Need help troubleshooting Photoshop OpenGL failures [partially solved]
Hello all,
After a significant hardware and OS upgrade last year (going from a server-sourced Xeon to an i7 12700K, therefore upgrading motherboard and ram as well as moving to win10 out of necessity since such recent hardware isn't supported by good old win7), it turns out that the ONE SINGLE thing I was afraid could break over the upgrade, did indeed break : good old Photoshop CS5 is now misbehaving. What used to be IMHO the most stable Photoshop setup I've ever had (far more stable than the more recent PS installs on recent machines I've tried at clients) is now glitchy.
More specifically, GPU OpenGL canvas rendering (allowing for smooth gesture/scrubby zoom and canvas rotation) breaks more often than it should. Interestingly there is sometimes no need to restart Photoshop to sort it out - merely closing and reopening the current file can sometimes fix it. But other times, a Photoshop restart is required. It seems minor but it is really annoying in practice.
Now I understand that there is no fix for the issue on the Photoshop side, as changing OpenGL settings has no effect on the tendency of the renderer to break. But is there any tool out there that would allow me to see what's going on under the hood - perhaps a way to see a log what's hapening with the video rendering at the time of the issue ? One especially annoying aspect of all this is that Photoshop doesn't spit out a warning when OpenGL canvas rendering stops working.
The video card is a GTX1070 but I don't think that's a factor as I did not upgrade it.
If anything the one major difference between before and after the upgrade is the fact that the OS is running DirectX12 - but I don't think that it is relevant here.
I suspect that power plan settings could have some influence on that sort of things since they have the ability to turn a display on and off - but that too seem irrelevant in this case, as I don't have any of that enabled.
Any thoughts ?
Replies
Sorry to hear. Maybe it's an OS compatibility issue that can be solved by running PS in Windows 7 compatibility mode?
"CS6 and Earlier on Windows 10"
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/Windows_10_compatibility_FAQ.html#:~:text=with%20Windows%2010%3F-,CS6%20and%20Earlier%20on%20Windows%2010,-Windows%2010%20is
Hello !
Well, as simple as it may seem, I actually didn't think of trying this out. I'll give it a go.
Would still love to log things in detail though. I had a look at the logs generated by GPUZ ... but I have no idea what to look for in them :D
to throw a further spanner in the works win10 doesn't support that cpu properly either.
It's worth seeing what happens if you disable the efficiency cores in your BIOS
I did it on my 12900h and it eliminated a number of weird bugs in a variety of applications (including Teams) - I kept it like that cos it cut build times in visual studio by 60% compared to leaving them on.
I'm not recommending it as a fix-all solution but there are certain workloads that can benefit (ones where the win10 scheduler decides everything belongs on an e-core) and as said above it did solve some 'random' issues for me
Hey thanks ! I'll definitely try that.
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Here are more details : it looks like my main issue isn't so much the OpenGL canvas crashing fully (= becoming greyed out in options), but rather, it failing per-document.
I can now reproduce the behavior consistently by looping through the various full-screen display modes : in the cycle between #1 (windowed), #2 (partial full screen, with panels still on), and #3 (full-full-screen, with no panels at all), it always breaks on #3.
I can also force it to break by going to partial full-screen and pressing tab to hide panels. Whereas showing/hiding panels with Tab in windowed mode doesn't cause any issues.
This makes me think that perhaps this might be related to the new-ish window composition in 10 and above, whith multiple documents appearing as individual apps on ctrl-tab.
Or perhaps, the internal graphics card from the new mobo is trying to take over ...
- - - - -
On the plus side, this led me to figure out a temporary workaround : opening a new document window of the same file. This seems to reset the OpenGL drawing for this new window, and it even works when in full-full-screen mode. Still not an actual solution though.
And ... if I cycle between the screen modes on another monitor (not on my main), Photoshop doesn't attempt to hide the panels and only cycles through #1 and #2 ... and therefore, the problem doesn't happen.
Ungh.
Have you tried playing with the GPU acceleration settings under Preferences/Performance and switching between the different levels of drawing modes? Assuming the preferences of CS5 offer more or less the same settings as they do in newer versions, that is.
And worth noting that if you want to run Photoshop in compatibility mode then you might need to also install it from scratch but this time by running the installer itself in compatibility mode. I could not even get CS6 to launch at all on Windows 10 without doing that when I went through all that last year.
Re. the settings : indeed I've tried all permutations I could possibly think of (CS5 indeed already has the option to chose between different OpenGL performance levels). Basic actually seems just a tad bit faster than Advanced - but regardless, the third screen mode still breaks. At least it is consistent ! I just wish there was a way to remove that option from the cycle altogether. (I've tried bypassing the cycling using some actions, but only enough even going from #2 to #1 breaks things. So perhaps it isn't #3 that is the issue, but the exit from #2 ... The plot thickens).
And about the reinstall in compatibility mode : well, even though that does sound like a bit of a stretch I am open to anything at this point ! Will try a fresh reinstall as soon as possible.
Why use cs5 photoshop? IMO Affinity Photo covers whatever Phs sc5 is able to do plus lots of new tools I can't imaging working without nowadays: patch tool , linked layers , fully non-destructive everything. I would understand cs6 where clipping groups first appeared but not cs5.
There is one thing that makes you troubles in Affinity Photo although. When you open a tga with zero alpha pixels it multiplies that black pixels over rgb channels. Still the soft works as a perfect companion to Substance designer. Have some features Photoshop never had. You can paint colored brush dabs in 32 bit . Small UV squares with index to use them in Substance Designer to place/scatter details in exact places you need it . All this with precise snapping to pixel grid contrary to Substance Painter.
And so on.
ps. one thing I love in Affinity is live lighting layer which with a small extra gamma fix can perform perfect height to Normal map transform so you can use patch tool or "inpainting" on height image beneath and see normal map . So much simpler, more responsive and less blurry than clone tool in SPainter. The patch tool in Affinity is IMO better than even modern "content aware move" tool in current Photoshop. Allows to rotate and scale the "patch" on the fly to make it match underlying pattern.
Well, that's besides the topic of this thread, but :
Why PS ? Because that's what I have all my tools in, including some custom developped scripts.
Why CS5 in particular ? Because in my experience it has remained the most stable and fastest version of all, compared to all the way to version 2019 (or whatever it is now called). Admittedly I haven't tried the very last few ones, but since they don't have a perpetual license model it's pretty much irrelevant anyways.
Why not Affinity ? I actually do have it, as well as a CSP license too. But as far as I am aware they do not quite accomodate my specific worflows for both illustration and texturing. I am sure I could get used to Affinity, and perhaps I would give it another go if my current issue persists. The one useful feature from it that I wish older Photoshop version had is symmetrical drawing, which if I am nost mistaken is only available in PS2018 and up. But transitionning is just not worth it at least at this time. Also I've found that Affinity products in general are not as smooth and stable as they are often said to be. They do have their own set of odd glitches.
"This makes me think that perhaps this might be related to the new-ish window composition in 10 and above, whith multiple documents appearing as individual apps on ctrl-tab.
Or perhaps, the internal graphics card from the new mobo is trying to take over ..."
both plausible
the first I believe is toggleable as a registry setting - it's one of the (many) causes of flickering menus in unreal 4 and i remember digging a fix out some time ago
the second - i think it's mostly laptops that suffer from this sort of stuff but I believe you can force the igpu to turn off somewhere in the windows settings
Well @poopipe , if you ever come accross this reg fix for the window composition I'd love to hear it, as for now this is by far the most likely candidate.
I am excluding the onboard GPU as a cause for now, since it turns out that it doesn't show up in the device manager (probably disabled in bios), hence unlikely to be interfering.
this is the fix we had for unreal 4 - the key is in the reg file obvs
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5157
no warranty implied ;)
i think the igpu stuff is mostly where the displayport/hdmi output is shared between the discrete gpu and the onboard one so I wouldn't have thought it happened on desktops
Well, the plot thickens, as that wasn't it :D
... however, I just found out that the issue only happens on my main screen (labelled 1), regardless of which screen the main Photoshop interface is occupying. So it is not related to the new taskbar stacking of documents after all, as everything behaves as it should on any other monitor.
(And no, I am not that crazy, I do not usually run 4 monitors at the same time ... just three :) Just testing a new one atm )
tried swapping the cables around ?
Heya - while I didn't try swapping cables (as it isn't quite possible since not all the displays use the same tech : HDMI / DVI / DP), I made one last attempt today consisting of first disabling all secondary monitors (which are currently back to a more reasonable total of 3 BTW) and then re-enabling them and giving them a less exotic layout.
Turns out, it seems that Phothoshop doesn't quite like having to deal with a vertical monitor arrangement with a secondary monitor being located under the main. It's a bit of a bummer as I really enjoy this setup and I am fairly confident that it did work without issues at some point (allowing to strech the display of a drawing over two monitors, resulting in a massive portrait mode) ; but being able to zoom in and out smoothly without workarounds is still more important.
That said I don't know if the problem would go away while still allowing for a vertical arrangement if I were to make my secondary montor into a main display. So for the sake of being thorough I would still have to try that.
Anyways, at the end of the day the problem is mostly solved now :) Thank you all for the suggestions.
Oh my. I use PS7, I would be so sad if Windows didn't support it.
I haven't read past post 1 but here are my thoughts.
Okay, so here's the deal, I think life is sorta f*cking you. I see two possible options. The first is probably the most reasonable.
1.) Time to upgrade and let PS5 go. (*whispering so Adobe doesn't hear* honestly, the last decades of upgrades have been lateral. Granted! These MFers don't realize how the smallest changes really f*ck with an artist that's got a frequency that is yeilding (Or maybe they do! foil hat). You're definately one of those. But yo, time is a reality, temporary it will be.)
2.) I love my current setup. I got a monitor that's for HD color (viewing), a second that's for refresh rate (gaming), teh 3rd is a reasonably sized Cintiq (creation). I have a badass couch and cofee table next to my desk. But my setup would be even better if I made a micro PC for the Cintiq that stached in my coffee table (which top extends with an small extendo arm), drilled a few holes in it for cables, or even attached it to an easel (I'm suprised this isn't a thing for Cintiqs) Anyway, what I'm saying is you could create a secone box, that uses an older OS that's compatible with your prefered version of PS and use it solely for painting. I'd recommend Parsec for linking PCs.
Try out win11, I don't mind it actually. Maybe it will be better. But, knowing you and seeing your previous setups (Who the f*ck uses foot peddles for ditigal art!? You madman.) I think option 2 is where you're at.
Hi there Cory !
I can now tell that the issue isn't CS5-related, as it was also happened with CS6. IMHO this is definitely just a very unique case probably related to the unexpectedly large desktop composition I was asking of my system, and the very unusual (and likely untested) exotic display layout. And while it is true that I didn't experience the issue before switching OS I really can't be 100% sure that the new OS is the culprit since I cannot be certain that the displays were plugged in the exact same order after the software+hardware upgrade (as windows has always been finnicky as to what is labelled 1/2/3 when plugging in multiple displays). It's just incredibly ironic that the ONE single thing I was affraid to break over the upgrade did indeed break :D
About a second box : this is pretty much exactly what I just did, as I took this recent hardware upgrade as an opportunity to build a backup machine with leftover parts, dedicated it to testing out odd software and perhaps later making it a test machine for low end needs (2D software and retro gaming).
The foot pedal isn't in use at this time, but it could make a comeback eventually :)