Severe GPU Memory Saturation and System-Wide UI Lag in Lightroom Classic (RTX 4070 Laptop, Nikon Z8 Workflow)
- July 9, 2026
- 返信数 1.
- 35 ビュー
Summary
I am a professional photographer and use Lightroom Classic as my primary production software.
On a high-end mobile workstation, Lightroom Classic becomes progressively slower within approximately 5 minutes of editing.
During normal editing, dedicated GPU memory rapidly increases until almost the entire 8 GB VRAM of the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Laptop GPU is occupied. Once this happens, Lightroom becomes increasingly sluggish and eventually the entire Windows desktop (including mouse movement) becomes noticeably stuttery.
The problem has existed since the laptop was purchased in early 2025.
Despite extensive troubleshooting together with Lenovo support and the computer manufacturer, the problem has never been resolved.
Hardware
Laptop
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7
CPU
Intel Core Ultra
GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU (8 GB VRAM)
Intel Arc integrated GPU
RAM
64 GB
Storage
NVMe SSD
Operating System
Windows 11 Pro (fully updated)
Camera
Nikon Z8
Compressed NEF RAW files
Typical file size: 30–40 MB
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Classic 15.4.1
The issue has also been reproduced on several previous Lightroom Classic versions.
Professional Workflow
Typical editing workflow:
- Automatic Person Masking
- Multiple AI masks per image
- Generative Remove
- Local Brush adjustments
- Frequent switching between images
This is my normal professional workflow.
Problem Description
Initially Lightroom performs normally.
Within approximately 3–5 minutes:
- Dedicated GPU memory continuously increases.
- GPU memory reaches approximately 7.5–8.0 GB.
- Brush strokes become delayed.
- Switching between photos takes several seconds.
- Creating new masks becomes progressively slower.
- Eventually even the Windows desktop becomes sluggish.
- Mouse movement is no longer smooth.
Restarting Lightroom immediately restores normal performance.
The problem then repeats.
Expected Behaviour
GPU memory should be released after intensive GPU operations have completed.
Lightroom should recover to normal responsiveness instead of remaining in a degraded performance state.
Troubleshooting Already Performed
The following actions have been performed without resolving the issue:
- Complete Windows reinstall
- Motherboard replacement
- Multiple Lightroom Classic versions
- Multiple NVIDIA driver versions
- Lenovo-certified drivers
- NVIDIA official drivers
- Latest BIOS
- Latest Windows updates
- Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling ON and OFF
- Windows GPU preference forced to NVIDIA High Performance
- Camera Raw Cache increased from 5 GB to 100 GB
- Windows Graphics Settings configured to force Lightroom Classic to use the dedicated NVIDIA RTX 4070 Laptop GPU instead of allowing Windows to automatically select the graphics processor.
None of these actions changed the behaviour.
Important Observations
Photoshop behaves normally
Adobe Photoshop performs normally on exactly the same hardware.
AI-powered Photoshop features do not produce comparable GPU memory usage or system-wide slowdowns.
Smart Previews significantly improve performance
When enabling:
Use Smart Previews instead of Originals for image editing
overall responsiveness improves noticeably.
GPU memory usage is lower and Lightroom remains responsive for considerably longer.
This suggests that Lightroom behaves differently when editing original Nikon Z8 RAW files compared to Smart Previews.
GPU Behaviour
Typical values while the problem occurs:
- Dedicated GPU Memory: approximately 7.7–8.0 GB / 8 GB
- GPU Utilization: frequently above 90%
- Shared GPU Memory begins increasing
- Entire Windows UI becomes sluggish
Why I Believe This May Be a Lightroom Issue
Several observations suggest that the hardware itself is functioning correctly:
- Photoshop performs normally.
- AI Denoise performance is within the expected range for this hardware (approximately 20–25 seconds on Nikon Z8 RAW files).
- Smart Previews noticeably improve performance.
- The issue persists across multiple Lightroom versions, driver versions, BIOS versions and even after a complete Windows reinstall and motherboard replacement.
These observations suggest that Lightroom Classic may not be releasing GPU resources efficiently during prolonged AI-assisted editing sessions.
This issue has been investigated extensively together with Lenovo Premium Support and the workstation vendor (PixelComputer). Hardware replacement, Windows reinstallation, BIOS updates, NVIDIA driver changes and multiple Lightroom versions have already been tested without resolving the issue.
Request
Could Adobe Engineering please investigate whether Lightroom Classic has a GPU memory management issue related to:
- NVIDIA RTX 4070 Laptop GPU (8 GB VRAM)
- Intel Core Ultra platform
- Nikon Z8 RAW workflow
- Heavy use of AI masking and Generative Remove
Thank you very much for your investigation!
Screenshots attached
- Task Manager showing:
- GPU Utilization ≈ 98%
- Dedicated GPU Memory ≈ 7.7 / 8.0 GB
- Shared GPU Memory increasing
- Lightroom Classic → Help → System Info
- showing GPU detection and VRAM usage
- Lightroom Performance Settings
- GPU enabled
- Smart Preview option visible
- Task Manager after enabling Smart Previews
- Lower GPU usage
- Lower VRAM usage
- Improved responsiveness
- Photoshop AI test
- Demonstrates that Photoshop behaves normally on the same hardware.
- Windows Graphics Settings
- Lightroom Classic explicitly assigned to High Performance
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU selected
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