HELP: MAC G3>Painter 6.0/6.1 Performance Issues

[bujones]

I looked through the group for an answer to this problem however to no
avail.

I have serious performance issues with Painter 6.0. It is nearly impossible
to "paint" since every stroke as a lag time, as well as most brush resizing
(using the "[" and "]") has some "processing" time involved with it. I
haven't heard anyone else really address this issue, which leads me to
believe that this may be just a problem on my end.

I've tried downloading the ATI driver from the APPLE site as someone
mentioned, however it seems to be specific to Mac only not clones.

This is driving me crazy, and no one is able to give me a straight answer
regarding this problem. Does my hardware not have enough horsepower for
painter?

Please help!

Thanks!

-chris

Here's the hardware I have:

HARDWARE:

- I own an PowerCenter 150 [MacClone] w/ NEWER TECHNOLOGY's G3/250Mhz
upgrade card.
- 256MB with 210MB assigned to Painter 6.0
- ATI RAGE ORION 128
- USB CARD w/ USB INTUOS Wacom Tablet attached to it.

PICTURE:

- Width: 1209 Pixels
- Height 1498 Pixels
- Resolution 144 pixels/inch
- No Layers/Masks
- Size according to Painter 7MB

BRUSH SHOWING LAG [just one of them...]

- SELECT Water Color:Round Water Blender
- THEN Under Variant I select restore Default variant

OTHER

- Undo Levels set at 3
- Scratch Disk has 23 GIGS free

NOTE: I tried installing the 6.1 patch, however I got an error. This might
be because Painter is installed not on my bootdrive but on the other HD I
have.

[Jinny Brown]

Chris,

Two questions:

Have you installed the Painter 6.0.3 patch (and followed the
instructions carefully)?

Do you have the latest Wacom driver?

Jinny
_____________

[bujones]

"Jinny Brown" <jinb...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3A552113...@mindspring.com...

> Chris,
>
> Two questions:
>
> Have you installed the Painter 6.0.3 patch (and followed the
> instructions carefully)?
>
> Do you have the latest Wacom driver?
>
> Jinny

Jinny:

Thanks for answering. I wanted to re-do/test everything before replying to
you with the results. Here's where I'm at:

I re-installed Painter 6.0. Before starting it, I updated it with the 6.0.3
Patch, which seems to have worked successfully. I downloaded the ATI
UNIVERSAL Patch, which updated my ATI RAGE ORION video card with 4.7.1, and
the new INTUOS WACOM 4.5.6 Driver. After doing both installs, the problem
persists. Mainly with a new brush set at [CIRCULAR;SINGLE;COVER;FLAT
COVER], and each stroke lags tremendously, at the image size mentioned
before (7MB)...

WHAT'S WRONG?!?

Thanks for any help!!

-chris

[Jinny Brown]

Chris,

I'm not much help except to give you feedback on what I experience. With
a smaller file than yours, I had no trouble with any of the Brush
variants set to [CIRCULAR;SINGLE;COVER;FLAT
COVER] until I got down to the Opaque Flat variant. That came out in
jerky/slow brush dabs, hardly anything I'd want to use even it it did
paint quickly. Then I opened a new Canvas with enough pixels to make it
read 7 MB (inside Painter) and began again to test all of the the Brush
(category) variants using the same settings. Here's what I got:

Captured Bristle.. just fine

Dry Ink - no problem

Graphic Paintbrush - works fine

Graphic Paintbrush Soft - works fine

Loaded Palette Knife - works fine but looks funny at those settings..
definitely not a palette knife <G>

Opaque Bristle Spray - paints quickly and smoothly.. not a bristle
spray, though

****Opaque Flat - Again, not good.. a series of round dabs .. not coming
out smoothly or evenly

Opaque Round - just fine

Palette Knife - works.. but not a palette knife with these settings

Round Camelhair - paints ok but looks kind of goofy.. uneven dabs, not
smooth.. no delay, though

Smeary Bristle Spray - just about the same as Round Camelhair... and no
delay

Smeary Flat - works ok

Smeary Round - works ok

Variable Flat - just fine

Variable Round - works fine

So.. the only one that delayed noticeably was the Opaque Flat variant.

I'm using an HP Pavilion 8580C PC, 500 mHz, Pentium III, 128 MB RAM,
12.4 GB free (20 GB HD), NVIDIA RIVA TNT, 8 MB SDRAM, Win98 SE, Painter
6.0.3 (also run Painter Classic, Painter 5.0 and they both work fine
though I didn't test the brushes this way.. I don't recall this kind of
problem since Painter 4.. that was awful, but my system wasn't too hot
back then then.. a 486, I think. <G>

Question: Did you Uninstall Painter 6 and remove all remaining files,
then reboot before installing Painter 6 and the 6.0.3 patch?

Another question: Do you clean out temp files and browser cache often
(daily, or more often if needed).. plus delete the Pre-built Brush File
when it gets large? Those always help spiff things up for me when
Painter bogs down after a few hours. The Pre-built Brush File alone can
get to 20 MB really fast... even in less than an hour.. minutes!

Defrag?

That's all I'm smart enough to think of.. not too techie, sorry.

I can wish you good fortune, though. :O)

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
__________________________

[bujones]

"Jinny Brown" <jinb...@mindspring.com> wrote in message

news:3A5A32CC...@mindspring.com...

Jinny:

Thanks for going through all the trouble to test the brushes. Truth be told
I'm still having the problem, and Corel is to no avail. I guess they feel
like they don't want to inherit/deal with the issues of a product that they
purchased, however makes me feel like I spent a buttload of cash for
nothing.

Anyhow, thanks for trying, that's 1000 times better than I've gotten from
Customer [NON]Support.

Best,
Chris

[ghi stecyk]

bujones

i have a 400mhz g4 with 384 mb of ram and i have general slowdowns with some
brushes too. that just seems to be the way the program works. if the size of
the brush is large then it tends to process more slowly. the nature of the
beast.

ghi stecyk

[Jinny Brown]

Chris,

Since this newsgroup is set up by Corel and Tanya Staples checks in now
and then, it wouldn't seem out of order to send your request for help
directly to her, since other efforts on your part, to get help from
Corel, haven't brought a good result.

pai...@corel.com

I think that address goes directly to Tanya, but just in case, type
Attention: Tanya Staples, Corel Painter Product Manager.

Good luck,

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________

bujones wrote:

<snip>

[bujones]

Ghi:

I've been told that our PC counter parts are not experiencing these
problems. And a little slow down would be acceptable, but what I'm
experiencing is NON-workable... very frustrating.

"ghi stecyk" <g...@smartt.com> wrote in message
news:3A5AB826...@smartt.com...

[ghi stecyk]

bujones

i've put together some variants that are impossible also. as for the PC counter
parts issue, don't think they are ahead in performance and workability over the
mac. the overwhelming number of painter 6 problems are relative to the pc
platform. i have a friend who can't even launch painter without a system
conflict and he's using win/2000 on a dual p3 800! consider yourself way ahead
of the game! the only thing a pc has over a mac is video cards. but now more
are becoming available for the mac. the ati rage is not that powerful of a gpu.
if you are running at millions of colors the card is being stressed and can
cause system problems, particularily with painter 6, which is very cpu and gpu
intensive. try switching to thousands of colors to see if performance increases
any.

ghi stecyk

[ghi stecyk]

bujones

another thing is to delete any painter 6 temp files in your painter folder. if you
have done any force quits of painter or forced reboots while painter was open then
a sizable temp file will have been created. these can make for a sluggish app. the
pre-built brush file should also be deleted.

ghi

[bujones]

"ghi stecyk" <g...@smartt.com> wrote in message

news:3A6FAF90...@smartt.com...

Ghi:

Thanks for taking the time to trying to help me with this problem. I've
heard from a friend of mine that tried Painter 6 on a G4 Mac 450Mhz with the
same problems, and I've heard on messageboards that other Mac users seem to
have similar problems. If you/corel would address/solve this issue I REALLY
think they would be helping a ton of people. The friend with the G4 is a
professional matt painter in hollywood, so clearly this is a power-user.

I deleted the pre-built brush file. I had no temp file, and switched both
of my monitors to thousands of colors, rather than millions. At 1209X1498
144DPI (@7MB file) the lag is still unchanged. It's atrocious.

Not to mention that this is with what I consider to be the most vital and
BASIC brush there is. A CIRCULAR, SINGLE, COVER, FLAT COVER brush that
approximates the very simple brush in Photoshop.

Chris

[ghi stecyk]

so the brush you are talking about is the flat cover pen. yes it is the most basic brush:).  on a 15MB document @ 200dpi, with brush size set at 32 on the slider, i have virtual real time response with quick gestures using this same pen variant on 6.1. your problem is very strange and the fact you know of others with similar difficulties is perplexing. my iMac 350 is equally as responsive as my g4 at the same task. i'm not sure this is a painter 6 issue. there is something about your system configuration that is causing your cpu or gpu to get seriously bogged down when painter is open. do a 'get info' on your painter folder to see what size it is. once my p folder bloated up to 1.75 gigs! my image portfolio was packed! i noticed you mention "two" monitors. have you tried painter using one monitor only?

ghi

[Robert Scribner]

 am another mac user   (  power  mac user   i mean )working  professionally as a  map maker  for one of the leading world wide company specializing in  learning and painter   freezes on g3 450  and   thi s  always  has been an issue with  machine ever since i got  painter 6   i thot coral had fixed it and    un fortunately it freezes  !!!! its when i am painting with   brushes   - why cant they make it as stable as PS5.5  and sell a quality program!!   potentailly it can be a much better featured program than PS.5- its a biot more stable on G4  as i work i can  feel the hairs on my head raise a bit while working --  its fear ---  TS

ghi stecyk wrote:

so the brush you are talking about is the flat cover pen. yes itis the most basic brush:).  on a 15MB document @ 200dpi, with brush size set at 32 on the slider, i have virtual real time response with quick gestures using this same pen variant on 6.1. your problem is very strange and the fact you know of others with similar difficulties is perplexing. my iMac 350 is equally as responsive as my g4 at the same task. i'm not sure this is a painter 6 issue. there is something about your system configuration that is causing your cpu or gpu to get seriously bogged down when painter is open. do a 'get info' on your painter folder to see what size it is. once my p folder bloated up to 1.75 gigs! my image portfolio was packed! i noticed you mention "two" monitors. have you tried painter using one monitor only?

[ghi stecyk]

i too had the same problem till i conjectured it was a video card
problem. if you are using the standard ati rage there is a known issue
where it will cause spontaneous system freezes on systems with higher
cpu speeds and gpu intensive applications, like painter 6. the rage
can't stabily support high resolutions and millions of colors. the
interim fix is to switch to thousands of colors. now do you understand
why the new g4 computers are sporting nvidia cards?!

ghi stecyk