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Nik Plugins Take Forever To Load, help?


YellowJersey

Member
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Hi guys,

I've got some trouble and am hoping I can get some help. (thanks in advance to anyone!)

Background:
Using CS5 for photo editing using Nik Plugins (primarily colorefexpro4) on 16-bit TIFF files that are 128mb each. My workflow is a bit convoluted, but I've always got the results I want. Recently had to reinstall windows due to various very stupid reasons on my part. Did a clean install, which is what I usually do. Something's different this time, though. Last time I reinstalled Windows 7, I had a somewhat similar problem, but that's because it turns out I didn't have the right driver to enable GPU use, but that was swiftly resolved. The same fix does not seem to work this time. There has been no hardware change.

I know this isn't due to having insufficiently spec'd hardware. This problem has just started.


Problem:
Photoshop freezes and "is not responding" for about 20 seconds when I first open the file. It then does the same thing when I try to load Color Efex Pro 4. Then the same thing again. when I apply the filter. As you can imagine, this is so slow that it's a deal-breaker in trying to get anything done.

Attempted fixes so far:
Reinstalled windows multiple times - no change
Update all drivers - no change
Windows Update - no change
Different GPU configurations - file loads instantly in photoshop, but no change in Color Efex Pro


I'm running CS5 on a Lenovo T530 with Windows 7 Pro 64bit.
Specs:
CPU - i7-3820QM 2.70GHz
RAM - 16GB
Disk: Kensington SSD
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 and NVIDIA NVS 5400M

If you need any more info, I'm happy to provide. Taken some screencaps to give you an idea what I'm running and how it's configured.
 

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Last edited:

MrToM

Guru
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It appears from your screen shots that you are stressing the GPU....you're basically getting it to do all the work.

Laptop graphics are poor at best, regardless, and stressing them isn't a good idea.

I'd suggest removing 'Photoshop' from the Nvidia settings and just let the CPU handle that side of things.

Also, your 'Cache' level in the preferences of PS is set to 8....this is unusually high and again isn't really doing you any favours.

The cache level, especially for a laptop, should be 2 or 3 at most.....4 would be pushing it.

No guarantee that's the problem but I've never seen the cache level that high before and personally have never had to 'Add' PS in the Nvidia settings for PS to work well.....even on a laptop.

PS is not very good with memory management either which doesn't help matters so its best to keep an eye on it.....coincidentally my system just crashed because it ran of memory...all 32GB of it....and it was PS that caused it.....it was polite enough to tell me but not before it was too late to do anything about it.

Anyway.....try those for starters...they may not 'fix' the problem but at least you'll have more of a fighting chance.

Regards.
MrToM.
 

YellowJersey

Member
Messages
9
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2
It appears from your screen shots that you are stressing the GPU....you're basically getting it to do all the work.

Laptop graphics are poor at best, regardless, and stressing them isn't a good idea.

I'd suggest removing 'Photoshop' from the Nvidia settings and just let the CPU handle that side of things.

Also, your 'Cache' level in the preferences of PS is set to 8....this is unusually high and again isn't really doing you any favours.

The cache level, especially for a laptop, should be 2 or 3 at most.....4 would be pushing it.

No guarantee that's the problem but I've never seen the cache level that high before and personally have never had to 'Add' PS in the Nvidia settings for PS to work well.....even on a laptop.

PS is not very good with memory management either which doesn't help matters so its best to keep an eye on it.....coincidentally my system just crashed because it ran of memory...all 32GB of it....and it was PS that caused it.....it was polite enough to tell me but not before it was too late to do anything about it.

Anyway.....try those for starters...they may not 'fix' the problem but at least you'll have more of a fighting chance.

Regards.
MrToM.

Hi Mr. Tom.

Ok, so it looks like the first half the problem has been solved.

I've incorporated your suggestions. Progress has been made, but still not there yet. Now photoshop doesn't freeze up for 20 seconds when I load the image into photoshop nor does it freeze up when I lick on the plugin. But, it seems to get stuck at "preparing the image." Again, takes about 20 seconds for it to "prepare" the image. This is the problem I had the last time I reinstalled Windows and managed to solve by fiddling with the GPU settings (though for the life of me I can't remember exactly what the settings were. I'll keep tinkering, any additional insights would be awesome.

Thanks so much for your help. Hopefully, I can get this figured out.
 

Tom Mann

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@YellowJersey:

a1) In your first post, you said that you did a clean install of Windows. Presumably you didn't go down to the level of re-formatting your HD or SSD, right?

a2) Just to confirm, which option did you select, reset, refresh, or restore?

b) While this is implied by a truly clean install of Windows, can I assume that you also did a clean, brand new install of both PS and CEP if you selected one of the other options? To be honest, this would have been the very first thing I would have tried after you first re-installed the OS, no matter which of the above options I had selected.

c) Have you checked the various system logs, paying attention to things like high importance error conditions that arise around the time you invoke CEP?

d) Have you done something as simple as run chkdsk on all drives you have attached to your system to make sure some seemingly unrelated program (eg, file explorer) isn't hanging while trying to read data off of some bad sector somewhere?

Tom M
 

YellowJersey

Member
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2
Just to add to what MrTom already said, I did notice that you only have 15GB free space for the scratch disk and this is on the C Drive which is not ideal.
Here's something worth reading
http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2011/05/how-to-tune-photoshop-cs5-for-peak-performance.html

@YellowJersey:

a1) In your first post, you said that you did a clean install of Windows. Presumably you didn't go down to the level of re-formatting your HD or SSD, right?

a2) Just to confirm, which option did you select, reset, refresh, or restore?

b) While this is implied by a truly clean install of Windows, can I assume that you also did a clean, brand new install of both PS and CEP if you selected one of the other options? To be honest, this would have been the very first thing I would have tried after you first re-installed the OS, no matter which of the above options I had selected.

c) Have you checked the various system logs, paying attention to things like high importance error conditions that arise around the time you invoke CEP?

d) Have you done something as simple as run chkdsk on all drives you have attached to your system to make sure some seemingly unrelated program (eg, file explorer) isn't hanging while trying to read data off of some bad sector somewhere?

Tom M

Ok, looks like I've got things back to a usable level about the same as they were before. But, I will look at what you guys have suggested; perhaps that could speed things up even more. So far, it takes about 8 seconds from clicking on "Colour Efex Pro 4" to it being fully loaded, which is about what it was at before. Applying the new layer takes about 12 seconds. I have a feeling part of it is the the latest Nik suite is more intensive on the hardware than the pre-google versions (which I no longer have because of reasons, woops).
gedstar

I'll check that out. Thanks. Been a little hectic the last few days, probably won't get a break until Sunday. Will report back then.

Tom Mann
a1) Yep, total reformat. I buggered my computer up real good. I always reformat the drive though, never started having problems until this time.

a2) I'm not sure precisely to what you are referring. But I did a total clean install as if it were an entirely new system. Everything was totally from scratch.

b) Yes, totally new install of everything. I did make sure everything was fully up to date, too.

c) No, I haven't done that. But I will check it out. Thanks for the tip.

d) I haven't done that exactly, but I have looked through the task manager to check if any processes were hogging resources. I will check that out, though.


I'll report back once I get a break and can tinker with it a bit more.

Again, thanks everyone. Glad to have things back to normal. Again, any tips that could optimise photoshop speed above and beyond are appreciated.
 

Tom Mann

Guru
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...@Tom Mann ...
a2) I'm not sure precisely to what you are referring. But I did a total clean install as if it were an entirely new system. Everything was totally from scratch. ...

I'll report back once I get a break and can tinker with it a bit more. Again, thanks everyone. Glad to have things back to normal. Again, any tips that could optimise photoshop speed above and beyond are appreciated.

I'm certainly glad that your system is getting back to normal for you.

The terms, "reset, refresh and restore" came into common use with Win 8 and have continued with Win 10. I think some people started to use them around Win 7, but since these operations were more of a do it yourself nature back then, they weren't as common. BTW, you probably mentioned this earlier, but I forgot ... which OS are you using?

Anyway, here's a link to these terms:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/refresh-reset-restore-reinstall-windows/


Cheers,

Tom M
 

YellowJersey

Member
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2
I'm certainly glad that your system is getting back to normal for you.

The terms, "reset, refresh and restore" came into common use with Win 8 and have continued with Win 10. I think some people started to use them around Win 7, but since these operations were more of a do it yourself nature back then, they weren't as common. BTW, you probably mentioned this earlier, but I forgot ... which OS are you using?

Anyway, here's a link to these terms:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/refresh-reset-restore-reinstall-windows/


Cheers,

Tom M

Thanks, me too. It's a nightmare when things aren't working properly and you can't figure out why. I'm the kind of person who can't rest or do anything until I've fixed the problem.

I'm using Windows 7 Pro 64-bit edition. Microsoft can take it from me when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Been mounting a more and more active resistance to the shenanigans of trying to force people into Windows 10.

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a look over on Sunday (which may now be Monday because of reasons). :)
 

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