Laptop Optimization Thread
polycounter lvl 11
i recently bought a new laptop, mainly for working, and went with 32 gb ram, going from 4 gb in my old one. the difference have been quite underwelming though.
sure i can obouisly play games that i coulnt before, but working hasnt feelt that much different. mainly photoshop is almost the same. my workflow when texturing is to keep all the maps in the same psd, for easy transfering of layers back and forth. i get lagg when i have a 2048 file with say 30ish layers, which is annoying since that is almost the minimum size for character textures.
how can i have lagg with that much ram? is it becuase something else? my processor is a Intel Core i7 2,60 ghz quadcore
and also, ive tried optimizing photoshop with cache levels and removing thumbnails for layers, but with little to no difference
EDIT: changed into a more fitting name
sure i can obouisly play games that i coulnt before, but working hasnt feelt that much different. mainly photoshop is almost the same. my workflow when texturing is to keep all the maps in the same psd, for easy transfering of layers back and forth. i get lagg when i have a 2048 file with say 30ish layers, which is annoying since that is almost the minimum size for character textures.
how can i have lagg with that much ram? is it becuase something else? my processor is a Intel Core i7 2,60 ghz quadcore
and also, ive tried optimizing photoshop with cache levels and removing thumbnails for layers, but with little to no difference
EDIT: changed into a more fitting name
Replies
I have 16gb and i can manage 5000x5000 pixel images with 30+ layers with mostly no problems.
I have my photoshop set to use a max 8gb and i have a dedicated scratch drive.
Does it have a nvidia graphics card? And can you confirm that photoshop is set to use that GPU on launch? It might be that it is using the intel graphics card on launch instead.
All computers I use have more then 16 GB or ram. And GTX960 is my weakest graphics card.
kaptainkernals : i checked that, and it turns out it was using the intel card. i changed to the nvidia card (gtx 970m), but i notice no difference.
im using CC. its slightly slower aswell when im zoomed in on a document. swithing layers on and off has 1 secound delay.
That obviously won't fix your specific issue, but maybe it will help you narrow it down ?
At the same time, CC worked absolutely fine on my work computer, which had almost the exact specs of my home machine. So it's all quite a mystery to me.
i experience the GPU acceleration as a very mixed bag, too. i turn it down to basic and disable some options or else it will eat into marmoset's resources and make for a very unpleasant experience here. fond memories of the old photoshop without all that baggage that just kept trucking along in the background. far less crashes, too.
pre CS6 versions are not an option to me though. can't deal with the hard coded bright interface they had in there in CS3-5 and beyond that we are talking ancient software.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
for example, if you're using home basic or premium you aren't getting everything out of your RAM (8gb and 16gb respectively).
os: windows 10 pro.
its annoying cuz its basically limits me to work with 1024 textures. doesnt feel very next gen
I am not familiar with win10, but you could try looking into ways to switch it to a performance-oriented setting, similarly to the way power users disable Aero on win7 to get the most out of their machines.
Good luck.
I don't think that's relevant, my performance is fine on windows 10 with default settings.
That kind of thing doesn't have an effect like it used to, not to where you'd see a major impact like you describe.
the lagg is almost only occuring when im zoomed in. then is 1-2 seconds delay if i turn on and off the visiblilty of a layer. if i zoom out there is no lagg. anybody knows why?
The bottom line is that more often than not, our very demanding setups (Marmoset, Photoshop, and 3D software often running at the same time) are much more stressful to computers than the average daily used programs that the majority of the user base is relying on.
Stick : this definitely sounds like a graphics card/OpenGL issue. Note that it doesn't mean that your hardware is faulty - CG applications and Photoshop, just like games, most likely ship with a lot a errors and exceptions that then need to be fixed through driver updates (ironically enough).
Also, I don't think you mentioned whether or not you tried disabling the OpenGl options in Photoshop altogether. This could help you narrow down the issue. Not that I would recommend keeping these off (they allow for smooth scrub-zooming and canvas rotation, which are pretty damn useful) ; but that might be valuable for the sake of debugging your issue.
Isn't zooming when the scratch disk is commonly loaded? Is the scratch disk on the same drive as photoshop? Maybe that's bad, trying setting it to a flash drive?
Do you use chrome? Maybe ad ware is running? Try adw cleaner...
https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/
Maybe just try backup up your settings in CC (edit>myemail@email.com>upload) and reinstalling?
I'm just saying doing that is something you might do to squeeze a bit more performance. It's not something you do to solve performance problems like he has.
kind of related; is my processor (Intel Core i7 2,60 ghz quadcore) to slow for high polycounts in zbrush? i cant go past 8 million polys without noticable lagg. i dont think the ram is the problem, 32 gb, and i read zbrush doesnt use the graphics card
But the windows 10 release nvidia drivers were crap, maybe you can update these?
It really sounds like your gpu is in some power saver mode or your system is using your intel gpu, in the nvidia configuration screen you can configure that and its power state (I'm using the adaptive power mode, but you can try optimal performance).
These newer modern gpu's and cpu's tend to be very adaptive with their clockspeeds and when not in a 3d program they go to like 135mhz or switch to the intel gpu, which can cause annoying delays or lag.
Your machine should fly with loads of fps and a very smooth work experience for just Photoshop with that setup though..
heres somre progress though; i installed the photoshop cs5 and it runs a lot faster! very responsive and maybe 0.2 second delay when i switch the layers on and of, compared to the 1-2 second i had in CC. zooming and panning also feels a lot more responsive so i guess this is what im using from now on. only feature i will miss is using blending options on folders, but there is workarounds i guess.
happy with the outcome though, 4096 face textures here i come!
As for blending options on folders, you could indeed work around this limitation by using smart objects (which can be created from a selection of multiple layers) instead of folders for these specific situations.
Regarding BSODs : if you can reproduce it consistently, I'd say simply bring your machine to a repair shop and ask them to fix it. Doing things on our own can be tempting, but sometimes shelling out a few bucks for a pro to look at the issue can save you a lot of headaches.
the delay in CS5 is almost not noticable. it only occurs at zoom level greater than 100% and it looks like it enable the layer in "chunks" you can see a square part of the pixels getting updated first, then the others follow. the first part changes immediatly, so maybe its lagg related at all. maybe its related to cache levels and tiles or something? i basically have the same settings as segreto
anyway to anyone having the same problem as me i recommend using CS 5 instead.
i kind of want to make this thread into a general purpose optimization thread, having some problems with zbrush as i wrote above aswell.
if there already is one, feel free to link. if not i think we should have one, working with as little lagg as possible is vital to me, and just some small lagg can completely change your flow of painting and sculpting
I know that my laptop Asus 550JK comes with power management bloatware, that basically throttles the CPU, have to press FN + space to bring up the changer...
edit:
The changer lets me choose performance, or battery saver mode.
Performance basically unlocks my the CPU to run at it's full power, and to not undervolt the GPU.
Well, what is fine for Excel and Firefox is maybe a little bit....useless for us.
Good luck, may you find something more to tweak product, which is simply not decent programmed.
It is a shame, isn't it?
How old is CS5? How much have I paid to get my CS suite to CC2015, and what do I do?
When it comes to heavy computing stuff I jump back to CS5. Same with After Effects.
In PS it becomes very obvious if you take same document (A4 international paper) and use the mixer brush.
It is almost useless in CC2015 if you use a brush diameter of 1000. In CS5.1 it is working almost fluid.
It's a shame. Adobe should be able to do miracles with all the money & men power.
They do not. Kind of reverse programming.
My workstation is an Win7 Ultimate, 3930k i7@4Ghz, 64GB Ram, SSD Samsung, GTX Titan 6 GB and I am working with Adobe almost as fast as on old computer (2,6GHZ Xeon, Quadro 4000, 2GB) with old Adobe products.
They are burning my money twice.
Sorry for drama - but it's pretty annoying.
btw, i have fixed all the power saving options i could find to "max performance". doesnt notice any difference.
how big ztools can you have without noticable lag? my limit is somwhere around 8 mi, and at 20 it becamos unworkable.
i thought zbrush should be able to handle crazy amounts, but im pretty much stuck on 8 mi. i mean, im pretty sure i can work around that, but i dont understand how anybody could make skin pores and details like that, having the lag im getting.
basically as i written before, the overall lag in programs like photoshop and zbrush stops me from making "next gen" art. and if this is not a problem with my laptop, if everyone experience this, i dont understand how anybody could texture in photoshop above 2048, or work on a ztool with more than 8 mil. my specs above, is what i consider a high end laptop.
so if anybody wants to share how big textures resolutions or polycounts they can have in these softwares without noticable lag, i would be grateful, it would give me some frame of reference.