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CS4 too slow


lou117

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Hi,

When I bought my desktop about 8y a also bought a photoshop CS4.
When I was using PS , it was running smooth , without any lag.
I just used it to create simple texts , some backround, no HD image work.

I installed it back on the very same computer about a week ago and it is painfully slow.
When I move a simple text around on a blank canvas it creates a 3-4 s lag in the way it animates.
The bigger the text the longer it takes to re-animate when i move it around.

That happens even if I close down every single software that is running in the background that I don't need.So
I tried turning on/off ENABLE OpenGL Drawing , that didn't help.

Somebody suggest installing 11.2 update , but after running it , it says, update failed.

The only think that i changed on this computer was upgrade to win8. Beofre I had Win7 I think possibly vista.

Any other ideas? Thank you .
 
Here are a few quick things to check
1) How much main memory. 4G will choke and 8G should be OK yet to really be in the clear you should have 16G.
2) How much disk space is left. Too little and you system will choke as well.
3) Sometimes your system can accumulate programs that are running in the background that eat up lots of CPU time and really slow things down..
4) CS4 has not be qualified on the later OS systems so there could always be issues because Adobe did not tune it up for the most recent OSes

Digging in further is not too hard. On Macs they call the app that gives details of what is running on your system "Activity Monitor" On PCs they call it Task Manager I believe. So if you know how to open Task Manager, it will tell you what is running, what is eating up CPU performance and the memory usage. That gives huge clues on the issues going on. If you don't know how to use Task Manager, I am sure a forum member could walk you through it

Hope this helps
John Wheeler
 
8 GB ram, GT 610 graphics card, nothing running in the background
But my SSD has only like 800MB free
I think that might be the problem , let me free up some space.
thank
 
Last edited:
Now I have 3GB free on SSD
but PS is still insanely slow.
The same version of PS run perfect on my new laptop with win 10.
 
That's a good starting point. Mine always slows down when I get below a few Gigs of storage.
One thin to keep in mind about many SSDs. Even when you delete something to free up space, it does not mean the space is immediately freed up for use. The freed up space has to be "reset" before data can be written to those locations and that process is often done in the background. So there can be a lag of availability. So always good to stay away from the edge for that reason as well.

The link I provided on your other post also had a link to troubelshooting CS4. I suggest you give that a look as well. Here is the direct link:
https://helpx.adobe.com/archive/photoshop/photoshop-cs4-troubleshooting.pdf
It has a number of suggestions associated with slow operations
Hope this is helpful
John Wheeler
 
The freed up space has to be "reset"
When is it gonna reset? I 've never heard of this before.

Trouble shooting doesn't offer any help with this specific issue , but it is still a great resource to have. thanks
 
Here is a link with improving performance in CS4 below. Note that the tech notes indicate:

Available HD Space-
“Photoshop requires at least 2 GB of free hard-disk space, but more is recommended. The OS volume should contain at least 20 GB of free space to ensure that the virtual memory system has plenty of available hard disk space. If you have more than one hard drive, it is suggested that you specify additional scratch disks.”

Snippets for issues with CS4 and CS5 from Adobe Tech folks
 

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