Camera Labs

Hi folks,

Over in this post I mentioned a problem I'm having with Photoshop CS4 running under Vista x64. I have a GTX285 graphics card and the latest NVIDIA drivers. Basically, with "OpenGL Drawing" enabled in Photoshop's Performance preferences I can open an image but it fails to get drawn. Disable OpenGL Drawing and restart Photoshop and all is well except, of course, that the minor whizzbangs associated with OpenGL aren't available.

I've already found that for some applications using OpenGL it's necessary to disable "Desktop Composition" (Compatibility tab from a shortcut's Properties) so I thought I'd try that. Et voilà, I can enable Photoshop's OpenGL Drawing and everything works just fine. Except there is no option to turn off Desktop Composition with Photoshop CS4 (64 Bit) and that suffers from the same fault with OpenGL enabled.

I've raised a support ticket with Adobe and I'll update this thread as, when and if I get any more information.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

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Oh well. After several exchanges of information Adobe have decided it's all NVIDIA's fault and that I should install a later driver. Not sure how I can do that given I'm currently running their latest one but I'll try Beta 186.08 and see if that helps...

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hey Bob, I always run their beta driver, it's very stable, and I have no problems with it. Just some peace of mind for you

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

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Thanks for that. I used to use the Beta drivers but I got out of the habit when Microsoft started offering NVIDIA drivers via Windows Update. I have the driver downloaded so I'll give it a try over the weekend and report back.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi folks,

Here's a puzzler. Adobe support suggested I roll back the graphics driver to an earlier release with Photoshop's OpenGL Drawing disabled and then to reinstall the current driver and try again. That didn't work.

As promised above I installed the 186.08 beta driver and guess what. That didn't fix the issue either.

As I prefer not to run beta software these days I decided to roll back to 185.85 and guess what? OpenGL Drawing in Photoshop CS4 is fixed.

This problem has to be laid entirely at NVIDIA's door in my estimation. What I didn't mention above, though Adobe's support team were aware, is that an OpenGL application I wrote myself a few years ago (Gravity 6) had also needed Desktop Composition disabled in order to work correctly and the steps performed above have fixed that application as well. That would seem to point the finger very squarely at the NVIDIA installation routines for their driver(s).

UPDATE: It gets worse. When I next started the computer the OpenGL Drawing wasn't working again. This ain't funny! I'm going to try my luck with NVIDIA support now.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi folks,

Solved?

I've kept updating this thread in the hope that if anyone else sees a similar problem then I might save them some trouble. The Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard ships with a number of utilities concerned with either information display and/or overclocking. One of the engines behind this suite has a habit on my machine (Vista x64) of closing down silently which then stops a rather neat Asus utility which allows Yahoo Widgets to be displayed on an ancillary LCD (OC Palm). As I don't really need those utilities I decided to uninstall most of them (EPU 6, AI Suite, Gamer OSD and Smart Doctor) to see if it was one of them which was causing the shutdown of that underlying engine.

The jury is still out on that one but, through serendipitous curiosity, I have discovered that OpenGL Drawing in Photoshop (and my Gravity simulator app) now work correctly. So it would seem to be an incompatibility between of of those utilities and the NVIDIA driver. Forgive me if I don't rush ahead and start reinstalling them to find out which is the culprit.

I've tested this through a couple of warm reboots now so I'm hopeful that, after a false start, the problem is now solved. If you are havving OpenGL issues and you run an Asus motherboard with some of their whizzy whizzy doodads installed then you might want to consider uninstalling them to see if that helps.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi folks,

Sorry to be so long getting back on this but I've finally determined that it's the Asus "Gamer OSD" application which caused Photoshop's OpenGL accelerated drawing to break. So Gamer OSD is uninstalled which is no loss at all so far as I'm concerned, even though Asus "Smart Doctor" complains about the fact if I start it up.

Just to tidy up a loose end mentioned above, even though it's not relevant to the forum, my initial uninstallation of Gamer OSD (and other Asus apps) was driven by OC Palm stopping working intermittently. That problem appears to have been solved by unplugging the USB cable allowing the status of my APC SmartUPS uninterruptible power supply to be monitored.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.