Hi everyone,

I posted this question in the Adobe forums, and also contacted Adobe, to no avail, so I thought I'd ask here.

I have a Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHZ OC 2 GB GDDR5 running on Win 8 64 bit. It works beautifully with everything I throw at it except for Adobe Photoshop CS6. By default, PS recognizes my card and activates the Use Graphics Processor setting in the preferences, but when this is activated the framerate for ALL activities drops to a horrible crawl, less than five frames per second, with terrible lags. This includes all screen activity I can try, including drawing with the drawing tools, zooming, and panning the canvas. Drawing with the brush, for instance, is so bad that the line is drawn well behind my cursor, and the framerate for the drawing lurches along at a horribly slow rate, certainly less than five fps. If I turn off Use Graphics Processor, the problem disappears. No other setting adjustment advised by Adobe has helped, including changing history levels, cache levels, tile size, or adjusting advanced settings for the graphics processor. Deleting and resetting the preferences doesn't help, either. Nor does disabling 3rd party plug-ins.

I've tried Catalyst 13.1 and 13.2 Beta 7 -- both driver versions have the problem.

I installed this card when I updated my system in late November, to Windows 8 64 bit (plus other hardware changes). I wasn't using Photoshop CS6 prior to this upgrade, and the problem has occurred since I began using CS6. Before that, I was using PS CS4 on a very different system, so I don't have a moment I can point to where things started to go wrong, unfortunately.

No other Adobe program has this problem, including After Effects, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, or Flash Pro, all of which I've used regularly. Performance is also excellent with Autodesk Maya, and all fifty trillion games I've got on my system. This problem appears to exclusively be limited to how Photoshop is using my GPU -- perhaps it's an OpenGL thing.

Some system specs:

• Intel Core i5 750 @ 2.67ghz, quad core
• 16GB DDR3
• Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R mobo
• Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHZ OC 2 GB GDDR5 (no custom overclocking)
• Catalyst drivers 13.1 and 13.2 BETA (both versions have the problem)
• Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
• Asus VS248H on DVI at 1920x1080

If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate hearing them. Using GPU acceleration in Photoshop is important; I'm handicapped if I have to shut it off.

Lastly, here's the system info reported by Photoshop:

Photoshop System Info:

 

Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00) x64

Operating System: Windows 8 64-bit

Version: 6.2

System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:14, Stepping:5 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2

Physical processor count: 4

Processor speed: 2665 MHz

Built-in memory: 16379 MB

Free memory: 13443 MB

Memory available to Photoshop: 14697 MB

Memory used by Photoshop: 60 %

Image tile size: 128K

Image cache levels: 2

OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.

OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced

OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.

OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.

OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.

OpenCL Version: 1.2 AMD-APP (1084.4)

OpenGL Version: 3.0

Video Rect Texture Size: 16384

OpenGL Memory: 2048 MB

Video Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.

Video Card Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series

Display: 1

Display Bounds: top=0, left=0, bottom=1080, right=1920

Video Card Number: 2

Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series

Driver Version:

Driver Date:

Video Card Driver: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,ati umd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdv a,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll

Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 x 4294967296 colors

Video Card Caption: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series

Video Card Memory: 2048 MB

Video Card Number: 1

Video Card: Microsoft Basic Render Driver

Driver Version: 9.12.0.0

Driver Date: 20121219000000.000000-000

Video Card Driver:

Video Mode:

Video Card Caption: Microsoft Basic Render Driver

Video Card Memory: 0 MB

Serial number: 90970078453021833509

Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\

Temporary file path: C:\Users\RAFFAE~1\AppData\Local\Temp\

Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled

Scratch volume(s):

  C:\, 931.5G, 534.8G free

Required Plug-ins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Required\

Primary Plug-ins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Plug-ins\

Additional Plug-ins folder: not set

 

 

Installed components:

   ACE.dll   ACE 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768

   adbeape.dll   Adobe APE 2012/01/25-10:04:55   66.1025012   66.1025012

   AdobeLinguistic.dll   Adobe Linguisitc Library   6.0.0  

   AdobeOwl.dll   Adobe Owl 2012/09/10-12:31:21   5.0.4   79.517869

   AdobePDFL.dll   PDFL 2011/12/12-16:12:37   66.419471   66.419471

   AdobePIP.dll   Adobe Product Improvement Program   7.0.0.1686  

   AdobeXMP.dll   Adobe XMP Core 2012/02/06-14:56:27   66.145661   66.145661

   AdobeXMPFiles.dll   Adobe XMP Files 2012/02/06-14:56:27   66.145661   66.145661

   AdobeXMPScript.dll   Adobe XMP Script 2012/02/06-14:56:27   66.145661   66.145661

   adobe_caps.dll   Adobe CAPS   6,0,29,0  

   AGM.dll   AGM 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768

   ahclient.dll    AdobeHelp Dynamic Link Library   1,7,0,56  

   aif_core.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   aif_ocl.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   aif_ogl.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   amtlib.dll   AMTLib (64 Bit)   6.0.0.75 (BuildVersion: 6.0; BuildDate: Mon Jan 16 2012 18:00:00)   1.000000

   ARE.dll   ARE 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768

   AXE8SharedExpat.dll   AXE8SharedExpat 2011/12/16-15:10:49   66.26830   66.26830

   AXEDOMCore.dll   AXEDOMCore 2011/12/16-15:10:49   66.26830   66.26830

   Bib.dll   BIB 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768

   BIBUtils.dll   BIBUtils 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768

   boost_date_time.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   boost_signals.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   boost_system.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   boost_threads.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   cg.dll   NVIDIA Cg Runtime   3.0.00007  

   cgGL.dll   NVIDIA Cg Runtime   3.0.00007  

   CIT.dll   Adobe CIT   2.1.0.20577   2.1.0.20577

   CoolType.dll   CoolType 2012/06/05-15:16:32   66.507768   66.507768

   data_flow.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   dvaaudiodevice.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   dvacore.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   dvamarshal.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   dvamediatypes.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   dvaplayer.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   dvatransport.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   dvaunittesting.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   dynamiclink.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   ExtendScript.dll   ExtendScript 2011/12/14-15:08:46   66.490082   66.490082

   FileInfo.dll   Adobe XMP FileInfo 2012/01/17-15:11:19   66.145433   66.145433

   filter_graph.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   hydra_filters.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   icucnv40.dll   International Components for Unicode 2011/11/15-16:30:22    Build gtlib_3.0.16615  

   icudt40.dll   International Components for Unicode 2011/11/15-16:30:22    Build gtlib_3.0.16615  

   image_compiler.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   image_flow.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   image_runtime.dll   AIF   3.0   62.490293

   JP2KLib.dll   JP2KLib 2011/12/12-16:12:37   66.236923   66.236923

   libifcoremd.dll   Intel(r) Visual Fortran Compiler   10.0 (Update A)  

   libmmd.dll   Intel(r) C Compiler, Intel(r) C++ Compiler, Intel(r) Fortran Compiler   12.0  

   LogSession.dll   LogSession   2.1.2.1681  

   mediacoreif.dll   DVA Product   6.0.0  

   MPS.dll   MPS 2012/02/03-10:33:13   66.495174   66.495174

   msvcm80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6910  

   msvcm90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1  

   msvcp100.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010   10.00.40219.1  

   msvcp80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6910  

   msvcp90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1  

   msvcr100.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010   10.00.40219.1  

   msvcr80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6910  

   msvcr90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1  

   pdfsettings.dll   Adobe PDFSettings   1.04  

   Photoshop.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6  

   Plugin.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6  

   PlugPlug.dll   Adobe(R) CSXS PlugPlug Standard Dll (64 bit)   3.0.0.383  

   PSArt.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6  

   PSViews.dll   Adobe Photoshop CS6   CS6  

   SCCore.dll   ScCore 2011/12/14-15:08:46   66.490082   66.490082

   ScriptUIFlex.dll   ScriptUIFlex 2011/12/14-15:08:46   66.490082   66.490082

   svml_dispmd.dll   Intel(r) C Compiler, Intel(r) C++ Compiler, Intel(r) Fortran Compiler   12.0  

   tbb.dll   Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks for Windows   3, 0, 2010, 0406  

   tbbmalloc.dll   Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks for Windows   3, 0, 2010, 0406  

   updaternotifications.dll   Adobe Updater Notifications Library   6.0.0.24 (BuildVersion: 1.0; BuildDate: BUILDDATETIME)   6.0.0.24

   WRServices.dll   WRServices Friday January 27 2012 13:22:12   Build 0.17112   0.17112

 

 

 

 

Required plug-ins:

 

 

   3D Studio 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Accented Edges 13.0

   Adaptive Wide Angle 13.0

   Angled Strokes 13.0

   Average 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Bas Relief 13.0

   BMP 13.0

   Camera Raw 7.3

   Chalk & Charcoal 13.0

   Charcoal 13.0

   Chrome 13.0

   Cineon 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Clouds 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Collada 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Color Halftone 13.0

   Colored Pencil 13.0

   CompuServe GIF 13.0

   Conté Crayon 13.0

   Craquelure 13.0

   Crop and Straighten Photos 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Crop and Straighten Photos Filter 13.0

   Crosshatch 13.0

   Crystallize 13.0

   Cutout 13.0

   Dark Strokes 13.0

   De-Interlace 13.0

   Dicom 13.0

   Difference Clouds 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Diffuse Glow 13.0

   Displace 13.0

   Dry Brush 13.0

   Eazel Acquire 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Embed Watermark 4.0

   Entropy 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Extrude 13.0

   FastCore Routines 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Fibers 13.0

   Film Grain 13.0

   Filter Gallery 13.0

   Flash 3D 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Fresco 13.0

   Glass 13.0

   Glowing Edges 13.0

   Google Earth 4 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Grain 13.0

   Graphic Pen 13.0

   Halftone Pattern 13.0

   HDRMergeUI 13.0

   IFF Format 13.0

   Ink Outlines 13.0

   JPEG 2000 13.0

   Kurtosis 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Lens Blur 13.0

   Lens Correction 13.0

   Lens Flare 13.0

   Liquify 13.0

   Matlab Operation 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Maximum 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Mean 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Measurement Core 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Median 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Mezzotint 13.0

   Minimum 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   MMXCore Routines 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Mosaic Tiles 13.0

   Multiprocessor Support 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Neon Glow 13.0

   Note Paper 13.0

   NTSC Colors 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Ocean Ripple 13.0

   Oil Paint 13.0

   OpenEXR 13.0

   Paint Daubs 13.0

   Palette Knife 13.0

   Patchwork 13.0

   Paths to Illustrator 13.0

   PCX 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Photocopy 13.0

   Photoshop 3D Engine 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Picture Package Filter 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Pinch 13.0

   Pixar 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Plaster 13.0

   Plastic Wrap 13.0

   PNG 13.0

   Pointillize 13.0

   Polar Coordinates 13.0

   Portable Bit Map 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Poster Edges 13.0

   Radial Blur 13.0

   Radiance 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Range 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Read Watermark 4.0

   Reticulation 13.0

   Ripple 13.0

   Rough Pastels 13.0

   Save for Web 13.0

   ScriptingSupport 13.1.2

   Shear 13.0

   Skewness 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Smart Blur 13.0

   Smudge Stick 13.0

   Solarize 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Spatter 13.0

   Spherize 13.0

   Sponge 13.0

   Sprayed Strokes 13.0

   Stained Glass 13.0

   Stamp 13.0

   Standard Deviation 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   STL 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Sumi-e 13.0

   Summation 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Targa 13.0

   Texturizer 13.0

   Tiles 13.0

   Torn Edges 13.0

   Twirl 13.0

   Underpainting 13.0

   Vanishing Point 13.0

   Variance 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Variations 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Water Paper 13.0

   Watercolor 13.0

   Wave 13.0

   Wavefront|OBJ 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   WIA Support 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   Wind 13.0

   Wireless Bitmap 13.1.2 (13.1.2 20130105.r.224 2013/01/05:23:00:00)

   ZigZag 13.0

 

 

Optional and third party plug-ins:

 

 

   DAZ Studio 3D Bridge 12.0

   DazUpdateScene 12.0

Plug-ins that failed to load: NONE

Flash:

   Mini Bridge

   Kuler

Installed TWAIN devices: NONE

I don't know if you have resolved your issue or not, but I thought you might want to take a look at this driver set > http://benchmark3d.com/amd-catalyst-9-003-3-firepro-modded-for-desktop-cards

-------------------------

Intel I7 960 @ 3.87ghz *Intel DX58SO *HIS HD6970 2gb *Corsair TX650M *2x4gb Corsair XMS3 *WD Black 1TB *Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit *Gateway HD2401 24" 2ms 1920x1200  ***Asus N71Jq laptop *Intel I7 720QM Processor *Mobility Radeon HD5730 1gb *8gb Ram *Windows 7 64bit  ***Acer 5750 laptop

* A clear conscience is usually a sign of bad memory *

Thanks for the response. Since I do play a lot of games on my system, I'm a little hesitant to try the driver because it says it's not recommended for games. This is probably a good example of why your gaming rig and productivity rig should be separate, I think!

I am still experiencing the problem. All Adobe could recommend is that I uninstall and reinstall Photoshop and my display drivers, which of course did nothing to help. After experimenting with all the different display-related settings in PS, I've found that setting Drawing Mode (in the Advanced settings) to Basic considerably improves performance over Normal and Advanced (which are about the same as each other), but it's still poor, and much worse than if I turn off Use Graphics Processor altogether. The brush tool, for instance, is lightning-fast with graphics acceleration off, somewhat sluggish with acceleration on and Drawing Mode set to Basic, and horrifically bad with Drawing Mode at Normal or Advanced.

That leads me to assume that some feature of OpenGL is the culprit, or possibly how Photoshop is using my video ram, since each level of Drawing Mode uses successively more OpenGL features and more video ram. Whether this is the "fault" of Photoshop or the Catalyst drivers, I don't know.

I haven't found anyone else with this problem. It might be some esoteric issue arising from the Radeon 7870 only on Windows 8 Pro 64-bit.

Thanks again for replying.