Photoshop CS6 GPU FAQ

This document provides a quick reference guide to the usage of graphics cards in Photoshop. Some features require a compatible video card to be used. These features do not work if the video card or its drivers are defective or unsupported. Other features use the graphics card for acceleration, and if the video card or driver is defective, these features will run slower.

Mercury Graphics Engine

The Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) represents the ability to use the graphics card or GPU acceleration. In Photoshop CS6, this new engine produces almost instantaneous rendering when you are editing with key tools such as "liquefaction", "transform", "light effect", and "oil painting" filters. The new MGE provides an unprecedented response speed, allowing you to feel smoother at work.

MGE is a new feature of Photoshop CS6, using OpenGL and OpenCL frameworks. It does not use NVidia's proprietary CUDA framework.

To use MGE, you must have a supported video card and an updated driver. If you do not have a supported video card, performance will decrease. In most cases, acceleration cannot be achieved, and this feature will run in normal CPU mode. However, some features do not work without a supported video card.

GPU enhancements added in Photoshop CS6

Adaptive wide-angle filter (requires a compatible video card)

Liquefaction (accelerated by a compatible graphics card with a MB VRAM)

Oil painting (requires a compatible graphics card)

Deformation and manipulation (accelerated by a compatible graphics card)

Scene blur, aperture blur, and tilt/offset (supported by

OpenCL graphics acceleration)

Light effect Library (needs to be equipped with the MB VRAM

Compatible video card)

New 3D Enhancements (3D functionality in Photoshop requires a compatible video card with a VRAM MB):

Shadowed shadows that can be dragged

Ground reflection

Rough degree

Canvas UI Control

Ground

Light Widget on the edge of the canvas

IBL (image based optical) controller

GPU features added in earlier versions of Photoshop

Fine miniature put. See continuous scaling in the Photoshop CS5 Help.

Hint-type display (HUD) color picker. See the Photoshop CS5 Help for color selection during painting.

Color sampling ring. See the use of the eyedropper tool in Photoshop CS5 Help for color selection.

Brush size dynamic adjustment and hardness control. See the Photoshop CS5 Help to resize the drawing cursor or change the hardness of the drawing cursor by dragging.

Hard bristles Brush tip preview. See the hard Brush tip shape option in the Photoshop CS5 help.

The "three halves" trim mesh overlay. See crop images in Photoshop CS5 help.

Scaling enhancements. Smooth display at all zoom levels and on temporary scaling. See continuous scaling and temporary scaling images.

Animation transitions for one-stop scaling. You can zoom by pressing the Ctrl + Plus (Windows) or Command + plus sign, and the image changes slightly dynamically between the zoom levels. Scaling may not be noticeable.

Swipe the pan. Select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS). In the General panel, select Enable swipe panning. Then, select the Hand tool and swipe the image as if it were a tap gesture on the iPhone. The image will slide smoothly to the new position.

Rotate the canvas. See Using the Rotate View tool in Photoshop CS5 help.

View images that are not square pixels. See adjust pixel aspect ratios in Photoshop CS5 help.

Pixel grid. The pixel grid appears when the zoom rate on the image exceeds 500%. See the hidden pixel grid in Photoshop CS5 help.

Adobe color Engine (ACE). The color conversion is faster because the GPU is being processed, not the CPU.

Draws a brush tip cursor. Select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS). In the cursor panel, select brush Preview color. Then, when you interactively adjust the size or hardness of the brush tool, the preview color displays the changes in real time. See the Photoshop CS5 Help to resize the drawing cursor or change the hardness of the drawing cursor by dragging.

Adobe Bridge GPU Features

The preview panel

Full Screen Preview

"Review" mode

For information about all of these features, see the preview and compare images in the Adobe Bridge CS6 help.

Gpu/opengl Preferences in Photoshop CS6

The advantage of combining compatible graphics (GPU) with Photoshop is that you can experience better performance and more functionality. If your video card is a legacy video card and its VRAM is limited, there is a problem. Problems can also occur if you use other programs in conjunction with Photoshop, which uses the GPU.

The advantage of combining compatible graphics (GPU) with Photoshop is that you can experience better performance and more functionality. If your video card is a legacy video card and its VRAM is limited, or if you use other programs with Photoshop using the GPU, problems can occur.

Fast GPU Troubleshooting steps

If Photoshop is incompatible with the display part of the access GPU, you may experience problems such as unnatural, error, and crash.

If you encounter crashes, incorrectly rendering windows or objects, redrawing problems, or performance problems while you are running Photoshop, first determine if these issues are caused by OpenGL.

1. Close OpenGL.

Select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS).

In the performance panel, uncheck use graphics processor. Click OK.

Restart Photoshop, and then perform the same function.

If the problem occurs again when the OpenGL drawing feature is deactivated, OpenGL is not the cause of the problem. For additional troubleshooting See Troubleshooting: System Errors and freeze issues | Adobe software or troubleshooting on Windows: Troubleshooting system errors and freezing problems | Adobe software on Mac OS 10.x.

If the problem is resolved, continue with the rest of the troubleshooting steps to fix OpenGL.

2. Make sure you are using the latest Photoshop updates.

These updates fix some of the errors and problems.

3. Update the display driver.

The updated display driver can fix multiple problems, such as crashing, rendering objects incorrectly, and performance issues. See "Updating video display Driver". Then, open the use graphics processor in the Photoshop preferences.

4. Reset Preferences.

After the preferences are reset, the OpenGL settings are restored to the default state. You can reset Photoshop by pressing Shift+ctrl+alt (Windows) or Shift+option+command (Mac OS) immediately after you start Photoshop. When asked if you want to remove the Adobe Photoshop settings file, click Yes, and then try the ability to cause the problem.

5. Change the OpenGL mode to "basic".

When the OpenGL mode is set to basic, the minimum amount of GPU memory and the most basic GPU feature set are used.

Closes all documents.

Select Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS).

In the Performance panel, click GPU Settings Advanced Settings.

Select Mode > Basic.

Restart Photoshop.

If the solution resolves the problem, switch to normal mode. Observe whether the problem occurs again. If the problem occurs again, return to basic mode.

Note: If you change the GPU preferences for troubleshooting, restart Photoshop after each change.

6. If you are using more than one video adapter, remove the other cards.

Multiple video adapters can cause problems with GPU acceleration or enabled features in Photoshop. It is a good idea to connect two (or more) monitors to one video adapter. If you must use multiple video adapters, make sure they have the same brand and model.

Otherwise, there will be crashes and other problems in Photoshop.

Attention:

Using two video adapters does not enhance Photoshop performance.

7. Check your cache level settings.

If you have set the cache level in the Photoshop preferences to 1, you will experience performance problems when you use the GPU feature. Resets the cache level to the default setting of 4.

Select the Edit > Preferences > Performance (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences (Mac OS).

In the performance panel, select Cache level > 4.

GPU Sniffer

To help prevent Photoshop crashes associated with GPU hardware or driver corruption, Photoshop uses a small program called GPU Sniffer. The Sniffer is started whenever Photoshop starts. Sniffer the initial test of running the GPU and reports the results to Photoshop. If Sniffer crashes or reports a failure status to Photoshop, Photoshop will not use the GPU. The Use graphics hardware check box in the Performance panel of Preferences is unchecked and deactivated.

When Sniffer fails for the first time, Photoshop displays a dialog box indicating that the GPU problem is detected. The dialog box will no longer appear in subsequent launches.

If you correct the problem by replacing the video card or updating the driver, the Sniffer will pass at the next startup and the Use graphics hardware check box will be enabled to revert to the previous state (enabled or deactivated).

Video card that has been tested for Photoshop CS6

Adobe tested the following video cards before releasing the Photoshop CS6. This document lists the graphics cards by series. The minimum amount of memory supported by the Photoshop CS6 is 256 MB.

Note: Adobe has tested the notebook and desktop versions of the video cards below. Be sure to download the latest driver for your specific model. (the name of the notebook and desktop version is slightly different.) )

NVidia GeForce 8000, 9000, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 series

NVidia Quadro 400, 600, 2000, 4000 (MAC and Win), CX, 5000, 6000

Amd/ati Radeon 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000 series

Amd/ati FirePro 3800, 4800, 5800, 7800, 8800, 9800, 3900, 4900, 5900, 7900

Intel HD Graphics, Intel HD Graphics P3000, Intel HD Graphics P4000

Note: We will no longer test the ATI X1000 series and the NVidia 7000 series graphics cards, Photoshop CS6 no longer formally support these graphics cards, but some basic GL features may still be available for these graphics cards.

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