Lightroom Classic running slowly despite optimizing settings

[Greg28648728q0xd]

I have a brand new 16GB i7 SSD HD lenovo laptop with iris integrated GPU running with a 32inch external monitor. LrC is running slower than the pre-cloud version ran on my 10 year old laptop. I've done all the obvious optimization tricks but it's still painful to use. I notice it moving from photo to photo, especially in develop mode, opening and using the masking tool menu takes forever, any changes I make have a few second lag before showing up. It's really turning me off using this at all which is highly frustrating given that's why I bought the new computer. 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Keith Reeder]

"iris integrated GPU running with a 32inch external monitor"

That's likely the problem right there. 

Current Lr is going to struggle with many tasks anyway (AI masking, Enhance and Denoise in particular) with an iGPU, and if you're running a big (4k?) monitor too, it's asking a lot of the hardware.

A dedicated GPU with 8gb or more of RAM is pretty much the minimum Real World recommendation in order to get the best out of Lr.

[Jao vdL]

It should not be hyperfast on this machine but not painfully slow. Lightroom does not do well with many integrated GPUs but should not make you wait for long times if it is a reasonably recent one. Typical causes of slow performance on windows are outdated GPU drivers (update them), overzealous antivirus software (try disabling it and see if it makes a difference), and the operating system indexing the hard disk in the background. The latter can be checked by running the performance monitor in windows and seeing if anything else is heavily using the cpu. 

[Keith Reeder]

"It should not be hyperfast on this machine but not painfully slow. "

Disagree. We're talking about up to 2gb of RAM with Iris Xe, and there is ample evidence already from other posts on here that - especially with a big monitor in play - it's not going to be nearly enough for "acceptable"  performance.

Agreed that updated drivers might help, but in hardware terms we're looking at the poster boy for "painfully slow".

[Jao vdL]

Only 2 GB in that GPU? It is criminal that that is still being sold nowadays as new! Agree if that is the case, no way you will get acceptable performance.

[Keith Reeder]

Yep, that's what the integrated Iris Xe provides at best, from what I was able to find out.

This may be a worthwhile data point:

"With its performance, the Intel Iris Xe belongs to the entry-level graphics processor category."

(https://laptoping.com/gpus/product/intel-iris-xe-g7/)

Not a phrase to fill a Lr user with confidence. Lr's AI features definitely demand more of a GPU than many games, and Iris Xe isn't marketed at (and indeed is accepted as being underpowered for) graphics-intensive gaming.

I don't play computer games myself, but I'm willing to bet that Lr is much the same as very graphics-intensive gaming, as far as resource requirements are concerned.

I know that 2gb is the stated minimum system requirement for GPU in Lr, but it's very clear that this will likely be extremely marginal in performance terms - Denoise and other AI features aren't running at all on some folks' machines with 2gb GPUs.

Again, driving a big monitor isn't going to help (Greg, does using the laptop's own screen only, help? Just for trouble-shooting); and if the OP's files camera are on the big side, such as 45mp files from Canon's R5 or Nikon's Z 9... 

[Greg28648728q0xd]

Hi Keith,

Really appreciate yours and everyone else's input. Changing to the laptop monitor didn't make a huge difference but disabling antivirus seems to have helped a bit. I'll see how that goes.

I suppose should the problem persist that an eGPU would be the solution? Any recommendations?

Many thanks
Greg