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Question

Excessive memory usage using Lightroom Classic on MacBook Pro 2021

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
November 20, 2021
3 replies
5033 views

Using the latest (v11.0.1) native Lightroom Classic for a normal sequence of import, edit, export photos on a 16Gb MacBook Pro 2021 quickly led to amber memory pressure and the unwelcome creation of a. swap file.

Swapping that Pro machine for a 32Gb Max one did not completely solve the problem, although it takes a bit longer for the swap file to appear.

Since the M1 Macs have been available at retail for a year, I had expected Lightroom Classic to have been performance tuned for the new machines by now. It clearly isn't. I can run Lightroom fine on an iPad M1, so it surely must be possible to do substantively the same job on a MacBook Pro if the issue is prioritised for software engineering resource.

I do like using Lightroom but I don't want to spend more on a higher spec machine, which would consume more battery, to run it, particularly as Lightroom is already power hungry.

In the meantime I'll have a look at the performance (speed, power consumption) of some of the alternatives to get a feel for the state of the art.

macOS

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zhihaow39548250

Participant

I suffered from the same issue on my 16GB 14-Inch Macbook Pro.

I found that turn GPU acceleration down from Full to Basic mitigated this issue.

GoldingD

Legend

Swap file

Ok, speaking of the Camera RAW CACHE, how much are you allowing?

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

Camera Raw (CR) cache is used to speed up the 'loading time' of proprietary raw file in Develop module (note that DNGs use internal JPEG called 'Fast Load Data', and doesn't use the CR cache). However, the CR cache file is only used for a few seconds whilst LrC renders the full raw file into memory. The size of a CR cache file can typically range from a few hundred KB to 3 or 4MB each. With a really large CR cache you can have lots more CR cache files thus allowing near libary speed louping from file to file in the develop module. Seems like a great idea until... The problem with treating the Develop module like it was the Libray is that the when you start louping in Develop module, then the actual raw file gets loaded and rendered, and since these can typically be100MB or more. LrC Develop module will also prefetch raw files to help speed up the raw rendering. Therefore, even though you may not loupe from file to file, the app will load and render some. The more ram you have installed, the more LrC will prefetch and render.

J

jrp2012Author

Known Participant

My camera produces DNGs so CR cache may not be relevant. In any case I have just left it at the default.

GoldingD

Legend

On the Internet search on

M1 memoey leaks

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

Most, if not all are due to user misunderstanding or macOS reporting anomalies. For example, LrC using 400GB virtual memory resulted in 2 page thread on Mac Rumors. Hmm, big issue until you find that every app is reporting near enough the same amount of VM.

Screenshots for M1 Mac mini with 16GB ram

J

jrp2012Author

Known Participant

That seems to be a different problem. In my case, Lightroom Classic behaves well, until it doesn't (ie, until memory pressure rises and the swap file fills). It may well be the GPU, but it is disconcerting.

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