Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 3.x

I have just updated from LR2.7 to LR3... and found several things that are rather anoying.  Speed issues: lots of them.  Underpowered system?  Highly unlikely!  I have an 8 core MacPro with a SCSI raid file system, 8 gigs of ram.  LR2.7 was much faster...  LR3 does okay for a bit, if a bit slow displaying pre-rendered images, then suddenly I get the magic beach ball..  when moving from one image to another, in the library module!  Never happened with previous LR's... so something must have changed.

Importing files seems especially slow.  I now (when importing only a couple of hundred images) have to take a break, because if I don't, after the first dozen or so images, I just see gray boxes instead of thumbnails.  So instead of being able to start browsing and rating my photos, I have to take a break while it imports and generates the 1:1 previews.  Yes, I know.  But LR2.7 did this magically fast without the slowdown...  time for a process change, I guess.

Let's see.. what else is mildly anoying...  Oh, import won't remember my working directories. :}  Lr2.7 did just fine, but that seems to have gone away, along with keeping previous keywords as the default.  Like I said, only mildly anoying.  yes, I know, select the "preset" for import to get the keywords back, but that doesn't remember directories, either.  And keeping the last preset used as the current one wouldn't be that hard, would it?  Why always convert back to "none"?

Good things? Sure, the new processing does reduce noise, I like that.  I like having the noise reduction in Lr, reduces the number of times I have to pop out to PS and back.  That's good.  I Haven't compared the two functions yet (Lr noise reduction vs. Noiseware Pro), as I've only needed light noise reduction lately.  So I will have to try that when I have some time.

Hmm...  Right now, that's about all that I've noticed with LR3, or rather, what I've been using.  So far, that is.

Ciao!

jason

I have very big libraries with very big files and a relatively old computer, so I wasn't that surprised to find LR3 slower than LR2. I still upgraded though after the trial because the develop controls are better. It was a price worth paying for me. I sell relatively few photos, so can afford to take time preparing them (although I'm pushing the limit here).

However I don't buy the argument that is always trotted out when users complain about slowness: it's your own fault for not having a high end computer or employing a full time IT professional. So we should buy a new $4000 computer so we can use a $100 upgrade? That is nuts plain and simple.

It's obvious from the global recession that the upgrade cycle has lengthened as people delay their purchases. My guess is that most photographers write off their IT spend against taxes anyway, so if sales drop by 50%, you may not be able to upgrade your computer as soon as you would like.

At the same time file sizes, even for amateur point and shoots, are getting much bigger, and will become more so, so this should have been factored into the rendering time equation for the product designers. The person who buys a $400 18 megapixel point and shoot is probably not the same person who buys a top of the range $7000 computer system.

IMHO, Adobe has a tendency to build bloated software, just like Microsoft. Personally, I never use Slideshow, Print or Web modules and I don't really need a Flickr uploader either. How about thinking about how to make apps leaner, not bigger? With modules that can be uninstalled for example.

Finally though, in terms of speed, it's not all bad. Rendering, previews and exports are slower, yes. But some other things seems to be dramatically faster: some text input, searching, the importing file window - a lot of the file system machinery.

Iv'e read a whole bunch of this now,

holy crap people are having LR3  trouble with equiptment I drool for.

Check this out;

Duo cor 2 runs at what 1.8 maybe

2G ddr3

win xp 32

8800 GTX - thats one of 'em - not 2

36,000 images in catalogue

full framer - Canon EOS 1Ds Mark lll - all RAW plus JPG

ya the $'s in the camera

upgraded from 2.7 to 3, and I swear its same or faster all round.

I know, I know, the numbers not supporting that statement, but ...

the catalogue loads about the same as before,

no brush issues, menu lag or nothing.

and more toys.

And I just checked - Im running 2 multi tag (way too many actually) browser windows,

call of duty, trackmania, PS CS5 and L3 ... as we speak,

ok, ya ...I will have to shut off a game to reload 200 images back in from PS

or it'll slow down a bit ... and I mean a bit.

I'm also balancing a latt'e on the mousepad, listening to a usb mp3 and petting the cat.

Ok, ok the latte and the cats an exageration, but I am really one of the rare who is not finding performance issues between 2.7 and 3

with a year and a half old machine.

The secret ... if I knew I'd tell you,

Be sure to build a new catalogue after upgrading

I usually reboot and reload everything once a day

takes 5 min (maybe 7)

If it gets crunchy, shut off the browsers

Tweek the start up so its bone empty

turn off any leaky software

workflow at a steady pace, dont throw too much at once at it.

I'm a happy camper,

Nows wheres that coffee?

The following info may have already been provided, but I don't have time to review the list--sorry. Like most people checking this thread, LR3 is running much slower than LR2 (for me anyway). On vacation, I took my laptop (Lenovo T61 Window 7 Enterprise Core Duo 2.5 GHz, 4 GM RAM, 64 bit OS) and after a few days downloaded some pics. Then started playing with them and totally forgot about the performance issues. Life was good and I actually forgot about the performance issue--until today. Today, upon my return home, I connected my laptop to my dock station, which is connected to a Dell 24 inch display (Dell 2408WFP) via a DVI cable, and I'm back to being frustrated as I work with LR3. So, I believe the performance issue is not related to the computer per se, but rather somewhere between the computer and display monitor. Hope this helps. Sorry if reduntant.

Cheers,

Bill

Windows 7 x64, i7 920, 6 GB RAM, 2x GTX 260 cards for 2 24" monitors.

I'd like to add another data point to the discussion. LR3 is significantly slower for me than LR 2.6. I notice it primarily in the Develop module. Changes made to a photo (WB, Blacks, recropping, etc) take a second to update on my primary display, and several seconds to update on my secondary display (set to Full Screen, Loupe Normal).

My toolbars are on my primary screen, so the secondary screen is the one I watch while editing. This slowness makes the application much harder to use. I'm very close to switching back to LR2.

Also, here's a fun bug: I can no longer paste Develop settings onto multiple photos selected in the filmstrip. Pasting picture by picture -> productivity plummets.

Hi

I experienced the same. My config: Windows XP, 2GHz, 2GB RAM

1. I have disabled indexing in XP a) all individual harddrives b) disabled the indexing service

2. I let the 1:1 previews render on (after) import

Currently, this seems to have done the trick (only testing it now for a couple of minutes) - don't sure however, whether it was 1. oder 2. ...

Regards

I am not going to read through every comment here.  This thread has gotten way to long. However, I am wondering how many people who have been having problems with Lightroom 3 are using a Wacom tablet and have tried removing the Wacom software to see what happens. There seems to be a noteworthy history of Wacom drivers causing problems, and not just with Lightroom. Once I removed the Wacom software from the equation my problems with Lightroom 3 and maybe with the Mac OS as well seemed to go away. Anyway, so far I have had no more freezes of Lightroom or other programs since removing the Wacom driver. I have not yet properly experimented with using earlier Wacom drivers.

At the risk of repeating what has gone before.

I have Lightroom 3 (and 2.7) - and after importing a duplicate catalogue into 3.0 - it is so slow its not worth the effort - back to 2.7 and everything is normal. It can only be the program - nothing else changes. I have tried loading and waiting - closing and reopening the program - that may have made a marginal difference - but it is still too slow to be called a functional program in my opinion - I certainly will keep working away in 2.7 until this has been rectified - or a new release comes out!

I just started using Lightroom 3 and can't believe how slow it is. I upgraded from the beta which was twice as fast! There has to be a major bug with this, I want my money back. My syatem is 64 win 7 16 gigs of memory, it sholdn't be this bad. The brushes and spotting tool are are unusable.

DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT IN LR3 PERFORMANCE

Since last night two things have changed on my computer which have resulted in a dramatic improvement in performance. Prior to these two changes images from my Canon 5D2 were taking a minimum of 16 seconds to render some times as long as 30 seconds.

Following comments previously posted regarding CPU temperature I downloaded PC Probe II which is a utility for my Asus P5B motherboard. On running this utility alarm bells started ringing and CPU temperature was displayed as 105 deg C. Without this utility there is no indication of an overheating problem. I then took the case off the computer and checked the CPU fan – this was working fine, however, on closer examination the heat sink was totally blocked with dust. I cleaned the dust away and restarted the computer – the temperature was down to 45 deg C.

Before launching LR3 I also got an automatic notification to update ACR to version 6.1  which I accepted. I guess this is associated with the trial of CS5 that I’m also running.

When LR3 was restarted  the performance increase was dramatic. Canon 5D2 raw images now render in 6-8 seconds and changing from image to image in the library mode is almost instantaneous.

Unfortunately, because these two things happened at the same time I don’t know which has made the improvement. If the CPU temperature rises, is the CPU speed automatically throttled back? There is no indication on the PC that this was occurring, however, if this is the case then this could well explain the 16-30 seconds it was originally taking to open raw files.

If CPU speed is not throttled back automatically on overheating then it is possible that the ACR 6.1 update that was loaded has had a dramatic effect on rendering speeds.

If rendering is much slower than expected it’s probably worth taking the case of your computer and having a look at the CPU fan / heat sink and check that it is not filled with dust.