Adobe CS4 / GPU Acceleration Issue

Given the system I'm using (detailed in my sig) I should be experiencing an increase in speed with GPU acceleration enabled in CS4, right?

Since installing CS4 earlier today, I've noticed quite the opposite. Perhaps someone can help shed some light on my problem.

For example, applying color dodge to a 2560x1600 JPEG image takes just under 13 seconds with GPU acceleration enabled.Disabled, it takes roughly 2 seconds.

Even simply opening a higher res image takes longer to come into focus / show clarity with GPU acceleration enabled (compared to how fast it opens when disabled).

Here's a screen shot of my Performance settings from within CS4:

http://disp0sable.org/allniterz/CS4.jpg

I'm using the x64 version of CS4, as well as Vista Ultimate x64. Also using ATI Catalyst 8.12 with the following settings;

AA: 4x Edge Detect
AF: 16x
Catalyst AI: Standard
MipMap Detail: Quality

Hopefully this is enough information to help someone get me on the right track to figuring out why CS4 performs so poorly (for me) with GPU acceleration enabled.

So I did some digging to find out if other people have had your same issue. I personally don't have my CS4 set to optimize for GPU acceleration - yet. But it's good to know what going on. Here is a similar issue and some great responses:

"...that the GPU on the graphics card controls the speed of screen redraws (zooming, flick panning, etc) but not necessarily things like the clone tool or the crop tool.."

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00RjzW

Hope it helps!

Thanks for the link Master Blaster.

I see from reading that thread that the op had a low end video card and his GPU acceleration issues were resolved after he upgraded to a faster video card.

I've got a high end video card and everything just runs slower in CS4 with acceleration enabled. I thought it might be because I'm using the x64 version of CS4, so I uninstalled and reinstalled with both x64 and x86 versions. The problem with sever slowdown / lag persists across both versions.

I even decided to try installing CS4 on my old PC, an Athlon 1800+ / Geforce4 Ti4400 box with 1 gb of ram, just to see if I can get anywhere with GPU acceleration, but apparently that hardware is just too old to enable it.

I'm pretty much at a loss at this point.

Any further input would be greatly appreciated

All I would do is post on Adobe forums. The have tech guys who will answer your problem.

i read a big thread a while ago on adobe forums about people experiencing a lot of problems with cs4, things like the gpu enabled thing or brush lag. I never figured out what was causing all the issues since everyone having the problems had a wide range of specs. Once some updated drivers/ps patches come out i hope this stuff clears up.

I turned of vertical sync in the GPU accleration options in PS CS4 and it became more responsive. It solved all lag issues when adjusting adjustment layers for me.

I might recall reading that you need a workstation card for certain major GPU enhancements in there.

maverick212 said:

I might recall reading that you need a workstation card for certain major GPU enhancements in there.

Click to expand...

The only features that take advantage of GPU acceleration in CS4 are image movement and zooming. Unfortunately Adobe just stated that CS4 was "GPU Accelerated" without making clear what specific features actually use it. Its really not much. My standard 8800GT works fine.