I’m posting here as I’m getting nothing from my Support Request. Maybe someone here has some ideas.
I’ve recently upgraded my system, and when I try to run Impression (standalone or as a plugin in Photoshop, etc.) I get very flaky behaviour. The window flashes, sections blank out, response is very sluggish, and quickly becomes unresponsive or crashes.
I tried it on my 10-year old computer(!), and it seems to run fine there.
My new computer specs are as follows:
Intel i7-8700
Z390 motherboard chipset
32 GB of RAM
The only thing that stands out is that I am currently NOT running a dedicated video card. I am using the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 on the motherboard. I have tried to dedicate more RAM to graphics via BIOS settings, but have no indication as to whether that is being recognized. My understanding is that system RAM (of which there should be plenty) is allocated as needed to graphics tasks. According to Intel, that means I should have up to 16GB available for graphics.
Could the graphics be the issue? I presume anyone running a laptop would generally be using integrated graphics, so why would it be different on a desktop?
If not that, what could be the issue?
I can get Impression to work in Studio, although Studio itself is rather laggy on the new system. I was looking forward to some fairly blazing image processing with the new computer. Photoshop, CorelDRAW, PaintshopPro, etc, all work great. But I’m sorely disappointed in the performance I am getting with Topaz products.
Impression - Lagging, Hanging, Crashing ID #170376 5 days ago
I left the paging file set to be “System Managed”. I’ve been led to believe that was best. Although I did move it off of my system SSD drive.
Are you suggesting I should set a custom size? Minimum 32 GB or Maximum 32 GB?
What is different the in graphics department on the older PC compared to this new one?
AFAIK with integated graphics the amount of RAM available for programs at any one time can vary markedly and I suspect that the allocation of max half of the available is a bit of fib ~ i.e. the OS will take a lump, the likes of PS or LR will want their share and all of those demands will erode the amount available for running Impression or any other memory demanding programs!
By way of a side thought ~ I use AI Gigapixel. Because my original GPU was below spec to run AIG I used the “CPU processing option” in preferences I then changed the GPU for one that fell in the “Recommended” category and AIG setting GPU in the preferences and it flew along by comparison. Now I am unsure what the difference is between the CPU (and system RAM?) processing the file and the GPU’s VRAM but it made one heck of a difference. Food for thought perhaps in your situation???
Now, it has been a while since I had a laptop but on the recent occasions when I have looked at some specs many say they include (onboard) nVidia or AMD Radeon Graphics which I can only surmise has VRAM memory.
I also use Lightroom v6.12 (yes, the older perpetual license version) in it’s preferences I can tell it to use Graphics Acceleration. Even with my new GPU that has 4GB of VRAM, Lightroom started to behave oddly that once I disabled the GPU Acceleration normal service resumed.
Just because you have a decent core spec PC does not necessarily mean it is guaranteed to run all programs perfectly without some additions to the hardware
PS surmising that the old PC has a separate GPU, have you considered installing that in the new one to see if that helps???
For me Impression runs fine on my PC using a Intel 630, note though that it is slow as it isn’t a powerful GPU and can’t compete with a GPU with many cores. It won’t make any difference dedicating more RAM as it has 112MB of dedicated vRAM and accesses system RAM as needed and available - I believe that my HD630 is only using 1GB max but has access to 8GB.
The rule of thumb is to manage your own Paging File/Virtual Memory and have it on the fastest drive with at least the minimum set to the same amount of your system RAM and maximum of twice the System RAM. Note that this will make little or no difference for Video Memory use though.
You will have a far better experience using a dedicated PCIe Video card as it has dedicated vRAM and many compute cores so won’t get to compete with system RAM, I/0 etc.
I use a laptop that has dual graphics cards, a Intel HD630 and a NVIDIA GTx1050/4GB, and I simply allocate the GTX1050 to Studio/Impression, etc.
The other thing that must be considered is that Impression v1/v2 are now unsupported products because it has been released in Studio which is a free upgrade for you if you own Impression v2.
Windows 10 is notoriously bad at auto-managing Paging File. I set mine manually to minimum 64Gb (consistent with my RAM), so you should probably set your minimum to 32Gb, and max 64Gb
OK. Apparently setting the amount of RAM for graphics in BIOS doesn’t actually do much of anything.
I tried adjusting my paging file to 32GB minimum and 64GB maximum with no change in performance. Program flakes out and hangs.
So I pulled my old graphics card from the older computer and dropped it in, and, unsurprisingly, the program ran fine. Monitoring GPU activity, there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on, but there you go. Topaz chokes without a GPU.
I still don’t know how laptop folks run Topaz programs. Maybe they provide some dedicated video ram? Dunno. I’m not a laptop guy.
So I’ve ordered an 8GB video card, and will drop it in when it arrives. I was hoping to get away without spending the $ for a while at least.
Thanks to all who provided input on this.
And a week later, still absolutely nothing from Topaz on my support ticket. Disappointing.
By comparison, I submitted a support request to ASUS asking about the BIOS setting. I got a reply 2 days later, and a 2 days after that they phoned me to see if that solved the problem. I said, “no”, and they took another look. Then, today, they phoned again to follow up on another email response. I know, ASUS=BIG, topaz=small, but come on.
I would just let Windows manage your page file. Paging is used when you run out of RAM and you have lots of RAM. GDDR4 RAM is slower than what is used on video cards (GDDR5 or GDDR6 (in a few cases)). Make sure your have any Topaz products set to use GPU after you install the new card. If you are using Impression as a stand alone, I would use it in Topaz studio instead so it is updated.
Hey guys was running topaz studio with Impressions on an older laptop that kind of went out but it ran fine a little slow but it worked.
Now I have a Dell 17 G3 it has Intel UHD 630 Graphics along with a Nvidia 1050 I cannot get topaz Studio to run at all.
I’ve tried sending it to integrated Graphics letting the UHD 630 handle everything doesn’t work tried to handing it over to the GTX 1050 doesn’t work.
Screen opens up says welcome to Topaz studio and just hangs and never goes past that point now if I switch over to just Intel UHD it just comes up initially and then just flashes and disappears where I’ve got some mixture of both Graphics going and it comes up does welcoming topaz Studios but it never goes any further.
Waiting for topaz customer service to respond but I’ve heard they’re not very good at responding is anybody in this same situation that could help me with settings I’m going to take this laptop back I just bought it a week ago if I can’t get topaz Studio to run help?
Hey guys was running topaz studio with Impressions on an older laptop that kind of went out but it ran fine a little slow but it worked.
Now I have a Dell 17 G3 it has Intel UHD 630 Graphics along with a Nvidia 1050 I cannot get topaz Studio to run at all.
I’ve tried sending it to integrated Graphics letting the UHD 630 handle everything doesn’t work tried to handing it over to the GTX 1050 doesn’t work.
Screen opens up says welcome to Topaz studio and just hangs and never goes past that point now if I switch over to just Intel UHD it just comes up initially and then just flashes and disappears where I’ve got some mixture of both Graphics going and it comes up does welcoming topaz Studios but it never goes any further.
Waiting for topaz customer service to respond but I’ve heard they’re not very good at responding is anybody in this same situation that could help me with settings I’m going to take this laptop back I just bought it a week ago if I can’t get topaz Studio to run help?
You probably need to uninstall as I have a HP with the same 2 GPUs as you but they run on both, albeit it a little slow on the HD630.
Firstly make sure the GTX 1050 drivers are up to date from the NVIDIA website (not Dell) and then see this article on how to configure switchable graphics:
