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Question

Classic slows down and does not unload the DDR Memory

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 20, 2022
3 replies
463 views

I have observed an annoying bug, or maybe I should rather call it an annoying way Lightroom Classic CC seems to handle System Memory (DDR), and was wondering, if anybody has a similar issue or a workaround.

My issue is the following: Every time, I use a function in lightroom for the first time in a session (so every first time after opening the program and starting to work on pictures, not first time ever) Lightrooms DDR demand is increased, resulting in Lightroom constantly loading new data into the system memory. Thats fine, BUT Lightroom never seems to purge the Data from the DDR, even after an operation is done and no longer requires active resources. This leads to annoying slow downs. I've seen this behaviour on both my Windows desktop (Ryzen 5600x, 32GB DDR4 3200 RAM, RTX2070, 2x 1TB NVME Samsung 980) as well as my MacBook Pro (14inch, M1 Pro, 16gb Ram)

Let me give you an example how this looks on my Windows machine:

I open up Lightroom and navigate to the Develop Module. RAM usage at this point sits an around 2,4 GB.

Now I start editing a couple of Photos. Ram usage immediately shoots up to around 6.1 GB and stays there, even after around 20 edits of 33 mp photos.

Next up, I want to merge photos into a panorama or use the "enhance detail" function, mainly to improve drone shots from my mini 3 pro. (so 12 mp raws). After having done bot, the RAM usage now sits at almost 13GB.Also Lightroom noticeably slows down, even though there is more then enough RAM left, both physical and virtual.

The weird part to me is, that unless you restart lightroom, that RAM usage never ever goes back down again. Even though my Panorama is finished, my Photo is enhanced and i'm back in the library trying to sort my photos. I don't get, why Lightroom need to keep Data in the System Memory, that is, based upon usage during normal edits, not needed in order for it to work just fine. I've optimized my catalouge, tried a different or new catalogue and reinstalled lightroom, all to no avail.

My RAW Cache sits on a state of the art PCI Express NVME and is set to 50GB, I disabled Video Cache and like I said, I've seen this on both my Windows as well as my Mac.

So, bottom line: My current workaround is, to restart Lightroom every time the memory fill-up is starting to cause issues (especially after every panorama or enhance detail) but that can't be the indented behaviour of Lightroom Classic. So, does anybody have an Idea what the cause of this could be or whether it's being fixed with a future update?

This topic has been closed for replies.

ouiouiphoto

Known Participant

Hello. We are all complaining for years about the memory management of LrC with comparable print screen. By lauching several Panoramas one after the other i can consume more than 32GB of memory in some minutes. LrC does not seems to free the memory after usage. Unfortunatly he does the same with the Video Memory.

.Sheepdog trying to help Lightroom and Photoshop beginners

D Fosse

Community Expert

I'm seeing the same thing, but I'm not noticing any performance slowdowns. This makes me suspect that maybe it is designed behavior (like in Photoshop where memory is deliberately held but recycled and reused).

My favorite memory hog these days is the new Lens Blur, which quickly eats up all my 12 GB VRAM, and then a bit of shared system RAM. It is not immediately released when exiting Lens Blur and resetting.

The interesting thing is that if I just ignore this, move to other folders and keep working, the memory usage will gradually decrease and drop. Not immediately, but gradually.

If I open Photoshop and do something GPU-intensive there, there are no problems, everything is still instant. So the VRAM seems to be re-allocated.

I'm not particularly worried about this. Remember, memory should be in use - ideally, all of it all the time. Free memory is wasted memory, it could just as well not be there.

This could be a bug for all I know, but it's not causing any problems here.

F

felixb62617238Author

Known Participant

Thanks for the answer and sharing you observations. Sadly I do actually experience major slow downs. It usually happens, when I edit many photos, so it's not an issue if I'm going through like 10 or 20 pictures. But if I edit a wedding session or my pictures from a vacation or something that means going through over a hundred, the RAM just gets filled up until it is full. And I mean so full, that my mouse no longer smoothly runs over the screen and it takes about a minute to close damn Lightroom. To be fair, this only happens after a couple of blur effects and panorama merges and adding masks, but still it's annoying as hell and can't be the intendes behavior of a professional tool.

Also, this might be a windows only issue. I rarely do heavy editing on my Mac, but still, I've only seen the RAM fill up but not experienced major slow downs like the one described.

D Fosse

Community Expert

There's been quite a few reports of memory leaks in M1, apparently fixed with M2.

I'm on Windows, so not affected by that.

F

felixb62617238Author

Known Participant

Just a quick "Hey, this issue is still in Lightroom Classic CC 24"....And it is still annoying as hell, I've also seen this happen on multiple different PCs and I don't really understand, how this can 1st still be a thing and 2nd nobody seems to have this issue or at least not a lot of people are bothered by it....

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