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

[areohbee]

howintheworld wrote:

Yes, you are right. When I resave an image as DNG without the new option to embed fast load data, and I treat that image in the develop module, a dat file is created in the camera raw cache. I have to admit however that the image with the new fast load data embedded is not one split of a second faster than the image without it, at least that's the case on my computer.

Jos

W7 B64 bits

8 gig RAM

In my experience, having a properly working cache (and presumably the same is true of fast-load) yields negligible performance improvement.

Having a cache experience that's tripping up Lightroom however can have a very disastrous performance consequence.

I ran Lightroom (3) for a long time with the cache completely disabled after my tests revealed the above (removed write-permission from the folder).

I have it enabled now, for the same reason I don't overclock - it may be fine, but it worries me...

R

[Lee_Jay]

howintheworld wrote:

I have to admit however that the image with the new fast load data embedded is not one split of a second faster than the image without it, at least that's the case on my computer.

Having an image in the cache and having one that has fast load data are the same.  There will be a difference in the amount of time the "loading" indicator shows when you browse to an image that is not in the cache and does or does not have fast load data, as the fast load data makes it act as though it's already in the cache.

[areohbee]

I had a hunch when Lr4b was first introduced, that fast-load data was nothing more than storing the ACR cache info in the DNG file, instead of a separate folder, like in-file xmp vs. sidecar, as opposed to an all-new technology. It now seems my hunch was correct.

[Lee_Jay]

I think it's a bit more than that, though I can't recall the details.  It might use the new lossy format or something, I can't recall.  The point is, it does about the same thing from a user point of view.

[terry275]

I have recently downloaded free software called memory cleaner.  If you set the options to auto clear processes and system cache every 5 mins it reworks the amount of memory LR4 RC2 (and all other processes) is accumulating.  It works on my machine.  Liink is http://www.koshyjohn.com/software/memclean/

[areohbee]

terry275 wrote:

It works on my machine.

Can you elaborate?

[A_C_G]

That memory cleaner link seems to be invalid.

I'd have thought this sort of software needs to be well vetted.

Tony

[terry275]

Link works for me.  http://www.koshyjohn.com/software/memclean/

As for vetting.  As i say it works for me

[terry275]

When I work in LR4 (Original) RC1 or 2 I found that the use of memory just kept accumulating, the prog became less responsive and showed signs of a gradual slowdown. I found the only way to reduce it was to close LR4 and restart then the responsiveness was good, memory use low and it worked.  After further editing memory use increased prog became sluggish, close down and restart.  With this memory prog running I can keep working normally without the need to keep restarting the prog mis edit. 

[areohbee]

Thank you .

PS - The link above works OK for me too.

R

[A_C_G]

"PS - The link above works OK for me too."

Me too now.

Tony

[glugglug]

Real memory used by Lightroom: 1257.3 MB (15.3%)

Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 1322.8 MB

Interesting, this. Lightroom is using a total of 2581 Mb of memory yet in spite of having 8GB of physical memory available, assigns its usage roughly 50/50 fast physical memory and much slower virtualmemory. I'd have thought that it would assign as much as possible to the real thing.

Obviously the windows cache reserves a chunk and running background services etc take up physical memory but even so, I thought maybe LR would use more than that in pursuit of speed. What that does underline is that you can add all the memory modules you like but the system will still pay out data to HD.

[Guest]

You've misunderstood what virtual memory is.

Virtual memory used is the size of the addess space Lightroom has asked for. Real memory used is the amount that is currently resident in memory.

Lightroom, like all applications, only has access to its own virtual memory space. The OS will decide which the pages of the process' VM map will reside in physical memory or on the backing store. Having a real memory value close to the size of virtual memory means Lightroom is not paging to backing store.

[glugglug]

Thanks for that, Stephen. I'm trying desperately to find out why my copy of LR suddenly shook itself out of its torpor with no help from me. I still have no idea. I was clutching at straws, really

[areohbee]

howintheworld wrote:

I have the same "problem": an empty cache folder. Whatever I try, my cache stays empty. It is true that I convert my raw files to DNG's on import. Gonna do the test with some jpeg's and see if they leave a trace in the cache folder.

EDIT just tried with a jpeg file: added a few modifications in develop mode, went back to library module: still an empty cache folder.

Jos

ACR cache is for raw files only, meaning:

* Non-DNG proprietary raw formats (or DNG raws with fast-load disabled).

Excluded from cache are:

* RGB formats like JPEG

* DNG (when fast-load enabled).

R

[Chris GC]

I also had set up the cache in a seperate location - this was retained in the setup to LR4. I checked the normal location - in user \appdata.. and the folder is empty. If it is all working for other people then it must be something about my setup. Does seem a possible reason for the slow PV 2012 process in my case. I will try and see what happens when I edit more files.

[areohbee]

John Carter from Mars wrote:

...hope it works for everyone else!

It won't. - but it will (has) worked for some.

There are multiple bugs - some people are being bit by few, others many...

Thanks,

Rob

[jameskachan]

Lightroom 4's performance and speed is so poor, the software is virturally unusable.

As a professional photographer, I know my thoughts echo within the pro community that I am in direct connection with, and clearly, those online as well.

It is dreadfully slow, this product should not be on the market.

I believe Adobe fast tracked the release of the software to greedily capitalise on the release of the 5D3 and D800, forcing those owners to switch over from 3 to 4. Rather than providing RAW support for those cameras in LR3.

Lightroom 4 is a pull-your-hairout experience that drains all the joy out of working with photography and is a total nightmare in any professional situation.

I dread when I have to use it to process a job.

Entirely unacceptable Adobe.

—I am also shocked that there still has not been a solid update to address these performance issues. This has gone on for way too long. I litterally used to use LR on a daily basis. Now, I only open it if I absolutly have to.

[adventure_photo]

Not sure if this helps anyone but I figured something out that has resolved many of my performance issues:

I noticed when I created a new catalog that things seemed fine.  So I created a new catalog and imported images from old catalog (150,000).  Wow, things seemed snappy.  Here's the important thing:  I decided to optimize the catalog using File>Optimize.  After optimizing, to my dismay, things were back to being sluggish.  So, I started to think that something in optimizing the catalog was affecting the catalog.  So again, I created a new catalog and re-imported my images again.  This time though, I did not and will not optimize the catalog and things are running very smoothly and quickly.  Things like adding flags, labels, colors, etc. are instant.  Things like advancing images in the filmstrip while in dev. mod. are almost instantaneous (compared to the 5-10 second delay I was experiencing before.

So, basically, I think there is a problem with the optimization algorithms that are somehow causing problems with the catalog.  For those of you having problems with major delays and slowdowns, give it a try:  create a new catalog and then go to File>Import from another catalog... and re-import the images into new catalog from the old one.  Just be sure not to optimize catalog.  If doing a backup, the box to optimize catalog is selcted by default.  I would recommend unchecking that and not optimize the catalog.

It seemed to solve a lot of problems on my system - hopefully for those experiencing similar problems, this will work for you too.

[glugglug]

Mine corrected itself and optimizing makes no difference, better or worse, All very odd. It looks more and more as if the problem lies in the catalog somewhere, though.

I don't know what the catalog is but if it is a flavour  SQL (Lite?), I use that in a bit of programming and it is usually straighforward and rock solid.

[Guest]

I am very happy to say that Lightroom 4.1 has been released. I have installed this on my computer that has been experiencing troubles and in my quick testing everything looks like it has been corrected!!!

Please install this new version and let us know if you still experience any issues!

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5393

Geoff

[A_C_G]

Seems far better after my quick look.

Tony

London UK

[emile.gregoire]

Same here. It seems much more responsive on my 2010 Macbook Pro.

Emile

[rpavich1234]

It seems much better to me on my Win7 box and I was having horrific troubles before...unusuable.

Now, it's usable, almost as responsive as 3.6 but it causes my processor to heat up a lot, the fan goes on and off a lot unlike with LR3.6.

But, that's a huge step in the right direction; thanks Adobe.

[andreas603]

Before I make the leap ( I must admit I'm anxious), it would really be nice if Adobe suggested the best steps coming from either 3.6 or 4.1RC...specifically do I trash all my previews and regen, do I create new cat and move, do I set my cache diff, what are adobes 'official' steps to optimize   performance.....