Moving layers is VERY slow and jerky in Photoshop CS5

[lazbro]

I am hoping someone can help me.

I had CS4 installed on my Mac Pro when all of a sudden moving a layer around became a nightmare. There would be a few seconds delay between when I moved the mouse and when the layer would move. Changing effects would require me to zoom out and then in to see the effect happen.

The specs of my machine were as follows:

Processor: 2 X 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
OSX: 10.5.7

Memory: 16GB 1066 MHz DDR3
Hard drives: 2 X 1 TB (one boot drive, one as work folders and scratch disc)
Video Card: nVidia GeForce GT 120 with 512 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM


We figured it was a bad video card, so we splurged on the nVidia Quadro FX 4800 For Mac, with 1.5 Gb of SDRAM. The problem remained.


Finally, I formatted the boot drive, upgraded the OS to 10.6.4, and installed CS5 Web Premium hoping the issue would go away....


and it didn't. There is at least a 5 second delay between when I click and move my mouse and when the layer actually moves.



So here is where I am at...


Processor: 2 X 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
OSX: 10.6.4

Memory: 16GB 1066 MHz DDR3
Hard drives: 2 X 1 TB (one boot drive, one as work folders and scratch disc)
Video Card: Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 with 1.5 GB onboard memory (brand new - purchased and installed to try combat this problem...it didnt help.)


The CS5 is a clean install from original discs (no new fonts, or plugins).


I am going broke trying to fix this problem...and I have work piling up on my plate...so I am in desperate need of some help troubleshooting this.

[Gaussian]

Does this happen every single time you try to move a layer or only sometimes?

Nice computer. For that kind of money I suggest using an SSD for the boot/OS drive. Photoshop will be able to read the files a lot faster and will also start a lot faster. I don't know if that would solve your problem though. There is a possibility that your boot drive has read errors, in which case replacing it with an SSD would solve the problem... but I think you would be seeing other problems not just in Photoshop.

I suggest:

Run a HD diagnostic on your boot drive to test for errors.

Run a memory diagnostic to see if your physical memory has any errors.

[lazbro]

This happens every time I try to move the layer. It also happens when applying effects. I have to zoom in and out to see the effect applied.

I have run a diagnostic, repaired permissions, as well as run the pilot in Cocktail.

[Gaussian]

Did you run a memory test? I don't know what the Mac version would be, but something similar to memtest86 for windows.

You could also try resetting your preferences in Photoshop.

This is an unusual issue, keep us posted if there is any new developments.

[lazbro]

I purchased memtest for OSX and I am running memory tests now. Everything seems to be checking out alright so far, but the way this is going it could be another 4 hours before the tests are all done.

I will let you know how it goes.

If you have any other suggestions, I am all ears.

[Gaussian]

Try resetting your Photoshop preferences by holding down the Command, Option, and Shift keys while launching the application.

[lazbro]

So I ran memtest...6 hours later it returned an "All OK" result. I cleared me prefs and...

still the same problem. *SIGH*

Do you think it could be an issue with the drives? I am not sure how much more money I can put into this machine (I was under the impression this machine configuration would handle Photoshop quite well). Would changing over my boot drive to an SSD make that much of a difference?

[Gaussian]

I don't know if it's a hard drive issue or not, but the fact that it persisted after a wipe/reinstall of your OS makes me think it might be hardware related.

That computer is definitely able to handle Photoshop and even video editing or 3D apps very well, it's certainly not a CPU or memory performance issue but just some kind of conflict.

Changing out your boot drive for a fast SSD may not fix the problem, but it will give you a very noticeable performance boost, especially when launching large applications like Photoshop, and the apps will be able to read data from your HD much faster. It's possible this could fix your problem, but I really can't say because I don't know what exactly the problem is.

It could also be a video card issue, do you have a spare video card laying around that you could try instead of the one currently installed?

[skylaranderson]

I have this very same issue.

Core i5 iMac with 16GB memory, 1TB drive + 1TB external scratch disk. I can barely work because Photoshop CS5 takes literally several seconds every time I move even a single layer.

The PSD's aren't massive either... 30MB ish.

We certainly can't be alone on this issue.

[hawkeye]

Have you updated your video drivers yet.