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Answered

Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 3.x

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
June 9, 2010
102 replies
323779 views

Hi

I just upgraded from lightroom 2.7 to lightroom 3. I then proceeded to import my old catalog. this all went fine but lightroom is so slow, the thumbnail previews take forever to load if I manage to have the patience to wait for them.

is there a quick solution?? How can it be sped up?

thanks

Laurence

Message title was edited by: Brett N

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Tom Hogarty

Keith - that is part of the problem everyone is trying to figure out - why does LR3 work well for some and lousy for others. as MANY of us have posted - we have the SAME EXACT HARDWARE setup from 2.7 to 3.3 with VASTLY different results. If the only thing changing is the software then Lightroom IS the problem to be diagnosed...

If it is so offending then unsubscribe from the forum.

David - you clearly don't get the issue confronting those of us posting here.

LR 2.7 did everything we needed it to. The Beta was wonderful, and the ads for 3.0 certainly made it appear it would continue to be a set in the right direction. Your solution is for us to now go but other software? Hardly a reasonable one when 2.7 was great and we had every expectation that the new version would be an improvement.

If both of you are happy with the way it's running, then that is great but you are not at all helping discover why others are having legitimate issues.

If it's like groundhog day then why are you bothering to come back?

FYI, I need to lock this thread and start a new thread because I fear that customers will attempt to share valuable feedback in this discussion and it has become extremely difficult for the Lightroom team to follow the lengthy and increasingly chatty conversation. Please use the following forum topic to discuss the specifics of your feedback on Lightroom 3.3.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/760245?tstart=0

Regards,

Tom Hogarty

Lightroom Product Manager

Show previous replies

M

Mvox

Participant

Well I've given up and gone back to 2.7, (which still runs perfectly), no point in flogging an ailing horse. Since there are no refunds, (and anyway I really like the program itself, all my workflow is now based around it), I'll just have to wait for all this to be sorted out. And it looks like it might be a long wait, judging by the small amount of mystified Adobe staff comments and the fact that it feels like it's not much of a priority. Luckily I had only just started a new project using 3.0 before I discovered how bad it performs, so it's fairly easy for me to backtrack. I have a Dell workstation running XP Pro, with a generous spec. Doesn't seem any point in getting more detailed than that, it should work...!

This is quite dissapointing, to say the least. I really thought the days had gone when one paid good money for an unfinished program that the programmers haven't bothered to test properly and it's pretty obvious by now it's the program not our hardware. I also resent having to help sort out a problem that isn't mine, after all this isn't the 80's and I don't see my name on Adobe's payroll either. This is a retail product with full sales support, why are we expected to help out? Anyway, I've done many of the things suggested, updated graphics drivers etc, no change, still so slow it's unusable and as this thread has continued to grow, it's become plain from the posts that this is a flawed release.

Adobe talk themselves up so much, investing so much time and money to give the impression of being a totally professional company, a bit like Apple do, but really, in this case, they have reverted to the status of a start-up company with an enthusiastic sales team supporting an inferior, untested product. I find it hard to believe that they should release something directly aimed for professional use without ironing out some pretty horrendous bugs first. Quite stunning, breathtaking in fact, when one compares the product to how they are selling it.

Granted, not everyone is affected, but it looks like there's a fairly large proportion who are, just maybe not enough to make it go to the top of Adobe's to-do list, so maybe someone could wake me up when they've fixed it...

Ok, rant over,

a disgruntled Lightroom user.

areohbee

Legend

I must say - I don't mind helping out with the problem(s), as long as I feel like Adobe is reciprocating (or leading) ambitiously (and communicating same) - but I'm not feeling it... At this point, I've thrown up my hands and said "Its all you Adobe (maybe with some continued help from users with more stamina than me) - I'm out" - if this is just how its gonna have to be, then oh well. If not, please consider a more present and active roll with the users in resolving these issues.

PS - If I had 2 Lightrooms to choose from:

1 - $300 + $100/version - buggy, slow, and still lacking a bit.

2 - $499 + $150/version - less buggy, faster, with a few more of the holes plugged.

I'd take #2 in a heartbeat.

i.e. I'm not presently willing to give much more time to providing information that might help solve these issues, but I would be willing to give more money - if that would help you hire more people to work on it, or pay overtime to the ones you've got... (plane fare to visit users having problems you can't reproduce in house? ... )

laurencec - could you ever have imagined this thread would go on like this?

Mvox - I'm in for the long haul / not looking back... - I'll wake you up when its working better...

Me - a psychotic Lightroom lover/hater.

Rob

A

Anonymous

areohbee wrote:
I must say - I don't mind helping out with the problem(s), as long as I feel like Adobe is reciprocating (or leading) ambitiously (and communicating same) - but I'm not feeling it... At this point, I've thrown up my hands and said "Its all you Adobe (maybe with some continued help from users with more stamina than me) - I'm out" - if this is just how its gonna have to be, then oh well. If not, please consider a more present and active roll with the users in resolving these issues.
PS - If I had 2 Lightrooms to choose from:
1 - $300 + $100/version - buggy, slow, and still lacking a bit.
2 - $499 + $150/version - less buggy, faster, with a few more of the holes plugged.
I'd take #2 in a heartbeat.
i.e. I'm not presently willing to give much more time to providing information that might help solve these issues, but I would be willing to give more money - if that would help you hire more people to work on it, or pay overtime to the ones you've got... (plane fare to visit users having problems you can't reproduce in house? ... )
laurencec - could you ever have imagined this thread would go on like this?
Mvox - I'm in for the long haul / not looking back... - I'll wake you up when its working better...
Me - a psychotic Lightroom lover/hater.
Rob

Rob, this is nonsense, really. You can be sure that current problems some people face, have nothing to do with the price of the product or that Adobe had to release the software not properly tested because of the economic situation. I am convinced that whether the product would cost $300 or $499 it would be in the same situation as it is now. The product is now facing .0 version reality, which means it is confronted with real time situations, which are difficult to detect during testing, given the magnitude of possible user scenarios. Such situations cannot be solved with more people hiring. Rather, the developers, who understand the product and the environments in which it operates well, must carefully analyze the reported problems and try to solve the issues. This will take time. Not all problems might be in the responsibility of the Lightroom team - so they have to find workarounds. Fixes must be tested so that they do not have side effects. You, as a software developer, should know that.

This thread is probably beaten enough already. You and many others have already described the issues, that should be enough material for the developers to work on. Another guessing that this or that tweaking might help, does not solve the problems in general, and the developers probably know that.

We also have to face that not all performance problems will be solved in the next release, we can be sure that Adobe will do this on a prioritized schedule.

Kind regards

Thomas

A

Anonymous

I am also experiencing very slow performance in LR3.

Like you in the catalog mode. I ran the beta version without any problems.

I'm running Windows Vista 64bit Home Premium Quad Core machine with 8gb ram, the GPU is up to snuff as well.

I have 2 days left before I have to buy LR3, not sure what to do.

T

TRCML

Participant

I have found a solution, albeit not ideal.

Whenever things get too slow, having purged unused keywords, I export keywords to save them, then optimise the catalogue, then quit LR. I've set up LR to do a back-up on save, which it does. I then open LR and start.

R

rlv52

Participating Frequently

But mine is slow and I rarely use keywords.

T

TRCML

Participant

I too am experience slow import. Having upgraded to LR3, I'm tidying the source folders (3) for the catalogue (1) and checking that all files in the folders are in the catalogue. Using import new to current location, add to catalogue without moving the file, I've identified about 12 images in one folder. I've cancelled and quit LR once already just in case, but it's still taking a long time. I don't understand why it should take so long: from the other two folders, the same task was done quite quickly and involved approximately 30 files.

I think I'm going to give up and transfer them manually (copy and paste) and then use relink.

iMac OS Snow Leopard

2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

16GB RAM

1067 MHz DDR3

A

Anonymous

I'm a Mac user who was running LR 2.x and is now running LR 3. I too have noticed a considerable difference in performance. Particularly in the area of generating the previews when selecting an image and also in certain tools. Considering Adobe stated one of the benefits of upgrading to 3 was improved performance I'm disappointed that the opposite appears to be the case.

G

getho

Inspiring

I've just created a new catalogue for a shoot. It was apinful waiting for the 1:1 previews to render whilst working on images so I decided to render ALL of the DNGS 1:1 previews. It is taking about 8 seconds to generate a preview at the moment. Catlogue is about 1000 images

System specs below. Is this slow for a comparable system? its going to take over an hour to render 565 images.

Lightroom version: 3.0 [677000]
Operating system: Windows 7 Business Edition
Version: 6.1 [7600]
Application architecture: x64
System architecture: x64
Physical processor count: 8
Processor speed: 2.6 GHz
Built-in memory: 12279.0 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 12279.0 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 1373.9 MB (11.1%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 1406.9 MB
Memory cache size: 1493.3 MB
System DPI setting: 96 DPI
Desktop composition enabled: Yes
Displays: 1) 2560x1440, 2) 1600x1200

A

Anonymous

I think it's still slow, but you're getting better render time that I am - my is incredibly slow - to the point where I need to set it up and let it render overnight and hope/pray it's done in the morning.

But I notice that yours is letting you use more memory. I wonder if that's an XP vs. Win7 issue.(Or it may be that you're running the 64 bit version. I not enough of an expert to know more....but you're not alone in your pain!!

H

hwnoord

Participant

Just reporting that I have the memory drain issue on my desktop using
Windows XP, which successfully ran versions 1 and 2 with various upgrades. Everything now impossibly slow. On my laptop using Vista (a several year old computer) version 3 works acceptably well. Neither are super fast processors, and both have 2 GB memory. The problem is I use the desktokp for real Lightroom work as the monitor is bigger and better. Many have described a similar problem. I hope an updrade can be found which will solve this problem. hwnoord

A

Anonymous

Reporting in also. Seems like a lot of Mac people on here, so as a PC user I wanted to post my system info up:

Lightroom version: 3.0 [677000]
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Version: 5.1 [2600]
Application architecture: x86
System architecture: x86
Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2.3 GHz
Built-in memory: 3326.1 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 716.8 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 618.3 MB (86.2%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 593.4 MB
Memory cache size: 0.0 MB
System DPI setting: 96 DPI
Displays: 1) 1920x1200
Serial Number: removed by forum host

Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
Library Path: C:\Documents and Settings\LydellPhoto\My Documents\My Pictures\Lightroom\2010 Events\2010 Events-2.lrcat
Settings Folder: C:\Documents and Settings\LydellPhoto\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom

Our files are RAW files shot with Canon 5D.

I cannot believe how incredibly slow this is compared to 2.7. We shoot weddings, and therefore are dealing with several thousand images per shoot and the extra time it's taking is very painful. It's effectively doubled my production time at least. I'm also running it on two other laptops, but it's pretty much unuseable on them.

I know there has to be an update in the works. Is there any projected date for when we will get some relief? I've tried pretty much anything I could read about inthe forums to see if there is a way to speed things up, but so far nothing is working. About the only thing I can see that makes a difference is simply leaving the computer on for like a day with lightroom open so it can finish caching and building previews - which take an extremely long time to build compared to 2.7.

If we want to roll back to 2.7, is Adobe taking refund requests? This is one instance where I needed to have waited on the upgrade.

I have to finish the current projects in the workflow pipeline and then decide if I want to go back to 2.7.

Message was edited by: IanLyons

F

frank0239

Participating Frequently

You should edit out your serial number before posting.

J

JayS_In_CT

Participating Frequently

All,

I've been able to get a dramatic improvement in load time on at least one side of my coin. I updated my previews preference to 1024 and medium, then renamed the Previews LRData entry for LR 3. I went back and rebuilt standard previews (now at 1024) for all the images in my LR3 catalog.

In Library mode, load time from image selection to final resolution first time through are still 3x what they are in 2.7. In Develop module though, my image load times have dropped to that of 2.7.. Can't explain that one.

Also, does anyone know how LR 3 caches up the previews in Library mode. It seems I can go three or four images ahead in the filmstrip with no "loading" messages, but after that, the load comes back into play. Also, if I go to another part of a folder (in Library) work there for a few images and come back, I start getting the load messages again. I've got my cache set at 60GB.

Jay S.

Gavin Farrington

Participating Frequently

Good tip, JayS.

Anyone using a really big screen though should go with the large previews. On my 30" display, limiting the preview resolution to 1024 would trigger a larger render every time I click an image resulting in an overall slowdown. The take home message is efficiency. Render as much as you need, but no more.

J

JayS_In_CT

Participating Frequently

Digihotaru wrote:
Good tip, JayS.
Anyone using a really big screen though should go with the large previews. On my 30" display, limiting the preview resolution to 1024 would trigger a larger render every time I click an image resulting in an overall slowdown. The take home message is efficiency. Render as much as you need, but no more.

Digihotaru,

So based on what you're saying should I pick a larger preview size? 1024 is the smallest and was thinking it would help. I was using 1440. I've got a 24" Dell Ultrasharp (love it)... I'd love to get these load times down in Library mode.. I was figuring smaller previews shorter loads..

Jay S.

S

SteverinoJohnson

Participant

http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-3.1-driver.html

I've been experiencing serious performance issues in LR3 and Mac OS 10.6.4 especially with brushes.

I downloaded the Nvidia update and immediately the brushes worked fine again.

J

JayS_In_CT

Participating Frequently

SteverinoJohnson wrote:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-3.1-driver.html
I've been experiencing serious performance issues in LR3 and Mac OS 10.6.4 especially with brushes.
I downloaded the Nvidia update and immediately the brushes worked fine again.

Good to hear.. nothing similar for ATI based on MBP though... You may want to post this as a separate item so folks with similar config see it. I'm not sure how many are still viewing this thread.

Jay S.

areohbee

Legend

A related comment: If the newest driver isn't working well on your system (with Lightroom), consider using successively older versions until you find one that works better (on your system, with Lightroom - and hope it works well enough with your other software...). I've had to use this technique in the past as temporary remedy to get other graphic intensive applications working.

Rob

Gavin Farrington

Participating Frequently

Just to clarify and separate the issues:

I have the memory consumption issue, but don't have a laggy interface (until all my RAM is gone, then everything lags, haha.) I agree with Dan that in general the interface is significantly more responsive in LR3. Sliders don't stutter and hop while I move them the way they did in LR2. While the 2010 process version is taking a little more time to render, in general I feel it's a worthwhile trade off for the significant increase in image quality. The responsive UI takes a lot of sting out of the increased render times by making the software feel snappier.

So um... yeah. From where I'm sitting it seems the "performance improvements" to the UI are real and not marketing wishful-thinking. Hope this info is useful to someone in their pursuit of a blissful LR experience.

Good call on starting discrete threads, Dan. This one has gotten to the point where there are so many different issues, it's collapsing under it's own weight.

L

Lou_Gonza

Participating Frequently

I agree with the idea that something may be up with the 64 bit version. See my detailed post about it here (including screen shots). Since experiencing this issue I have installed the 32bit version (which does not hijack my machine). 2.7 ran beautifully on this same PC.

J

JayS_In_CT

Participating Frequently

Lou Gonza wrote:
I agree with the idea that something may be up with the 64 bit version. See my detailed post about it here (including screen shots). Since experiencing this issue I have installed the 32bit version (which does not hijack my machine). 2.7 ran beautifully on this same PC.

Lou,

I looked at your other post see the same issue as you on the thumbnails during import. It seems to take a lot longer than it used to for them to become clear. It almost appears (to a somewhat uneducated eye) that the path that function had in 2.7 is now different in 3.0, meaning less cycles to those becoming clear, and more to the import. That said, if I just click on one to highlight it (not make it full screen), it will clear up almost immediately. Just seems those are not getting the focus they used to.

Jay S.

L

Lou_Gonza

Participating Frequently

Jay,

My thumbnails nerver clear up (even if I click on them). That's the problem. They always look fuzzy. So it's completely unusable for me. Very frustrating.

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