on CS4.

My money is also on your refusal to install a separate HD for Scratch.

Providing sufficient UNFRAGMENTED Scratch space will actually do more to give you better performance than the purchase of extra RAM.

Really.

Just try using a separate HD or FWD for Scratch and you will see the difference.