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

[quenton8]

rpavich1234 wrote:

If it WERE an algorithm/code issue, it should affect everyone!

Incorrect starting assumption. This is not true at all.

No -- if an algorithm is bad or is coded badly (such that its slow), it will be the same on any system that has the same CPU speed and spec.

You can disagree, but you would be incorrect sorry -- that comes from 35 years in the S/W development and systems business.

The kind of thing that creates what we seem to be seing (WE, does not include me, I wish it DID then I could look into it) -- is more likely some other process running, for example suppose a process decided to quickly check each disk drive quickly to see if its still there, still has space etc.  In the simple case, 1 or 2 fast drives, no problem.  However, and this is a real case by the way, connect your Android phone, and run a WebDav server on it and map a drive letter to it and watch the system start to stumble is it tries to quickly check status on the network mapped drive, and then traverse the directory structure looking for photographs!!!

Unplug the phone, stop the WebDav server, unmap the drive or stop the process which is scanning and the problems go away.  Note that with Windows, certain network accesses can freeze the system -- just try to access a mapped drive where the network has gone away -- first time can freeze for seconds.

That is just one example of things we have found that affect OTHER applications on the system.

[rpavich1234]

Dennis Smith wrote:

rpavich1234 wrote:

If it WERE an algorithm/code issue, it should affect everyone!

Incorrect starting assumption. This is not true at all.

No -- if an algorithm is bad or is coded badly (such that its slow), it will be the same on any system that has the same CPU speed and spec.

You can disagree, but you would be incorrect sorry -- that comes from 35 years in the S/W development and systems business.

But that's not what was stated...you changed the quote.

HE said that IF it were a coding issue then it would affect EVERYONE and that's false.

YOU can disagree but you are wrong.

[Picture_Pro]

I'm using Macbook Pro 13" 8GB RAM and SSD drive. Using LR 4.2 I made very simple test. I exported 5 edited raw pictures into JPG and measured time. Here are the results:

LR 4.2 - 53 s

LR 4.1 -  49 s

LR 4.1 v 2010 - 35s

Having just small amount of photos you can see LR 4.1 was quicker, but more importing if you use process version 2010 and then export you get a huge boost in time. Please note that I didn't notice any difference in the look of my photos when I switched back to v2010.

P.S. Working dual screen is impossible. Lightroom is even slower...

[quenton8]

But that's not what was stated...you changed the quote.

HE said that IF it were a coding issue then it would affect EVERYONE and that's false.

YOU can disagree but you are wrong.

Well -- it was actually ME in both cases -- not sure how I misquoted myself -- if one does a bad bit of coding (that has a performance problem).  To take a simple example, if one wanted to do a numeric Fouier Transform on a set of data, it could take minutes (hours on the machines I used to work on).  Instead take the high performance FFT algorithm and you can do it in real time, EVEN on the machines we had back at University.  It WILL take longer on every machine.   Yes agree, a very very very fast machine might hide it, but many (most?) of the people how seem to have very serious performance issues don't have old slow machines.

A year or so ago we had a client with up-to-date H/W running one of our applications.  It was VERY slow.  We could see that by remote login.  They claimed our apps were too slow and they wanted us to fly-out (2000mi) and fix them, or refund their money, ...

The problem was, we had H/W with identical specs (it was what we had told them to get).

The final problem?  They had purchased 3 PC's at the same time, all 3 had a clock problem and the clock appeared to go backwards every few seconds, confusing some of the timed algorithms.

The real problem?  Computers are too complex!!   It can really be a nightmare to track down some of these problems.

A similar "slow" case where a user said "your XX application is bad, it was OK before, now its really really slow".   Well -- what changed? Nothing!!  Well -- I installed Word-Perfect.  What version?  One for a couple of years ago.   OK, make sure you don't install or at least don't run the auto-indexing app which walks all your drives looking for text and WP files and indexes them.  It is now walking your 2Tb USB drive finding all those .dat files and trying to index them.   The USER did nothing wrong, the APP did nothing wrong -- but the system had processes and H/W that did not live well together.

Problem there is that every major App builder thinks they have the machine to themselves!

[rpavich1234]

Dennis Smith wrote:

.........................................................

The real problem?  Computers are too complex!!   It can really be a nightmare to track down some of these problems.

---------------------------------------------

Problem there is that every major App builder thinks they have the machine to themselves!

Very true!

[areohbee]

Way back when:

Programmers *did* have the entire machine to themselves. Not only did only one set of code run at a time, but there was *no* code reused from project to project - every project was redone from scratch. And, there was no hardware attached that was not being used. The hardware people pointed their fingers at the software people, and the software people pointed their fingers at the hardware people, but nobody pointed fingers at other software, because there wasn't any.

And now:

Software development houses can not be competitive unless they use as much 3rd party software as possible, and reuse as much of their own software from project-to-project as possible. And of course their is always gobs of different hardware attached and different software running in *every* system (and did I mention that all of this software has bugs in it (and sometimes escoteric hardware problems too), with the potential to affect other software?).

And so you end up with layers of software designed to be reusable, with robust interfaces, but inefficiently coded, all of which have bugs, and all of which may perform slowly under some (or all) circumstances, and all of this software competing for resources... - and 99% of the code is going unused most of the time - kinda reminiscent of a mine field...

Put it all together and you have a bit of a problem, when it don't work right sometimes. Problem may be in 3rd party module, or in-house software used elsewhere too, or due to interaction with other "independently" running software... (or even hardware problems that don't affect most things too much, most of the time...). And if you (the developers) can't reproduce the problem, it's really like shooting in the dark...

Whose fault is it that it doesn't work as well on one machine as another? - Perhaps a better question is who needs to do what to get it working good on the other one too. Adobe is working at it from their angle - make sure you are working at it from your angle too.

PS - At the risk of sounding callous, Adobe doesn't care if it works well on 100% of machines. They'll settle for 99% and the rest are on their own or can use different software... So, if you are part of that 1%, Adobe may *never* fix the problem you have. The numbers are not meant to be accurate, but to make a point: it is not profitable to spend too much to solve the problems of too few... Now come on - don't get all knee-jerky on me: I'm *NOT* saying there isn't room for improvement (there are too many people having problems even by Adobe's definition), still: my point stands...

PPS - People having performance problems with newer fancier Windows boxes should definitely try updating their BIOS, especially if they are having problems with CPU allocation and/or threading...

Rob

[Todd Shaner]

Rob Cole wrote:

Way back when:

Programmers *did* have the entire machine to themselves. Not only did only one set of code run at a time, but there was *no* code reused from project to project - every project was redone from scratch. And, there was no hardware attached that was not being used. The hardware people pointed their fingers at the software people, and the software people pointed their fingers at the hardware people, but nobody pointed fingers at other software, because there wasn't any.

Amen! Been there and done that starting with my first job designing "minicomputer" systems in 1968. But then we only had 64KB of memory and that took up an entire 19" rack cabinet over six-feet tall!

The complexity of today's hardware and software systems create exponentially larger challenges, and it will only get more challenging with migration to handheld and cloud based computing.

There's no question LR has significant issues for some people. Unfortunately I don't have access to a badly behaving system to investigate these LR issues firsthand. My two-year old i7 quad core Win 7 based system continues to run LR4.2 without any issues.

[areohbee]

trshaner wrote:

There's no question LR has significant issues for some people. Unfortunately I don't have access to a badly behaving system to investigate these LR issues firsthand.

I sometimes think that Adobe should fly to where the problems are rather than trying to recreate them in house, but I guess that could get expensive... .

~R.

[bakubo]

Rob Cole wrote:

I sometimes think that Adobe should fly to where the problems are rather than trying to recreate them in house, but I guess that could get expensive... .

Elsewhere a long time ago I suggested that there must be a few people with problems in Silicon Valley so it would be rather easy for LR developers to get together with some of them to try to figure out what is going on.

[areohbee]

I'm not sure how much of the Lr dev team is near silicon valley, but point taken - there is something to be said for making house calls...

Cheers,

Rob

[bakubo]

Rob Cole wrote:

I'm not sure how much of the Lr dev team is near silicon valley, but point taken - there is something to be said for making house calls...

I suspect that there may even be a few people who are not so far from the developers who would even be willing to bring their computer in to have it looked at if it would help Adobe.  Or maybe allow remote access.  For a few people who make a living from photography and who also have serious LR problems then they would probably be willing to help, within reason, of course.

In my years of software development there were a few rare times when access to the customer's system was what finally allowed us to get to the root of a problem.

[dwterry]

I have the White Balance "slider" issue. It doesn't take a full second, but it definitely drags. And if I have something like a movie running in another window (on another monitor) the movie will actually pause. Changing white balance is apparently very demanding on the processor!

I do think that monitor size is a big part of the issue. I'm using a 30" Dell monitor.  Huge and lovely. But lots more pixels to push around (2560x1600).

I'm wondering if Adobe can push some of that processing off to the GPU?

[ChristianDembowski]

I guess you are right - it seems to be correlated to the image size.

Given the rather massive outcry about the LR4 performance accross both platforms the issue seems to be unrelated to exotic system configurations or weired driver issues - it has to be connected to code or algorithms shared between OS X and Windows.

My guess would be something related to the GPU communications. There is a finite number of GPU verndors and I assume that the GPU drivers on both systems share algorithms or even whole chunks of code. I'd be very surprised if we find two people with identical hardware and identical GPU drivers who observe massivly differing performances.

[quenton8]

ChristianDembowski wrote:

I guess you are right - it seems to be correlated to the image size.

Given the rather massive outcry about the LR4 performance accross both platforms the issue seems to be unrelated to exotic system configurations or weired driver issues - it has to be connected to code or algorithms shared between OS X and Windows.

My guess would be something related to the GPU communications. There is a finite number of GPU verndors and I assume that the GPU drivers on both systems share algorithms or even whole chunks of code. I'd be very surprised if we find two people with identical hardware and identical GPU drivers who observe massivly differing performances.

I have to disagree.  I take MY hardware and OS, plug in my phone and run a WebDav server on it, map a network drive and have LR4 become sluggish, freeze, crash -- depending on what I do.

The symptoms I keep hearing scream system problems.  And yes there may be a GPU issue in there too, but I am just using a simple intel board and I have no problems unless I plug in stuff (like my phone) that can do weird things.

(edited to add) -- further on the GPU -- I don't see the demands on the GPU being all that great, its a simple (perhaps large) still photo.  I would expect games, movies etc place harsh demands on the GPU.

[ChristianDembowski]

Dennis Smith wrote:

I have to disagree.  I take MY hardware and OS, plug in my phone and run a WebDav server on it, map a network drive and have LR4 become sluggish, freeze, crash -- depending on what I do.

I find "system problems" unlikely, since there are very few people reporting problems with LR3.6. Granted, it might be that a very large number of people run incorrectly configured systems that run LR3.6 acceptable and that upgrading to LR4 pushes them over the threshold so that it runs very slow, but given that you need "system problems" on two different OSes that only affect the 4.x versions of Lightroom... Unlikely, don't you think?

[Brett N]

ChristianDembowski wrote:

I find "system problems" unlikely, since there are very few people reporting problems with LR3.6.

Once, not that long ago, it was all the rage to talk about how slow LR3.x is/was when compared to LR2.x... http://forums.adobe.com/thread/656635

And before that, the complaint was that LR2.x was slower that LR1.x... http://forums.adobe.com/thread/357857

We here at Adobe know that some people experience slow behavior with Lightroom (or any of our products). The largest problem, to quote again, is that computers are complex. There isn't a single issue that everyone is facing, just a similar outcome (as we can see from many of the posts here, not everybody experiences slow performance the same way). So there can't be a single fix that makes things right for everyone. Some code changes we make for an update will speed LR up (even in this thread we've had folk report that both the 4.1 and the 4.2 update increased their performance), yet for some these same "improvements" slow LR down. For some people, the performance issue comes from outside of Lightroom altogether, and no change we make for an update will alleviate that.

At root, performance issues generally come from a convoluted set of circumstances that reminds me of the 1989 Batman movie:

BATMAN CRACKS JOKER'S POISON CODE!

CITIZENS TOLD TO AVOID THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS:

• Deodorant's with Baby Powder,
• Hairspray and Odoureaters,
• Lipstick and Nail Polish,
• Aftershave and Talcom Powder.

If we could only crack the code for everyone! If we could all just used Lightroom with preference setting X and OS setting Y, then EVERYONE would have a speedy experience. Until then, our current advice to everyone is that you should first install the latest update for Lightroom. Second, follow the instructions here: Lightroom Help / Optimize performance. Third, read these forums and see what steps others have followed to successfully increase performance (we have been reading this thread and looked into integrating some of the steps into our Optimize document).

[quenton8]

Brett N wrote:

ChristianDembowski wrote:

I find "system problems" unlikely, since there are very few people reporting problems with LR3.6.

Once, not that long ago, it was all the rage to talk about how slow LR3.x is/was when compared to LR2.x... http://forums.adobe.com/thread/656635

And before that, the complaint was that LR2.x was slower that LR1.x... http://forums.adobe.com/thread/357857

We here at Adobe know .... (much removed) ...

For me, if I was having problems, this would have been the best thing to hear from Adobe -- not having problems, its still good to hear from Adobe on the topic -- I think we all feel a bit less "left out in the cold".

(for sure someone will disagree with my, but this was my instant reaction to this post!)

[areohbee]

Brett N wrote:

If we could all just used Lightroom with preference setting X and OS setting Y, then EVERYONE would have a speedy experience.

Yeah, and only install the exact same complement of software in the exact same order, and use the same hardware & peripherals...

Software that costs >$10,000+ usually comes pre-configured, with hardware, just for this reason...

Rob

[Geoff the kiwi]

Great, we can expect new computer with Lr5 then!!

Rob Cole wrote:

Brett N wrote:

If we could all just used Lightroom with preference setting X and OS setting Y, then EVERYONE would have a speedy experience.

Yeah, and only install the exact same complement of software in the exact same order, and use the same hardware & peripherals...

Software that costs >$10,000+ usually comes pre-configured, with hardware, just for this reason...

Rob

[whiteheat74]

36 pages of complaints on this message thread alone and Adobe haven't released an official statement yet?

Like everyone else I find LR4 unusably slow for the most basic tasks. I now only import single RAW images to LR4 when they require variable noise adjustment brush changes and rely on LR3 for normal workflow. What a deeply embarrassing software release.

[Guest]

Brett,

I can think of so many things why this is a disparate, that my head gets dizzy.

Yes, it is our systems what makes LR crash. Everything is perfect inside LR, and everything is bad outside LR. Adobe never makes a mistake. Yet, the ONLY software in my computer that has problems with deodorants, baby powder, hairspray, odoureaters, lipstick, nail polish, aftershave, talcom powder and "being installed" is Lightroom 4.x The rest of my software (many products from Adobe itself) work perfectly well.

Did you take the time to take a look at the video I posted? I am not whinning about Lr 4.x being a bit slower than Lr 3.6. I am talking about LR taking 40 g. damn seconds to load a preview that was made at import. I am talking about random black rectangles appearing in my screen, I am talking about "system not responding" and cryptic messages when starting up (new in LR 4.2, not seen in LR 4.2 RC)

It is shameful that when somebody from Adobe's staff decides to show up (apparently they do it in sync with the Halley comet) then this is what they write. It is sad, very sad.

I'll be harsh, but after the time this has taken, I think it is time for Adobe to clean the act and maybe "refresh" his LR team, as this one apparently hit the wall.

Brett N wrote:

ChristianDembowski wrote:

I find "system problems" unlikely, since there are very few people reporting problems with LR3.6.

Once, not that long ago, it was all the rage to talk about how slow LR3.x is/was when compared to LR2.x... http://forums.adobe.com/thread/656635

And before that, the complaint was that LR2.x was slower that LR1.x... http://forums.adobe.com/thread/357857

We here at Adobe know that some people experience slow behavior with Lightroom (or any of our products). The largest problem, to quote again, is that computers are complex. There isn't a single issue that everyone is facing, just a similar outcome (as we can see from many of the posts here, not everybody experiences slow performance the same way). So there can't be a single fix that makes things right for everyone. Some code changes we make for an update will speed LR up (even in this thread we've had folk report that both the 4.1 and the 4.2 update increased their performance), yet for some these same "improvements" slow LR down. For some people, the performance issue comes from outside of Lightroom altogether, and no change we make for an update will alleviate that.

At root, performance issues generally come from a convoluted set of circumstances that reminds me of the 1989 Batman movie:

BATMAN CRACKS JOKER'S POISON CODE!

CITIZENS TOLD TO AVOID THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS:

• Deodorant's with Baby Powder,
• Hairspray and Odoureaters,
• Lipstick and Nail Polish,
• Aftershave and Talcom Powder.

If we could only crack the code for everyone! If we could all just used Lightroom with preference setting X and OS setting Y, then EVERYONE would have a speedy experience. Until then, our current advice to everyone is that you should first install the latest update for Lightroom. Second, follow the instructions here: Lightroom Help / Optimize performance. Third, read these forums and see what steps others have followed to successfully increase performance (we have been reading this thread and looked into integrating some of the steps into our Optimize document).

[quenton8]

I understand your frustration, but your comments show a lack of understanding of S/W and Systems.

Most applications on your PC will not be as complex in interactions with the rest of your system as LR.  Even CS6 is pretty much an inwardly looking system.

LR is watching USB memory sticks, running a database, running multiple parallel processes doing all of this.

I cannot think of any other application that does those kinds of things.

Should LR handle an Android Phone with a WebDav server on it?  Depends on what the WebDav server responds, might be difficult and likely did not existy in its current form when LR4 was built.  DOES it handle it -- no, it may freeze, crash, loop -- and does.

What if some application gobbles up 3 or your 4 (or whatever) CPU cores -- most applications will be fine, LR which uses all available cores may well look VERY slow.

If you have not done the recommended things to find the problem, then don't complain ...

• remove all USB devices (not your mouse and keyboard of course), but everything else you can possibly remove
• kill off all unrecognized processes (a task in itself, but necessary)
• now run LR and see how it runs

[whiteheat74]

If Lightroom 4 cannot run smoothly in real-world PC scenarios then it wasn't fit for release.

We should stop making excuses for Adobe.

It's hard to believe the flippant "Staff" response to this fundamental performance issue.

[Guest]

whiteheat74 wrote:

If Lightroom 4 cannot run smoothly in real-world PC scenarios then it wasn't fit for release.

We should stop making excuses for Adobe.

It's hard to believe the flippant "Staff" response to this fundamental performance issue.

Exactly! That's my opinion from the very beginning.

[quenton8]

I understand you have a problem -- some number of people do, but the majority do not.  Read all the various forums (adobe, nikoneans, ...) and you will find that the majority do not have these problems.

So the basic S/W is not the issue, so it must be some relationship to the environment its running in.

Should adobe have dealt with that? whatever it happens to be? yes -- but in reality its just not possible with the rate at which things change.

Should adobe have taken a more active role in helping users track down the problems? perhaps documenting issues they found and publishing them? yes -- so you might complain they did not handle it well, but I don't think thats a problem with the LR4 S/W per-se.