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Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.x

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
March 6, 2012
188 replies
629822 views

Anyone else notice that lightroom 4 is slow? Ligtroom 3 always ran fast on my system but Lightroom 4 seemlingly lags quite a bit.

My system is:

2.10 ghz Intel Core i3 Sandy Bridge

8 GB Ram

640 GB Hard Drive

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Message title was edited by: Brett N

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Victoria Bampton LR Queen

It's now impossible to see the wood for the trees in this whopping 43-page long thread. Many of the original 4.0-4.2 performance issues have since been resolved, and it's impossible to figure out who is still having problems, and what they can try.

I've started a nice clean thread to continue this discussion for 4.3 and later. http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1117506 Thanks to Bob_Peters for the suggestion. I'm locking this one, otherwise it'll continue to get increasingly unweidly, but please feel free to continue existing discussions on the new thread.

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K

kiddid

Participating Frequently

All the tricks not helping, I'm exhausted, back to Lightroom 3.6,

M

Marko_Ch

Participant

My system : Laptop Dell E5500 Core2 Duo , Win 7 32bit, 4GB , e-dock with monitor.

Intel graphics : driver settings - multimedia - disable all tweaks and film mode detection , quality slider - fast

Lightroom 4 options:
Library - Previews - Render 1:1 previews
Preferences - Interface - Use system preference for font smoothing
Edit - Catalog settings - File handlings - Standard preview size 1680 ( My monitor native resolution is 1680x1050)
Edit - Catalog settings - File handlings - Preview Quality - Low

Created exceptions in Norton Internet Security
and disabled Windows indexing services on :

C:\Users\......\AppData\Local\Adobe\CameraRaw\Cache
C:\Users\......\Pictures\Lightroom

Lightroom 4 is now fast like Lightroom 3.6 ( with 3000 NEF, amateur work )

Marek

B

bob frost

Inspiring

From: "Marko_Ch

Edit - Catalog settings - File handlings - Preview Quality - Low

That is something I haven't tried - using low quality previews. I must do a

comparison of processing power/time needed for high or low quality. That

might well affect not just initial preview rendering, but also preview

updating while moving sliders.

Bob Frost

B

bcormierAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yeah I would not be complaining if Lightroom 3.6 ran slow as well, but it was actually quite snappy on my machine. Ran perfect. Lightroom 4 isn't even that slow. Just a couple parts of it which led me to believe it was a software problem and not a result of my hardware.

S

shamus1585

Participating Frequently

There may me multiple issues that slow LR4 down, but mine seems to be running a dual monitor. Not sure if its an NVida problem with LR4 (didn't happen on LR3) or just LR4 with all brands. LR4 works fine with one monitor on my system, no slow downs. Curious to see if switching the video card makes any difference. I have a feeling - no.

S

Scooby007

Participating Frequently

OP said

Lightroom is slow... My system is:
2.10 ghz Intel Core i3 Sandy Bridge
8 GB Ram
640 GB Hard Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Not to poke you with a stick, but that's honestly not a very robust system for something as demanding as Lightroom. Your performance would increase dramatically with a fast i7 processor, night and day

A

A_C_G

Participating Frequently

Brett,

"Not to poke you with a stick, but that's honestly not a very robust system for something as demanding as Lightroom. Your performance would increase dramatically with a fast i7 processor, night and day"

My LR 3.6 works find on a 32bit Win 7 system with a mere 2gig of RAM. At times I have even had LR4 working perfectly on it from time to time. Snag is the software is not stable as we all are concluding.

It makes a mockery of a 60 UKP upgrade if one needs a new PC to run it on.

I well understand you folk with these PC's with enough chips to run Cape Kennedy but that's not what good software is about.

Tony

S

Scooby007

Participating Frequently

I well understand you folk with these PC's with enough chips to run Cape Kennedy but that's not what good software is about.
Tony

MS Notepad is good software, so is Maya. One is free, tiny, and could run on a calculator processor, the other is huge, $3,500, and needs a powerhouse workstation for optimal perfromance. Not all software is the same.

Tony
My LR 3.6 works find on a 32bit Win 7 system with a mere 2gig of RAM.

There's no way in the world you can fairly expect LR to perform on a system with 2gb ram. I've seen LR 4 using 11gb of my ram all by itself, not to mention the operating system. This isn't 2005

S

stationarymotionOKC

Participating Frequently

In following some of the instructions that I've seen people post, I have created 1 to 1 previews of the wedding I'm editing, upped the cache to 200gb, cleared out over 300gb of images on my main hard drive and now I'm back to working on these pictures and I honestly believe that LR4 is slower now than it was 2 hours ago. It's so unresponsive that when I select an image, it takes 3-5 seconds before it actually shows as the selected. If I try to move a slider, it hesitates and eventually moves after a few seconds, often times yielding various results because I want minor tweaks as I'm looking at the image but I can't get them. When trying to Sync the develop settings across a handful of images, you might as well forget it. You'd think I'm trying to render a Hollywood blockbuster on a laptop. I have a machine that is more than capable of running this software, which has all been detailed on a previous page.

When my clients demand the best from me and we get such a questionable upgrade from Adobe, it really makes things difficult.

Blind Monk

Participating Frequently

stationarymotionOKC wrote:
When my clients demand the best from me and we get such a questionable upgrade from Adobe, it really makes things difficult.

Right there with you -I've tried it all, and this update to Lightroom has been lackluster to say the least.

You're not alone.

S

stationarymotionOKC

Participating Frequently

I know Adobe is working on it, so I'm not trying to throw them totally under the bus. It just makes me wonder how much testing in different environments is done, it seems like the beta testing would have provided this same info that they're 99% there, but not quite .

W

WesternGuy

Known Participant

I would just like to add my voice to the growing audience of folks who find that Lightroom 4 is slow, I mean really slow. I haven't changed a thing on my hardware/OS configuration - Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9300 with a 6MB L2 Cache running at 2.5 GHz, 8GB Memory, Nvidia GeForce GT220 (1GB) Graphics card, 1TB HD running under Win 7 Premium Home, 64 bit. How slow is it - well I would say things that were done almost instantaneously under LR3, now take a few seconds or more under LR4. It is slow to the point of being absolutely frustrating. I did not use the Beta version. I am using my "old" catalog that I imported. Not sure if that is an issue or not. As well, I am converting images to the "new" process as I go along, with new imports being done under the new, 2012, process.

If this is the best they can do, then I will go back to LR3 until they can make it move faster, but I guess I can't do that can I as I have imported my old catalog - lessons learned - I supposed I could always return to one of the backup versions as I do a backup every day - hmmmm. I am not really interested in work-arounds - shades of Microsoft???

WesternGuy

S

Scooby007

Participating Frequently

As well, I am converting images to the "new" process as I go along,

Don't convert groups of images to the new process in batch, especially if they already have edits done in previous process versions. The result is unpredictable and sometimes quite drastic. It has to be done one at a time.

S

Scooby007

Participating Frequently

Adobe has a good doc on optimizing LR here

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/400/kb400808.html

Things like upping the CR cache can make a big difference (up to 20gb or so if you can). LR4 can definitely run very fast.

A

Anonymous

Thanks, Brett, this was really helpful. I'm on a 4 year 24" iMac, and it was approaching unuseable for Lr4.

Read the article first, since your machine & mileage may vary.

Here's what I did:

- set preview size to 2048 for my 1920 screen.

- increased the ACR cache to 20 GB.

- turned off modules I'm not using, unchecked showing them in the contextual menu.

- switched everything to solo mode.

- closed Navigator & Histogram (when I'm not using them).

Faster, newer computers might only need the first 5. I also did:

- trying to minimize other apps open (including Safari, which can be a hog).

- eliminated started items I don't really need.

Finally, one I saw a couple of years ago. Do a G them minimize thumbnails so they all show, watch that the "..." in each image is done. Scroll through sections of thumbnails for a large folder.

This seems a lot better. Thanks again.

K

kiddid

Participating Frequently

try this; backup all the lightroom (v.3 and v.4) preferences file ("ligthroom 3 preferences.agprefs" or "ligthroom 4 preferences.agprefs"), then delete ALL the preferences files, let lightroom create new preferences file when it starts. O ya start lightroom 4 first, let lightroom 4 create fresh preferences file not imported from lightroom 3 preferences file.

Good luck

A

A_C_G

Participating Frequently

Kiddid,

That preferences trick seems to work but don't you then lose all your catalogue info?

Tony

Jim Wilde

Community Expert

A C G wrote:
That preferences trick seems to work but don't you then lose all your catalogue info?

This post from Lightroom Forums may help:

http://www.lightroomforums.net/showthread.php?14226-Resetting-%28or-Trashing-%29-the-Lightroom-Preferences-file

E

Eaglerapids

Participating Frequently

I have the problem with the second monitor and my video card is the Geforce GTX 560 Ti running the latest 296.10 drivers.

Blind Monk

Participating Frequently

I just completed an intense seesion of keywording, metadata entry, and cataloging of MOV files in LR4.

I was expecting the work to translate to all products in the CS line. To my chagrin, none of the work transfers into Bridge, OnLocation, or Premiere, we just expected that keywording and metadata entry would be consistent throughout the line. Consistency in the handling and displaying of metadata (along with severe slowness issues) across the CS line needs to be addressed.

Back to square one on this task.... On the plus side, at least we caught this pitfall in the first week rather than at the end of a cataloging marathon. I dislike complaining...However, you should know that trusting Adobe and LR4 just cost me four days of my time/labor and several hundred dollars in (wo)man hours. Testing the metadata fields (between software you intend to use for handling your files) early in the game; This is the unfortunate lesson of the day.

J

Jeff Schewe

Participating Frequently

Blind Monk wrote:
I just completed an intense seesion of keywording, metadata entry, and cataloging of MOV files in LR4.

This is an entirely different issue and would be better served by it's own thread...better not to contaminate a thread with OT posts.

Blind Monk

Participating Frequently

Just noticed that I was in the wrong place. Thanks for the heads-up. "Delete/Edit" option is not available for the post.

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