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

[CSS_Simon]

Wow!  That video shows pretty awful performance.  I have a 2 1/2 year old i7 that's slower than yours.  I have a fairly slow SSD for C that includes the ACR cache but not previews or catalogue, which are on a conventional drive D with the images.  I have two monitors.  But I have none of the delays you have.  Most things are near-instant, even if LR's been running ages.  It takes about 5 seconds to switch to Develop module the first time (only) after LR is run.  Generating previews (if they don't exist) takes under a second.  Develop sliders show no lag, redrawing spot removal and local adjustment is near-instant. 

The only other difference I can think of: I'm generally using 12M pixel D300 images, not 21M pixel. 

Does anyone know how LR performance scales with image size (in pixels)?

[areohbee]

CSS Simon wrote:

Does anyone know how LR performance scales with image size (in pixels)?

Yes - approximately linearly. i.e. twice as many pixels => about twice as long to render.

[CSS_Simon]

Rob Cole wrote:

Yes - approximately linearly. i.e. twice as many pixels => about twice as long to render.

OK, no Nikon D800 for me then!

[Shizam1]

I have a new build that LR is struggling on...

My system:

Intel i7-3930K - a 6 core 3.2 GHZ CPU

32 GB RAM

2 GB NVidia video card

240GB Intel SSD

2 X 3TB WD RED drives mirrored

This machine gets a 7.6 on the Windows Experience Index.

Some things I've noticed - When generating previews, LR seems to barely use the CPU.  When bringing up lightroom, it takes 10-20 seconds to display images on the screen.  When clicking on a new image, it shows "Loading" for 8-12 seconds.  And it seems to not keep the previews.  If I stop/start lightroom, the behavior repeats.

I have the Cache and catalogs on the mirrored drives, but the Cache directory is empty anyway and nothing is being put into it.

If I'm sluggishly going through photos, the CPU will stay very low, then all of a sudden all CPU's will spike and start doing stuff, and going through photos goes faster.

I'm going to try removing all the .LRData files tonight...

[bob frost]

From: "Shizam1

Some things I've noticed - When generating previews, LR seems to barely

use the CPU. When bringing up lightroom, it takes 10-20 seconds to

display images on the screen. When clicking on a new image, it shows

"Loading" for 8-12 seconds. And it seems to not keep the previews. If I

stop/start lightroom, the behavior repeats.> I'm going to try removing all

the .LRData files tonight...

I have the Cache and catalogs on the mirrored drives, but the Cache

directory is empty anyway and nothing is being put into it.

Yes, delete the previews folder including the previews, previews.db and

rootpixels.db, clear the acr cache, and then rebuild fresh previews. I have

more or less the same setup, and mine runs fine with 4.3, so there is

something wrong in your system. I note you say nothing is being put into

your acr cache. Delete the existing folder and create a new cache folder

from within LR (Edit/Prefs/FileHandling) or let it use its default cache

folder in your system drive.

Bob Frost

[Jao vdL]

Next to Bob's advice make sure you check the permissions on all those

folders whether the user you run Lightroom as has write access to them.

Also be careful with antivirus software.

[bob frost]

Jao vdL wrote:

Next to Bob's advice make sure you check the permissions on all those

folders whether the user you run Lightroom as has write access to them.

Also be careful with antivirus software.

Agreed; I tell MSE or Defender (win8) to exclude the previews folder and cache folder from AV scanning, and I turn off the Windows Search service that tries to index every file. With all this done, while rendering previews, the 3930K cpu sits around 45% average hitting 100% for a brief time on each preview - about 4-5 secs for a D800 1:1 preview (36MP).

Bob Frost

[bob frost]

Another point is not to keep 1:1 previews of all files; they take up too

much space if you have a large catalog. They are best kept with the catalog

on an SSD, and my 65K catalog would need a 512GB SSD for all 1:1 previews -

not cheap! By just making 1:1s for the folders you are working on and then

letting them expire after a week or month (in cat settings), you can fit

them easily on a smaller SSD and get that speed of access in Library.

Bob Frost

[Shizam1]

Thanks for all the tips, I'll try them tonight.  Obviously my system should be more than capable of handling the 21MP files I'm throwing at it, it just must be a software/configuration issue.  I'm not even viewing 1:1, just trying to look at the previews!

[edit]

I wiped all the preview folders, but didn't change any of the catalog settings.  It seems to work much faster now, so yay!

[edit]

[Darren88]

I'm amazed I can't even pan around an image at 100% in the develop module without seeing it progressively draw the full detail version of the new part of the image.

There's some nice new stuff in LR4 and I could stand it running a bit less well than LR3 given that that's generally how new stuff for PC goes (and my PC is old now - Q6600 2.4GHz quad, 8800GT and 8GB RAM), but the difference between 3.6 and 4.3 in something as simple as panning over an image is astonishing.  It doesn't appear to be even maxing out any part of my PC either so why it won't run better is beyond me.

I haven't even loaded my proper catalogue into LR4 yet, I've only added two images to play with it, so I dread to think how it's going to perform if I try to use it properly with a full catalogue of images or do any batch changes.

It's really disappointing to see these kind of issues in an Adobe product and for it to reach version-point-three without them being fixed.

I'm running the trial version at the moment but I know I've been bought the upgrade for Christmas and at this rate I think I'll just send it back for a refund without opening it.

[Todd Shaner]

Try setting Luminance NR to '0' and see if that helps.

[Darren88]

Setting it to 0 has certainly improved panning a lot, thanks.  I don't think it's quite as quick as in LR3.6 is, even when 3.6 has NR set to a value other than 0, but it's a more acceptable difference now and I suppose I can leave NR until last.

Still lots of little pauses in different areas to live with.  Suppose I best load my proper catalogue and see how it gets on.

[bob frost]

From: "Darren88"

I'm amazed I can't even pan around an image at 100% in the develop module

without seeing it progressively draw the full detail version of the new

part of the image.

That sounds like a video driver problem; have you got the latest driver for

your card?

bob Frost

[rpavich1234]

That sounds like a video driver problem; have you got the latest driver for

your card?

bob Frost

It would sound like a driver problem if nothing else in the system changed...but something did. LR4.3RC to LR 4.3 release version.

I have the same issue. RC was "decent" and now the released version is back to big black boxes, freezing, taking a long time to change modules, horrible panning, and all that.

[bob frost]

From: "rpavich1234

It would sound like a driver problem if nothing else in the system

changed...but something did. LR4.3RC to LR 4.3 release version.

4.3 could be more demanding on the graphics card than 4.3RC? Could still be

a graphics driver problem? Are you using the latest version of your driver?

Because video drivers are so flaky, I always uninstall all the superfluous

gaming stuff that comes with the video driver, and uninstall the 'control

centre' or whatever they call it. These have all been shown to improve

things in the past. You've only got to look at the info with each video

driver release to see the usually long list of bugs they 'cure'.

Bob Frost

[rpavich1234]

4.3 could be more demanding on the graphics card than 4.3RC? Could still be

a graphics driver problem?

Lol...a release candidate by definition is THE release code because they believe it's in it's finished form...lol...you don't go from "finally pretty acceptable" to "lonnnggg boot ups, lock ups...black screens, 30 second freezes, 40 second module changes" because it's " more demanding" on my video card from RC to release....

The phrase you're searching for is "...it's buggy"...

I've been through beta realeases of other software before...its' buggy pure and simple...

[bob frost]

From: "rpavich1234

The phrase you're searching for is "...it's buggy"...

Of course its buggy. All/most software is! It is never 'finished'; just

'released'. Soon we'll have 4.4/4.5/4.6/... and then 5.0............... All

with bugs. Fact of life. Get used to it.

Just glad none of the current 'bugs' affect my setup.

Bob Frost

[rpavich1234]

Of course its buggy. All/most software is! It is never 'finished'; just

'released'. Soon we'll have 4.4/4.5/4.6/... and then 5.0...............  All

with bugs. Fact of life. Get used to it.

Just glad none of the current 'bugs' affect my setup.

Bob Frost

Ok...I'll rephrase...excessively buggy....unacceptably buggy...

No software I use, including the much larger and more powerful Photoshop even comes close to this dismal performance by LR 4.3...

[bob frost]

From: "rpavich1234

No software I use, including the much larger and more powerful Photoshop

even comes close to this dismal performance by LR 4.3...

Well, since Photoshop costs over 6x as much as Lightroom, and has been in

existence for over 20 yrs (now on version 13), it should probably be less

buggy than the relatively cheap Lightroom that has only just had its 5th

birthday.

Bob Frost

[rpavich1234]

Well, since Photoshop costs over 6x as much as Lightroom, and has been in

existence for over 20 yrs (now on version 13), it should probably be less

buggy than the relatively cheap Lightroom that has only just had its 5th

birthday. 

Bob Frost

Well...LR 3 wasn't "buggy" and it was only 4 years old

[bob frost]

rpavich1234 wrote:

Well...LR 3 wasn't "buggy" and it was only 4 years old

Of course it was buggy; you just didn't notice any!

Bob Frost

[Keith Reeder]

rpavich1234 wrote:

Ok...I'll rephrase...excessively buggy....unacceptably buggy...

No software I use, including the much larger and more powerful Photoshop even comes close to this dismal performance by LR 4.3...

And yet I don't experience a single one of these supposedly many bugs...

Which brings us back to the question: where are the problems really? In Lr? Or on the user's machine?

[Jao vdL]

I am happy to report that the one slow thing in LR 4.3 RC(for me at least) has been fixed. On Mac OS X, it could take several seconds to zoom in to an already rendered 1:1 preview and during the wait period for it to zoom, it would show 100% activity on a single processor. It is now instantaneous. Everything very smooth now. Clearly some things were changed from LR 4.3 RC to LR 4.3 release.

[Bob_Peters]

Jao vdL wrote:

I am happy to report that the one slow thing in LR 4.3 RC(for me at least) has been fixed. On Mac OS X, it could take several seconds to zoom in to an already rendered 1:1 preview and during the wait period for it to zoom, it would show 100% activity on a single processor. It is now instantaneous. Everything very smooth now. Clearly some things were changed from LR 4.3 RC to LR 4.3 release.

Hi Jao,

Well, it still takes about 2 seconds to zoom from grid to 1:1 when displaying pre-computed D800, 1:1 previews.  So, I still have a mystery.

[Jao vdL]

Weird! The delay is almost completely gone on my machine to where it is now

actually usable and enables stepping through images in 1:1 to check focus.

Before that was a disaster and I simply did it in Develop as it was

actually faster there even when 1:1 previews were all pregenerated. Very

curious as all I did was download and run automatic update to 4.3 release.