Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.x

[BCormier]

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

[Todd Shaner]

Cinobite wrote:

Installed RC 4.2 ...... now it's even worse.

I'm sure someone asked me if it takes the same time to export as it does to render the preview. Yes, I think. Clicking a photo takes 10-20 seconds to render 1:1, exporting takes about 14 seconds per image.

I'm fine with the idea of creating 1:1 previews on import, but all this is doing is putting all of that time at the start of the session so overall makes no difference only takes up more space. In fact it's worse, if I have 1,000 photos to import and use 1:1 previews that's nearly 3 hours to import. I might then cull 400 of them.

I'm even happy to spend £1,000 on upgrades and build a stupidly high spec machine. But in all honesty, I don't think it will make a difference.

I ran LR3 on 4GB RAM. Then by about 3.3 is started slowing down so I doubled the RAM to 8GB. And it didn't make a difference.

Really isn't acceptable. I never had this issue with LR in the past.

I'm running on Win 7 64 bit with an i7-860 quad core processor, 12 GB RAM, and standard 1TB 7,200 rpm HDD. My system has ~2x the performance of yours, so I would say your posted times for 1:1 preview and exports are as expected. On import of my 21.1 Mp Canon 5D MKII raw files with 1:1 preview rendering I am able to start working on the images almost immediately with the preview images rendering in the background. My 1:1 preview build time is about 11 sec., but like I said it doesn't stop me from working in LR during the import process.

The long delay time when switching between images is not something I'm seeing. Once 1:1 previews are built I can switch between images in the Library module and zoom to 1:1 with no delay. In the develop module it takes about 4 sec. to render when switching between images, which is why you I do all image review in the Library module. Please check out this post for possible cause of the long render times you are seeing when switching between images:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4597477#4597477

What display resolution are you using and are you running dual display mode with LR (primary and secondary)?

[wizard155]

I have noted a massive performance increase in 4.2 RC. The preview of images is instant when cached rather than the delay which has been experienced previously.

Will test it more thoroughly when I have time but so far, I'm suitably impressed with the image loading.

[AdamDZ]

@wizard155: Mac or PC?

[AdamDZ]

So the 4.2RC fixed the laggy sliders for me, with the only exception of the Luminance Noise slider. But, everything else actually seems to be worse. Switching between images in the Develop window now takes several seconds and switching between the Library and the Develop windows gives me few seconds of beachballing every time. It's barely usable, it's clearly struggling. In comparison, Bridge CS6 is a lot faster on the same Mac and editing RAW images in Bridge/Camera Raw is perfectly smooth with the same images in the same location.

This is a bummer. I bought Lightroom yesterday after hearing all the good stuff about it only to face a massive disappointment.

[Cinobite]

Just to add. I'm currently rebuilding 1:1 previews of 25 images..... it's been running for 10 minutes.

[Ravenlost123]

About 6, 7 months I bought LR3.... and then LR4 came up. A good upgrade I thought.... I hate it! My biggest disappointment is that I converted all my LR3 catalogs to LR4 and cannot roll back now! It is a killer in processing time! Also thought to myself "perhaps time for a HW upgrade..." but then again, seeing all the high end computers out there with the same slowness problems...  I ain't touching anything for now

Lightroom version: 4.1 [829322]

Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition

Physical processor count: 4 (Intel icore3)

Processor speed: 1.1 GHz

Built-in memory: 3765.8 MB

[areohbee]

Ravenlost123 wrote:

but then again, seeing all the high end computers out there with the same slowness problems...

There are also high-end computers without abnormal performance problems.

Lr4/PV2012 is an awesome upgrade, in my opinion. Why? Because I get better quality results. Does it take more CPU? - yes, *but* if it's a lot slower, then you've got an abnormal performance problem which needs to be resolved, either by jockeying your system/files around or by the next dot release from Adobe.

[Ravenlost123]

"needs to be resolved, either by jockeying your system/files around " and you think messing around my system files is an appropriate solution!? Sorry, but it is not acceptable. The other option is to "wait" on Adobe to come out with yet, another patch... but when!?

You know what really annoys me is Adobe stating that "oh this only happens for a handful a people..." Geez!! Google it up a bit more will you Adobe! The problem seems more like a "normal" performance problem if you ask me! And what really, really annoys me is... why the heck didn't any of the product reviewers pick this slowness problem up in the first end, when there was the trial period last spring or so!? No, instead they all went on bragging how great LR4 was, allowing the brush in custom WB, etc. etc. Like yeah I'll believe NONE experienced slowness problems. Oh yeah... probably paid by Adobe for their reviews right. Or some big guy in Adobe said "no, no matter what, it comes out!".

And to say that I had listen to all thew reviews I could find before purchasing it.... Lesson learned!

[Butch_M]

Ravenlost123 wrote:

You know what really annoys me is Adobe stating that "oh this only happens for a handful a people..."

That seems to be the status quo here the past year or so ... treat those with problems and concerns as insignificant and blame the individual users, rather than the app itself ...

While those experiencing severe performance problems may be in the extreme minority ... the problem is NOT insignificant for them ... so rather than reach out and assist those folks ... it seems the regulars here who appear to self-proclaim themselves as the official experts on the matter want to deflect blame, minimize, ridicule and otherwise place the blame on that minority of users experincing problems rather than seek a solution ...

[areohbee]

Butch_M wrote:

That seems to be the status quo here the past year or so ... treat those with problems and concerns as insignificant and blame the individual users, rather than the app itself ...

While those experiencing severe performance problems may be in the extreme minority ... the problem is NOT insignificant for them ... so rather than reach out and assist those folks ... it seems the regulars here who appear to self-proclaim themselves as the official experts on the matter want to deflect blame, minimize, ridicule and otherwise place the blame on that minority of users experincing problems rather than seek a solution ...

Blaming users...? - you may have misinterpreted some things (you definitely have mis-represented some things). - jeez...

[AdamDZ]

So I installed it on my PC and it's definitely faster than than the 2009 MacPro, which is an old machine by now, and somehow usable but still compared to Bridge and Photoshop CS6 Lightroom 4 is a slug. And no, my PC doesn't have performance issues. Core i7 2600K, 8GB of RAM, GeForce GTX680, SATA 3GB SSDs. Why is it that everything in Bridge is nearly instant, but in Lightroom it's click-and-wait and exporting images is 2-3 times slower? It's unoptimized and buggy. Sure, it has awesome features and the end quality might be better but it feels like it's still in beta.

[Todd Shaner]

My system (see August 29, 2012 post) has about 1/2 the performance of yours and I don't have any speed issues. Obviously there is something different with your system that is causing the sluggishness. I'll repeat this again:

Preview building and exporting in LR work in the background. This allows you to continue working in LR, provided you have sufficient system performance. How much performance required is dependent primarily on two factors:

1) Raw Image size (Mp)

2) Display(s) Resolution (dpi) and use of Dual Displays.

If you can provide the above information it may shed some light as to the root cause of your LR4 performance issues.

Concerning slow LR Exports, I believe Adobe has purposefully limited the processor utilization so you can continue to work in LR. This is at least the case for systems with processor that support hyper-threading, like your i7-2600K and my i7-860 processor. You can "force" LR to Export with higher processor utilization by breaking up your export into two or three groups running simultaneously. On my system running three Exports pushed processor utilization to almost constant 90-100%, which made working in the LR Develop module very sluggish. During normal Exports there is only a slight decrease in LR's "responsiveness" when using Canon 5D MKII 21.1 Mp raw files and a single 1920 x 1080 display.

[o2gallop]

trshaner,

I have been following this thread as I am experiencing major issues with LR4.  I was never a LR3 user.  I described my problem earlier in the thread.  It is much worse than what others here have described.  When I go from Library module to Develop and go into Loupe view, my images don't appear 75% of the time.  And any adjustments I make once I get the image to appear do not show up unless I go back back into the Library module and then to the Develop module again.  I've read this thread and saw your post above mentioning Dual Displays.  I immediately disconnected my external monitor from my laptop and my problems went away.  However, I disconnected the 2nd monitor from my desktop and I'm still having the same issues.  Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[Todd Shaner]

o2gallop wrote:

trshaner,

I've read this thread and saw your post above mentioning Dual Displays.  I immediately disconnected my external monitor from my laptop and my problems went away.  However, I disconnected the 2nd monitor from my desktop and I'm still having the same issues.  Any suggestions?

Using LR in dual display mode is not an issue in of itself. What is ithe issue is the size of the Loupe window. As you increase the Loupe image resolution the more processor intensive Loupe image rendering becomes in the Develop module. You can verify this by hooking your external display back up to your laptop, but resize the Loupe window so it only fills about 1/2 the screen.

What resolution display are you using with your desktop and what processor?

[o2gallop]

Processor is i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40 GHz..  Resolution is 1680 x 1050 which is the max.  I think my problem is my graphics card.  It's a low level one because I was not using PS or LR on this desktop when I had it built.  Thoughts?  Oh, and your solution above did fix the problem on the laptop.  Thanks!

Amy

[glugglug]

Adobe themselves state that any graphics system capable of outputting to the maximum size of your monitor will do the job. They specifically state that that includes the onboard graphics on the motherboard.

Here it is: Lightroom requires a video card that can run the monitor at its native resolution. Built-in, default cards that ship with most desktop or laptop systems typically suffice for Lightroom.

[AdamDZ]

What video card do you have? I have GTX680 with 4GB of VRAM, it's hard to get a faster card than this one (I play games) and I still have issues with LR4. I really doubt this is related to the video card.

[glugglug]

Video cards are for 3D effects for games. As Adobe themselves say, Lightroom does not require anything other than the basic video built in to modern systems. As they say, that will suffice. Whatever the performance problem might be with Lightroom, it is nothing to do with the video card.

[AdamDZ]

Right, I agree totally but some people speculate that this is related to video cards. It can't be.

I have the same CPU, BTW. That's a very fast CPU, that's Sandy Bridge. You can't really improve your CPU perfomace over that by much unless you do dual Xeons or something. I still insist that LR4 severely lacks optimization and polish.

[bob frost]

ZakTheEvil wrote:

Right, I agree totally but some people speculate that this is related to video cards. It can't be.

It can and has been in the past! It's not the cards, it is the drivers and all the other stuff that gets installed along with the driver, 3D-this, 3D-that, video managers, etc. I remember when we had to uninstall nVidia's manager to get earlier versions of LR performing properly, until nVidia and Adobe sorted out the problem. Even now, I always uninstall all the extra stuff and just use the basic driver. Just updating video drivers has sorted out some people's problems in the past, as has updating Bios. Wacom drivers have often caused problems with LR, until Wacom updated them.

With computers, anything CAN happen; the number of different permutations of hardware, drivers, programs, etc is mind-boggling!

Bob frost

[dwterry]

On a slight tangent... over the holiday weekend I notice through ProcessMonitor how many times LR4 checks the ICC profile of the monitor ... and I do NOT have ambient light monitoring turned on.  Check my thread here for details:http://forums.adobe.com/message/4670844#4670844

[areohbee]

WARNING: Nothing new in here. Just a re-hash of some of the same old stuff in case some people didn't read this whole thread before coming to the end.

bob frost wrote:
...and all the other stuff that gets installed along with the driver...and bios...number of different permutations...

Agree. I suspect some (no, not all) folks with abnormally poor performance are having part (maybe all) of their problem due to stuff like this. And sometimes you need an older driver, not a newer one, for it to work properly. It's also true that you can take 2 identical computers, and install exactly the same software but in a different order, and have a different complement of problems, because one software installation can step on the toes of another. I have this problem with Bonjour on Windows - quick-time installs a copy that adversely affects my TiVo server. Note: the newest ATI video driver adversely affects the video playback performance of BeyondTV - I have to use the older driver for it to perform properly (yes could be a configuration issue, but I was not able to resolve by tweaking...). Ever heard the phrase "dll hell"? (Mac probably has it's variation of dll hell too).

When you install Lightroom on 5 different kinds of computers in your lab/studio/classroom..., and all of them are dog slow, it's time to start considering common software/configuration.

Reminder: problems caused by insufficiently robust programming (or bugs) in Lightroom, can often be circumvented by user action. No you "shouldn't" have to take such action, but yes: you may want to... This does NOT mean the problems are the fault of you or your computer (although they might be), it's just how things sometimes are in the modern computer world.

Anyway, this is why if I felt I had "tried everything" and "nothing helped", I would strip all non-essential hardware off, and swap out my packed hard-drive with a freshly formatted one, and install nothing but a minimal OS & Lightroom, create a new catalog, and see how she flies. If it doesn't work OK then, try upating bios, if that helps, you can pop the packed hard-drive back in and maybe you'd be good to go. If updating the bios does not help, then you may not have a chance given the hardware/system-drivers you've got (or maybe you'll have to muck with bios settings...). Try mainboard graphics and a card from a different manufacturer... Note: the primary objective of this exercise is diagnostic - I'm not suggesting that you continue to run with the new hard drive with only Lightroom on it, or rebuild your entire system from scratch (although that might not be a bad idea), but it can help trouble-shoot, so you can get your "old system" to work. I understand if you don't want to go through all that, but *NEVER* say "you've tried everything...". I guarantee if Lightroom is performing abnormally on your system, then there is something you haven't tried! - Lr4 runs normally on *most* computers (granted even normal performance is slow in some ways) - that should mean something to you.

There is something to be said for just using other software to process your raws, at least for now, and maybe try Lr4 again when new revisions are released (if you are having "unsolvable" performance problems I mean). Be sure to compare how ACR performs outside a Lightroom environment (if you have Photoshop), to see whether problem is Lightroom only or ACR too - and tell Adobe about it.

PS - I just improved playback of video on some Bluray disks by installing new firmware in my player. Was the problem with the disks or the player? - I dunno, but it works great now...

Cheers,

Rob

[AdamDZ]

However, if everything else runs fine, including all other Adobe apps, video editors and coneverters, etc., and the only app that is sluggish is Lightroom, then the problem is with Lightroom. I shouldn't have to reinstall the OS, all drivers and apps just to get one program to work well.

I'm just a photo enthusiats, but a computer geek and I actually make a living by providing IT support to a large number of scientists and students. I know more about computers than I do about photography and I know that my PC is running well, I built it from scratch and tweaked it myself, I know what makes it tick and I know the problem is with Lightroom's lack of optimisations. The 4.2RC release already fixed some sluggishness and I am sure more fixes are comming. If Lightroom doesn't like my video or AHCI drives, that's too bad, I am not going to downgrade them and risk breaking other apps.

I don't run any calibration software so that's not it. My system is very lean, up to date (I'm OCD about updates) and optimized above anything that an aveage user may be running.

Anyway, in my case I moved all my photo apps to the Mac and after reinstalling everything (I was running Developer Preview Mountain Lion before) Lightroom actually is usable and I am going to buy a new Mac in Spring so I will limp along for now hoping for another patch soon. It's still better than the Windows version. The PC will go back to its duty as a gaming machine.

[areohbee]

UPDATE @ZakTheEvil: When I wrote what follows, I had read "I'm just a photo enthusiats, but a computer geek" as "I'm just a photo enthusiast, not a computer geek", and didn't read the rest of the post (sorry, he-he). On the other hand, although you may have some IT experience, some of the things you've said indicates a limited understanding of the things that can affect software.

ZakTheEvil wrote:

However, if everything else runs fine, including all other Adobe apps, video editors and coneverters, etc., and the only app that is sluggish is Lightroom, then the problem is with Lightroom.

I don't disagree (nor do I agree). One could also argue that if Lightroom runs well on most machines, but not yours, then the problem is with your machine. The point is not to over-simplify the way you think of it. These are very complex systems, with intricate inter-dependencies. What seems like an obvious "if a then b" situation just doesn't cover it sometimes.

I never ever said the problem is not Lightroom (although in some cases, it's not). What I've said is "you may be able to get it working on your machine, before Adobe does" - note the distinction.

I don't blame you if it's not worth the effort to you, and if you don't have the computer skills, then it may not even be an option. My point is more that there may be things you can do, even if there are some things you can't... For example, if the person who discovered their x-rite ambient monitor was causing the problem had simply unplugged all non-essential hardware, they would have discovered this problem. Ditto for those with wacom problems, and problems due to fancy graphics cards, ...

And you don't have to strip your system to try a new bios.

About me: I am a software engineer who constantly goes to great lengths to program around bugs in other dependent systems! All software engineers / programmers do this... If your app doesn't work, then it's your problem, regardless of the root cause, since it's "never" the users fault, so to speak, and you have no control over those other dependent sub-systems. Whether you are able to, or choose to fix it (and when), or not, may be a different story.

Ever seen the bug list for Microsoft Windows? - I'm sure it's *huge*. Windows is constantly being updated with critical bug fixes. These would not be considered critical "bugs" if they weren't adversely affecting some (usually not all, or even most) of the drivers and applications that run on Windows. Ditto for Mac.

Note: sometimes the code that was written to program around bugs in dependent subsystems needs to be redone when the bugs in those subsystems get fixed.

This sort of thing is the reason we hear:

* "the new release totally fixed my problems", and also

* "the new release made things worse"

etc...

I could go on and on about this, but hopefully you get the idea already...

PS - Lr4 runs great on my machine (except for the "normal" slowness that affects everyone, e.g. re-rendering for develop view).

Good luck,

Rob

[GollyJer]

I'm not sure anyone here is using Actual Window Manager by Actual Tools but it is definitely one of the things that can cause issues with Lightroom.

Amoung a million things it can do (I primarily use it for it's secondary monitor taskbar) it has a setting for "Scroll inactive windows with the mouse wheel".  With this setting turned on Lightroom is completely unresonsive to any mouse scrolls.  Any tiny scroll maxes out the cpu for 4-5 minutes.  Once I turned the setting off Lightroom became as responsive as I would expect.  The setting doesn't affect ANY other program on my computer and it took a while to narrow it down, but I finally did.  I basically thought to myself "what else could possibly be affecting scrolling on my system".  I uninstalled logitech mouse software and microsoft keyboard software before making my way to Actual Windows Manager.

If it's a problem with AWM I'm sure it will be fixed soon.  Those guys are super responsive to user bugs.

You can follow my bug report here if interested.

http://www.actualtools.com/forum/read.php?TID=2329&MID=10104#message10104

Hopefully this information helps someone else.  This type of problem is a major pain to troubleshoot.