No GPU Options Available With Photoshop CS5, Graphics Card Driver Issue?

[kbphoto615]

So, here's the specs:

PC: Dell Studio XPS 1640
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670
Application: Photoshop CS5 64bit
Windows: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, SP1

Here's the issue:
I cannot use certain plugin's on Photoshop. The error I get for one in particular (OnOne) is " Phototools requires a video card that supports OpenGL 2.0 or greater "

In Photoshop CS5 I get this error under the Edit>Preferences>Performance Options>GPU Settings menu ; " No GPU Options Available With Photoshop Standard "

What I know about this error so far is it's a general error and 90 percent of the time it means there is an issue with the graphics card or the driver. I read this on an adobe forum as well as the quote below..

If OpenGL and 3D are grayed out - then the card or driver do not support the necessary features.

Another Adobe quote to clarify the error:

Unfortunately the wording in the performance preference needs rework. There is already a bug logged, but it was found too late for changes to be made.

There is no Photoshop Standard, just Photoshop and Photoshop Extended. It also fails to clearly note the condition. I apologize for the confusion it has caused. Photoshop and Photoshop Extended both support GPU acceleration features for supported cards.

The intention was to communicate that under the current conditions Photoshop can not enable any GL drawing features.

As far as the graphics card itself goes It IS on the list of supported cards from the Adobe website.

So, that leaves me with a driver issue. Which I pretty much knew in the first place as my motherboard and graphics card have been replaced twice now in the past 2 weeks.

Anyway, here is what I've tried so far:

Installing the driver from the Dell site.
Installing the driver from the ATI site.
Uninstalled all ATI stuff to the best of my ability, rebooted, and my laptop no longer allowed me to reinstall the driver, and I was left with the wrong resolution and no graphics driver, so I had to use time machine to revert back to before I uninstalled the drivers.
After uninstalling, and trying to reinstall there is an error that shows up for Video Controller (VGA), when I attempt to search the internet for a driver(through device manager), it says " Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error when attempting to install it: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670 'There is no driver selected for the device information set or element' " When I attempted to do the same for my Display Adapter, I received the same error.

I have also downloaded DriverGenius and even it says my drivers are all updated.

So I don't know what's going on with Photoshop. Maybe uninstall my Master Collection and reinstall it? It is fully functional, and fully updated already but I guess you never know.

Any ideas or suggestions would be amazing, thanks guys.  :/

Also, I don't know If I properly uninstalled the drivers, or if I even installed the correct ones. As I said when I install from the Dell site, it still doesn't work. I don't know what else to try... I can provide more details if needed. I rely on photoshop plug-ins and openGL as I am a photographer, so I am trying to get this fixed asap.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[talos72]

I have been having similar issues with Photoshop for almost two weeks now.  My hard drive died and I had to swap it.  Ever since then, I have not been able to enable GPU for Photoshop.  I have tried just about everything but reinstalling my whole OS again.  I have tried latest video card drivers (I have two NVidia 8800 GTX).  I have tried reinstalling Photoshop a bunch of times.  Nothing seems to work.  I post on Adobe's forum, but Adobe employee keeps saying I need to talk to NVidia.  I just don't think my cards are the issue as I have other apps that run on OpenGL fine (including Modo, etc.)  I have checked Device Manager, dxdiag, etc.  None show any errors or install problems for my cards.  I feel the situation is hopeless and no one seems to know what the heck is going on.  I have freelanc work to do, but can't get Photoshop to run properly.

My specs:
Windows Vista 32, SP2
2 x NVidia 8800 GTX 512MB
2 x 500 GB WD HD
2 x intel dual core 2.8 procs
Cintiq 21" as second display

I just notice that under System's Info in Photoshop though my video cards are listed, they show zero memory.

[kbphoto615]

Hey Talos. I can't believe the first person to post on this has the problem and not the answer, this forum kinda sucks obviously. Anyway, I can probably assist you with this error. Eventually DELL just sent me a new laptop, but I did find some interesting stuff in my search to fix my errors.

Create a system restore point before doing any of this, and make sure everything important is backed up, just incase!

Some things to try now:

Go to Nvidia's site, my issues were with a ATI so it's going to be different and I can't walk you through it but if you google enough you can figure it out, you need to UNINSTALL everything related to your graphics card and drivers. You can do this using several programs, I can only attest to Driver Genuis as it helped me with my issues. Using a driver program such as this, you should be able to remove your graphics drivers, you need to do it this way and not through device manager as device manager does not remove everything. Although I would try uninstalled from device manager first, and then rebooting and seeing if your computer can find the right drivers on it's own. If you need me to I can walk you through how to do this. Anyway, using driver genuis or a program like that,, after you have uninstalled everything you need to reinstall the latest graphics driver FROM THE LAPTOP MANUFACTURERS SITE, NOT FROM NVIDIA.

Please keep me posted and let me know If I can help anymore.


EDIT:

I just realized with your specs you probable have a desktop huh? thats going to make it a bit more difficult, I dont have experience with non mobile graphics cards. The issue with mine was I downloaded the wrong drivers after a reinstall and totally f'd up my laptop. I needed to use the Dell drivers, not the ATI ones. If this makes sense, sorry I couldnt be of more help. :/

[talos72]

Hi kbphoto

First off, thanks so much for replying as I have posted this issue on Nvidia and Adobe forums and no one has responded in over a week, except some one from Adobe saying I need to contact Nvidia.

I acutally have one of those Alienware m17x machines...they are one of those suped up laptops I got few years back.  I do a good bit of 3d work so I definitely need GPU access with Photoshop.  I have not tried Driver Genius.  Like I said, I had originally installed the OEM video card driver for my card after swapping my HD.  That was the version of the driver I had with my original HD and it seemed to work fine with Photoshop.  I then went ahead and uninstalled OEM version and installed the newest driver (through control panel and Programs and Files).  Again, the newest driver didn't help either.  So, I went back to the OEM driver that seemed to work before.  But no luck so far!

I talked to Alienware they couldn't help.  I talked to NVidia, they say its Photoshop.  I posted on Adobe forum and someone from Adobe replied that it's Nvidia.  I call Adobe and their tech support was not very helpfull.  I am at my wit's end. 

I would install new driver if it could help.  As I mentioned, I had originally been running OEM driver for my video card that was on my install disk and no other drivers where ever installed yet.

[kbphoto615]

Hi kbphoto

First off, thanks so much for replying as I have posted this issue on Nvidia and Adobe forums and no one has responded in over a week, except some one from Adobe saying I need to contact Nvidia.

I acutally have one of those Alienware m17x machines...they are one of those suped up laptops I got few years back.  I do a good bit of 3d work so I definitely need GPU access with Photoshop.  I have not tried Driver Genius.  Like I said, I had originally installed the OEM video card driver for my card after swapping my HD.  That was the version of the driver I had with my original HD and it seemed to work fine with Photoshop.  I then went ahead and uninstalled OEM version and installed the newest driver (through control panel and Programs and Files).  Again, the newest driver didn't help either.  So, I went back to the OEM driver that seemed to work before.  But no luck so far!

I talked to Alienware they couldn't help.  I talked to NVidia, they say its Photoshop.  I posted on Adobe forum and someone from Adobe replied that it's Nvidia.  I call Adobe and their tech support was not very helpfull.  I am at my wit's end. 

I would install new driver if it could help.  As I mentioned, I had originally been running OEM driver for my video card that was on my install disk and no other drivers where ever installed yet.

Ok so to understand you correctly, the new HD you installed the driver on was a fresh install of Windows 7?
And you installed the OEM(Dell is alienware right?) driver and it was WORKING at this point? you then installed the latest drivers from Nvidia, went back to OEM driver, and now it's not working?

I think you need to google how to remove all Nvidia video/graphics drivers from your system, as I said before graphics registry keys and other leftovers are not removed when uninstalling them the normal way. Your best bet, IMO, is to buy or download Driver Genuis, and or Revo Uninstaller PRO, both programs will come in handy in the future. Driver genius focuses soley on drivers, while Revo can uninstall anything and when running on Advanced mode ( by selecting the advanced circle when uninstalling) it pretty much garuntees all leftovers are removed as well.

[talos72]

Ok. Just to clarify:  Originally Photoshop CS5 worked fine with my computer (all original parts).  I was able to access GPU and everything.  Then about 10 days ago, my hard drive died.  I had to buy new hard drives and swap both (I had RAID 0).  I ended up having to install everything from scratch after formatting my new hard drives: the OS, the drivers and apps, etc.  I used the recovery disc from Alienware to install everything fresh on my new drives.  I installed the OEM driver version of my video cards too.  I installed photoshop and suddenly I see that I can not use GPU enabled features in Photoshop...even though Photoshop worked fine with the same drivers with my original HD before it died.  So I tried to download the latest driver from NVidia and uninstalled the OEM driver.  Still no good.

I have gone back and forth between drivers and reinstalled Photoshop half a dosen times. 

My only nuclear option has been reinstalling everything all over again...OS, driver, etc.

But before that I would like to know what may be causing the problem.  I may try the remover apps. What the heck! I've tried just about everything else.  I don't know if need to take more drastic action such as swapping video cards or messing around with the bios. 

[kbphoto615]

Ok. Just to clarify:  Originally Photoshop CS5 worked fine with my computer (all original parts).  I was able to access GPU and everything.  Then about 10 days ago, my hard drive died.  I had to buy new hard drives and swap both (I had RAID 0).  I ended up having to install everything from scratch after formatting my new hard drives: the OS, the drivers and apps, etc.  I used the recovery disc from Alienware to install everything fresh on my new drives.  I installed the OEM driver version of my video cards too.  I installed photoshop and suddenly I see that I can not use GPU enabled features in Photoshop...even though Photoshop worked fine with the same drivers with my original HD before it died.  So I tried to download the latest driver from NVidia and uninstalled the OEM driver.  Still no good.

I have gone back and forth between drivers and reinstalled Photoshop half a dosen times. 

My only nuclear option has been reinstalling everything all over again...OS, driver, etc.

But before that I would like to know what may be causing the problem.  I may try the remover apps. What the heck! I've tried just about everything else.  I don't know if need to take more drastic action such as swapping video cards or messing around with the bios.

Ok ok I gotcha now, sorry I misunderstood. You said you contacted Alienware did they advise you as to which drivers to install? I know you said you used the OEM drivers but I'm just making sure maybe they have some new driver not listed or who knows. It took me 2 different Technicians on Live chat from Dell.com to finally figure out what my problem was, still couldnt fix it but atleast I found someone willing to help, cause I went through exactly what you did, everyone was trying to blame the problem on everyone else.

I dont think the issue is bios related. a fresh OS install wouldn't matter, as you basically just did that. Photoshop uninstalling is useless, it's not a photoshop problem. It's not going to recgonize the driver until you fix the issue, reinstalling isnt going to do that for you. I think one more last ditch effort using Driver Genius would be the best option at this point, I know how frustrating reinstalling the OS can be so I know your pain, but I still think that wouldn't solve the issue.

Like I said, DELL eventually sent me a new laptop man. But I did fix the issue on my own prior to getting the new system, I just created more problems in the process cause I'm a noob. haha

What I did to fix my issue is exactly as follows:

I also was working on a clean OEM install, Windows found all my drivers for me, but Photoshop still wasn't working.
I downloaded Driver Genius, backed up my drivers to my desktop, uninstalled my Video Drivers, USING DRIVER GENIUS, and then reinstalled using Driver Genius. If this doesn't work the first time for you, try uninstalling the driver via Device Manager, and reinstalling using Driver Genius, try to avoid Windows installing your driver for you automattically if you can.

PS have you tried, or heard/read about the Adobe CS5 registry tweak you can apply to attempt to override photoshop not letting you use Open GL.
Some info can be found in this other topic on Adobe, but a bit of googling and you can find the download and better source info.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2951896

[jason2074]

I can't believe the first person to post on this has the problem and not the answer, this forum kinda sucks obviously. Anyway, I can probably assist you with this error

You have a way of making an indecent remark on this forum and now use it to suggest to other user's problem.

[kbphoto615]

You have a way of making an indecent remark on this forum and now use it to suggest to other user's problem.

It's not indecent at all. I apologize if I offended anyone, or yourself, but this forum's members in no way made me feel welcomed, "hopeful" or attempted to assist in my problem in any way shape or form, yet over 200 people have read this topic.
I should've said this forum is useless, not sucks. Sorry. but indecent implies that I was trying to be sly about it or non blunt, but I assure you It is very disappointing to come to a forum called ComputerHope, and yet this forum provided no hope of a solution for me, so again I apologize if my remark offended you but it is true none the less, and that remark had nothing to do with the other user's problem was just a statement before the fact, I merely suggested after said remark that I could probably help him with the issue, because I had helped myself with the very same issue. Trying to help him as no one else did on ComputerHope.

[patio]

Did you consider that although Photoshop is considered the best image app out there and your Post was viewed by many they may not in fact be experts at Photoshop ? ?

We have all kinds of Helpers here...some specialise in hardware issues, others in Networking, some software , some Drivers etc...

But maybe...just maybe no one with Photoshop expertise strolled by to see your Post.

Just food for thought...

[BC_Programmer]

It's not indecent at all. I apologize if I offended anyone, or yourself, but this forum's members in no way made me feel welcomed, "hopeful" or attempted to assist in my problem in any way shape or form, yet over 200 people have read this topic.
I should've said this forum is useless, not sucks. Sorry. but indecent implies that I was trying to be sly about it or non blunt, but I assure you It is very disappointing to come to a forum called ComputerHope, and yet this forum provided no hope of a solution for me, so again I apologize if my remark offended you but it is true none the less, and that remark had nothing to do with the other user's problem was just a statement before the fact, I merely suggested after said remark that I could probably help him with the issue, because I had helped myself with the very same issue. Trying to help him as no one else did on ComputerHope.

As you've said, the forum is called ComputerHope. not PhotoShopHope. While there is no doubt some members are versed in the program, it's not at all farfetched to consider that they may simply not have experience with your particular issue. For example, I've posted a few topics I believe that didn't really get any "helpful" replies (that helped the problem, certainly helpful in spirit) but I didn't call the forum "useless" I simply posted on a forum more suited to question, since it was fairly out of scope for this forum.


As to the issue, a quick google gives me this which appears to be about a slightly different problem (no GPU acceleration with Photoshop CS4 32-bit) however, the solution:

The workaround is to override the default GPU checking via the AllowOldGPUS_ON.reg file from this download, but change the 11.0 to 12.0.

 

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=4056&fileID= 3769

Some commentors there have reported success getting the option enabled in the 64-bit version using various methods. They may be worth a try. One of them I believe was to install Catalyst 10.5 (ATI Drivers) but I don't know if that's the most recent version. Perhaps you've already found that link; in which case you can see why I was 1 out of the 200 who viewed this topic, decided that I shouldn't try to help people with software I have never used, and didn't reply. In this case my attempt to assist has just been to probably perform the very same google searches you already did. I do hope it helps all the same.

[kbphoto615]

As you've said, the forum is called ComputerHope. not PhotoShopHope. While there is no doubt some members are versed in the program, it's not at all farfetched to consider that they may simply not have experience with your particular issue. For example, I've posted a few topics I believe that didn't really get any "helpful" replies (that helped the problem, certainly helpful in spirit) but I didn't call the forum "useless" I simply posted on a forum more suited to question, since it was fairly out of scope for this forum.


As to the issue, a quick google gives me this which appears to be about a slightly different problem (no GPU acceleration with Photoshop CS4 32-bit) however, the solution:
Some commentors there have reported success getting the option enabled in the 64-bit version using various methods. They may be worth a try. One of them I believe was to install Catalyst 10.5 (ATI Drivers) but I don't know if that's the most recent version. Perhaps you've already found that link; in which case you can see why I was 1 out of the 200 who viewed this topic, decided that I shouldn't try to help people with software I have never used, and didn't reply. In this case my attempt to assist has just been to probably perform the very same google searches you already did. I do hope it helps all the same.

I understand that it may not be people's area of expertise, but it is computer related in a computer hope forum. It may be a photoshop error but the error is related to drivers, which I always thought was computer related, not program specific. If Im mistaken about that, then excuse me. But I know for a fact computer Drivers are indeed Computer related, and not Photoshop related. So again, sorry If I offended anyone but I stand by my statement.

Also,

My Issue is no longer in question. Talos is the one with the problem now, and the registry tweak should only be used if he cant fix it any other way. The registry tweak merely tricks photoshop, and it could lead to more problems then good in the long run if you use the tweak. Plus he has Nvidia, not ATI, so his issue is going to be a bit different.

[BC_Programmer]

and the registry tweak should only be used if he cant fix it any other way.

The page I linked contains a wealth of information, not just the registry tweak. Although I cannot say whether it's more useful.

Plus he has Nvidia, not ATI, so his issue is going to be a bit different.

Several posters in the linked thread noted success with NVidia cards as well using a couple of the suggested fixes.

[kbphoto615]

The page I linked contains a wealth of information, not just the registry tweak. Although I cannot say whether it's more useful.
Several posters in the linked thread noted success with NVidia cards as well using a couple of the suggested fixes.

Yeah but you mentioned ATI catalyst, which is why I said he would need to do something differently, I wasn't meaning to reference the site but rather what you said.

Anyway, hope he get's it figured out.

[patio]

My Issue is no longer in question. Talos is the one with the problem now, and the registry tweak should only be used if he cant fix it any other way.

Nice that you took that time to assist him with his issue...

It's that healthy approach that makes us what we are.....

Welcome Aboard.