Adobe CC engaging Discrete GPU when not running.

[CBlakeston]

I get 4hrs battery life. with my 15" MBP with touch bar. 2.6 with 460. Even with the 10.12.2 update and with me killing most CPU processes. But I noticed that on a fresh boot my Discrete GPU is being used by Adobe CC. I have the Photoshop/ Lightroom CC package. I quit the creative cloud app that runs in my menu bar but the CC processes still running.

So as a test, I installed Sierra 10.12.2 on a USB flash drive and booted from there. On the fresh installation on desktop with just activity monitor and coconut battery running I'm using 5.5w with an estimated 14hrs of battery left.

My main installation uses 20w just sat in the desktop. Clearly my main installation has something wrong with it or it's something I've installed along the way.

I'm attaching screen grabs of both systems running just from boot on desktop. Note that on my main installation Adobe CC is engaging my discrete graphics even though I've stopped creative cloud app from running. Bad form Adobe. I have to kill all the CC processes if I want to run on integrated GPU.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Photoshop will always engage the GPU that has been chosen in your Performance setting.

Sorry, but this is another useless moaning thread. You should be moaning on the Adobe forum.

 

[CBlakeston]

You didn't read my post properly. You're saying its normal behaviour that just by installing adobe products my GPU is running all the time. Even though Photoshop is not. I have FCPX installed. That doesn't use my GPU when not running. Neither do the Steam games I have installed.

This might not be an adobe help forum. But (and I may be assuming a lot here) I thought I might be able to reach out to the helpful friendly Mac community to find out if it's happening to anyone else.

Silly me for forgetting that the people can be rude jerks and that the community at MacRumours is toxic.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

You didn't read my post properly. You're saying its normal behaviour that just by installing adobe products my GPU is running all the time. Even though Photoshop is not. I have FCPX installed. That doesn't use my GPU when not running. Neither do the Steam games I have installed.

 

[CBlakeston]

I understand perfectly how Creative Cloud works. It checks for updates and syncs files int he background. It should no more engage the GPU then Dropbox does. But when dropbox was found to misappropriate its user privileges it was a huge tech story. How is it not a huge story that Adobe's mandatory app that basically checks serials is engaging the GPU. We might find common ground that everyone complaining of battery issues is also running CC.

The GPU is Hardware
The battery is Hardware
so I posted in the 'Hardware' forum of a Mac community group. I wish I'd never bothered.

 

[maflynn]

OP, sounds like Adobe has a bug in their software if the CC is the only software running but its forcing the dGPU to be enabled.

I used to use gfxCardStatus I'm not sure if its compatible with the new MBPs, but that's a handy utility to switch GPUs, you can try that.

 

[CBlakeston]

Many thanks.

 

[cubalibre]

OP - thanks for sharing, still waiting for my touchbar 15"/2.6/460. I use several Adobe CC apps every day, so I am very interested in news about this.

Please let us know if there are any workarounds or fixes!

 

[CBlakeston]

Just wanted to add 10.12.2 has now fixed my battery issues completely. But not at first. I had updated to 10.12.2 with an improvement but nothing stellar.

So, I booted into recovery mode and reinstalled Sierra having read this would replace all the system files, leaving my apps and data intact. It did exactly that and now with the same usage I discharge at 5.5w and get 11-12 hours real world usage.

My discrete GPU firing for no reason is fixed too so apologies to adobe. That seems to be solved also.

 

[Miltz]

Just wanted to add 10.12.2 has now fixed my battery issues completely. But not at first. I had updated to 10.12.2 with an improvement but nothing stellar.

So, I booted into recovery mode and reinstalled Sierra having read this would replace all the system files, leaving my apps and data intact. It did exactly that and now with the same usage I discharge at 5.5w and get 11-12 hours real world usage.

My discrete GPU firing for no reason is fixed too so apologies to adobe. That seems to be solved also.

Thanks for all your hard work. My MacBook came with 10.12.2 installed from the factory so I hope I don't have any issue with adobe. It's odd that you had to do a clean install to fix the issue. I thought macs did have issues like this