Lightroom classis running slow on high-end PC

[JM30168484z4ph]

Hey guys, I've been experiencing Lightroom Classic performance issues for a long time now. I've tried numerous "fixes" such as:

going to the performance tab and doing all the recommended things to improve performance, building smart previews, optimizing the catalog, all files, and the catalog are all saved on my local drive, syncing with the cloud is turned off.

still, it's a pain to use the software. I've kind of gotten used to it being so slow; however, at times it's too much. Especially considering that I have a pretty up-to-date system.

I do not have any issues whatsoever with any other Adobe software.

Here's a bit more information on what I mean by "Lightroom Classic running slow":

Opening up Lightroom Classic from the taskbar with a catalog of 127 pictures takes about 1 minute!! In comparison to other Adobe software, fully opening a Premiere Pro project took about 15 seconds.

After a minute + of opening Lightroom CC and it being laggy it starts working fine in Library mode, but as soon as I switch to Develop mode the lagging begins. Switching between pictures takes 2 to 3 seconds before edits applied. After some edits/masks have been applied switching between pictures take even 5 seconds or longer depening if AI features have been used. Switching back to the library mode also takes around 5 seconds. Switching between monitors and coming back to edit on the main monitor also lags the whole program.

I've seen a few threats around talking about 4K monitors being the issue but I can't really get my head around that being the cause :/.

Here's the system information from the Lightroom CC app:

Lightroom Classic version: 14.4 [ 202506051112-5918896a ]

License: Creative Cloud

Language setting: en

Operating system: Windows 11 - Home Premium Edition

Version: 11.0.22631

Application architecture: x64

System architecture: x64

Logical processor count: 32

Processor speed: 4,7GHz

SqLite Version: 3.36.0

CPU Utilisation: 0,0%

Power Source: Plugged In

Built-in memory: 64599,4 MB

Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 2323,2MB / 12012,0MB (19%)

Real memory available to Lightroom: 64599,4 MB

Real memory used by Lightroom: 4307,6 MB (6,6%)

Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 8116,1 MB

GDI objects count: 749

USER objects count: 2595

Process handles count: 3113

Memory cache size: 750,9MB

Internal Camera Raw version: 17.4 [ 2272 ]

Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5

Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2

Camera Raw virtual memory: 599MB / 32299MB (1%)

Camera Raw real memory: 694MB / 64599MB (1%)

Cache1: 

Final1- RAM:219,0MB, VRAM:1665,0MB, B9931928-3364-4A2D-961D-E4D6966600B5.dng

NT- RAM:219,0MB, VRAM:1665,0MB, Combined:1884,0MB

Cache2: 

m:750,9MB, n:37,0MB

U-main: 118,0MB

System DPI setting: 144 DPI (high DPI mode)

Desktop composition enabled: Yes

Standard Preview Size: 3862 pixels

Displays: 1) 3840x2160, 2) 2560x1600

Input types: Multitouch: No, Integrated touch: No, Integrated pen: No, External touch: No, External pen: No, Keyboard: No

Graphics Processor Info: 

DirectX: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (32.0.15.8097)

Init State: GPU for Export supported by default

User Preference: GPU for Export enabled

Enable HDR in Library: ON

Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic

Library Path: C:\Users\Joespn\Documents\Adobe\Lightroom Catalog\Boystrip #6\Boystrip #6.lrcat

Settings Folder: C:\Users\Joespn\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom

Installed Plugins: 

1) AdobeStock

2) Flickr

Config.lua flags: 

Adapter #1: Vendor : 10de

Device : 2786

Subsystem : 88e01043

Revision : a1

Video Memory : 12012

Adapter #2: Vendor : 1002

Device : 164e

Subsystem : 364e1849

Revision : c1

Video Memory : 1cb

Adapter #3: Vendor : 1414

Device : 8c

Subsystem : 0

Revision : 0

Video Memory : 0

AudioDeviceIOBlockSize: 1024

AudioDeviceName: System Default - LG ULTRAGEAR+ (NVIDIA High Definition Audio)

AudioDeviceNumberOfChannels: 2

AudioDeviceSampleRate: 48000

Build: LR5x26

Direct2DEnabled: false

GL_ACCUM_ALPHA_BITS: 16

GL_ACCUM_BLUE_BITS: 16

GL_ACCUM_GREEN_BITS: 16

GL_ACCUM_RED_BITS: 16

GL_ALPHA_BITS: 0

GL_BLUE_BITS: 8

GL_DEPTH_BITS: 24

GL_GREEN_BITS: 8

GL_MAX_3D_TEXTURE_SIZE: 16384

GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE: 32768

GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS: 4

GL_MAX_VIEWPORT_DIMS: 32768,32768

GL_RED_BITS: 8

GL_RENDERER: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070/PCIe/SSE2

GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION: 4.60 NVIDIA

GL_STENCIL_BITS: 8

GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation

GL_VERSION: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 580.97

GPUDeviceEnabled: false

OGLEnabled: true

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[Per Berntsen]

Adapter #2: Vendor : 1002

Device : 164e

This is an integrated GPU – Radeon 610M. LrC doesn't work well with mulitple GPUs, so try to disable it.

Go to Control Panel > Device manager > Display adapters.

Right click the Radeon 610M, and choose Disable device from the context menu.

The driver for your Nvidia RTX 4070 is recent, but make sure that you are using the Studio driver – not the Game ready driver.

[JM30168484z4ph]

Hey @Per Berntsen , Thanks for your reply and suggestion. I've disabled the integrated GPU as suggested and it somewhat helped. It now takes 50 seconds to open 😅. Editing is still laggy when in develop mode and switching between pictures or back to library still takes quite a few seconds.  It still does not feel right that it's so slow to work with :/. I'm indeed working with the latest studio driver and the Lightroom CC app in optimized. 

[GoldingD]

Can you share two bits of information:

1. I see your catalog is on your C drive. How much free space in percent (%) exists on that hard drive? Looking for at least 20%, some say 25%free.

2. Can you share a screenshot of your LrC /preferences/performance/ tab. Mostly interested in the Camera RAW CACHE setting. Looking to see that it is not set to the default value of 5 GB.

[JM30168484z4ph]

Hey @GoldingD, there's currently 9% of free space on my C drive. Here's a screenshot of my performance tab (which took 5 seconds to open from the moment I clicked preferences). I used to have the maximum size to 40GB and recently changed it to 100 to see if I noticed a difference but nothing.

[GoldingD]

9% free? that would be a huge issue. Consider placing the catalog on another hard drive.

• The catalog can take advantage of being on your fastest hard drive. Disadvantage of being on a hard drive lacking free space.
• The Camera RAW CACHE can take advantage of being on a fast hard drive. At such a low amount of free space it might have issues. The Camera RAW CACHE does not have to be on the same hard drive as the catalog. Some Windows users consider not locating it on the C drive as that might compete for hard drive read/wrights with the Paging file. Tyically a minor issue, unless say your diwn to very little hard drive space.
• The location for your photos can be any connected hard drive. Their is no advantage for them being on a fast hard drive. Some might locate them on a different hard drive than the catalog if they are looking for free space in the hard drive the catalog is on. Make sure to relocate them via LrC, not via Windows Explorer.
• you might want to look at hard drive usage while LrC is running, It might be approaching zero during edits.

[JM30168484z4ph]

Hey @GoldingD I just freed some space on my hard drive to about 27%. But it's still the same.  I don't understand why it's the only program I have issues with. Premiere Pro works perfectly fine, even with 4K footage; however, Lightroom is a pain to switch between tabs.

[johnrellis]

Couple more questions:

1. Have you enabled Catalog > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP?

2. Have you applied Denoise to the photos?

[JM30168484z4ph]

Hey @johnrellis , here's a screenshot of the catalog settings. Writing changes into XMP is off. 

I have indeed applied Denoise to "some" of the photos. I'm assuming that and AI features definitely adds to the lagging but still even without those features used it still usually lags to switch between photos or between monitors or between library of develop mode. 

[johnrellis]

There's a severe performance bug, with symptoms similar to yours, that strikes when you've denoised photos AND you have Automatically Write Changes Into XMP enabled. But since you don't have that enabled, that's not the cause of your problem.

[JM30168484z4ph]

Hey @Per Berntsen @johnrellis @GoldingD , Here's a screen recording showing what I'm currently dealing with https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AZF5MMfRqlGb_5ogAetVitynIE_tiWci/view?usp=drive_link .

[JM30168484z4ph]

Hey @Per Berntsen , I'm still unable to fix this issue any suggestions? 

[Per Berntsen]

Some other things to try:

If you use third party antivirus software, set it to exclude the catalog folder.

Try resetting the LrC preferences. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/reset-preferences.html

Method 3 is the simplest, but to be absolutely certain that the preferences file is deleted, use method 2.

A new preferences file will be created on launch with all settings set to default.

If nothing else works, try a clean reinstall, this procedure is recommended by Adobe.

• Close Lightroom

• Restart the computer

• Use the Adobe Creative Cloud App to uninstall Lightroom

• Restart the computer

• Install Lightroom via the Creative Cloud App without launching any other programs.

• Restart the computer

• Launch Lightroom

• Wait 5 minutes

[JM30168484z4ph · Accepted solution]

Hey @Per Berntsen, I have indeed excluded the catalog from my antivirus and also did a clean reinstall of Lightroom, but without seeing any difference.

However, I think I might have solved the issue. I did a clean reinstall of windows 11. Although it was a hassle, Lightroom is currently working snappy.

I tried so hard to avoid doing this but at the end it was the only solution.