How can I improve Adobe CS5 performance?

macfanuk · 7 Jul 2010 at 12:13

I have got a trial of Adobe Creative Suite 5 on a PC at work and so far it's ok but it's really lagging. The PC currently has an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.66GHz, 4GB DDR2 Ram, 160GB Hard Drive and an Integrated Intel Graphics Chip.

Will adding a dedicated graphics card improve CS5's performance? I have read on forums that Mac users use a 2nd hard drive as a 'scratch disk' for the likes of photoshop which improves the performance but not sure how to implement that.

Any ideas would be great.

Boozebeard · 7 Jul 2010 at 12:22

Well I never had problems with lag using my quad core at stock and 4gb is enough for most things so I would say it must be the graphics card.

ultim · 7 Jul 2010 at 12:32

A SSD will give a big increase in speed

macfanuk · 7 Jul 2010 at 12:36

ultim said:
A SSD will give a big increase in speed

Can't justify that kind of money on a work computer to be honest.

Adrianr · 7 Jul 2010 at 12:41

Which programs are you finding laggy? CS5 has a lot of programs and not all require the same hardware in equal measure.

However if in doubt, throw more ram at it. A scratch disk would be good (how much of that 160gb drive is free? If you're running out of space on it and it's the only drive it would explain the poor performance. Even just getting a larger main hardrive would help (500GB single platter is very cheap and would yield improvements).

Graphics cards are still only mainly used for aesthetical or non important improvements except in the case of Premiere's Mercury engine, but that requires an expensive Nvidia card to work (GTX285 minimum, though it can be hacked to work with GTX260's +)

macfanuk · 7 Jul 2010 at 12:57

Adrianr said:
Which programs are you finding laggy? CS5 has a lot of programs and not all require the same hardware in equal measure.

However if in doubt, throw more ram at it. A scratch disk would be good (how much of that 160gb drive is free? If you're running out of space on it and it's the only drive it would explain the poor performance. Even just getting a larger main hardrive would help (500GB single platter is very cheap and would yield improvements).

Graphics cards are still only mainly used for aesthetical or non important improvements except in the case of Premiere's Mercury engine, but that requires an expensive Nvidia card to work (GTX285 minimum, though it can be hacked to work with GTX260's +)

Thanks for your reply. The main programs that I'm finding laggy are InDesign and Photoshop. Dreamweaver seems ok.

The hard drive has 88GB free. I've got a few 500GB drives at home so I could stick one of those in if it'd help but need some ideas of what's most likely to help.

eatcustard · 7 Jul 2010 at 12:59

Photoshop loves Ram and a fast scratch drive

Temi_D · 7 Jul 2010 at 20:50

macfanuk said:
...an Integrated Intel Graphics Chip...

I think that's the problem

mrk · 7 Jul 2010 at 21:02

ultim said:
A SSD will give a big increase in speed

No it won't. It will only improve the software load time and any scratchdisk usage (but only if working with multiple huge images).

The issue in the Op appears to be GPU acceleration which onboard Intel won't be very good at.