GPU notes for Lightroom CC (2015)

[MadManChan2000]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share some additional information regarding GPU support in Lr CC.

Lr can now use graphics processors (GPUs) to accelerate interactive image editing in Develop. A big reason that we started here is the recent development and increased availability of high-res displays, such as 4K and 5K monitors. To give you some numbers: a standard HD screen is 2 megapixels (MP), a MacBook Retina Pro 15" is 5 MP, a 4K display is 8 MP, and a 5K display is a whopping 15 MP. This means on a 4K display we need to render and display 4 times as many pixels as on a standard HD display. Using the GPU can provide a significant speedup (10x or more) on high-res displays. The bigger the screen, the bigger the win.

For example, on my test system with a 4K display, adjusting the White Balance and Exposure sliders in Lightroom 5.7 (without GPU support) is about 5 frames/second -- manageable, but choppy and hard to control. The same sliders in Lightroom 6.0 now run smoothly at 60 FPS.

So why doesn't everything feel faster?

Well, GPUs can be enormously helpful in speeding up many tasks. But they're complex and involve some tradeoffs, which I'd like to take a moment to explain.

First, rewriting software to take full advantage of GPUs is a lot of work and takes time. Especially for software like Lightroom, which offers a rich feature set developed over many years and release versions. So the first tradeoff is that, for this particular version of Lightroom, we weren't able to take advantage of the GPU to speed up everything. Given our limited time, we needed to pick and choose specific areas of Lightroom to optimize. The area that I started with was interactive image editing in Develop, and even then, I didn't manage to speed up everything yet (more on this later).

Second, GPUs are marvelous at high-speed computation, but there's some overhead. For example, it takes time to get data from the main processor (CPU) over to the GPU. In the case of high-res images and big screens, that can take a LOT of time. This means that some operations may actually take longer when using the GPU, such as the time to load the full-resolution image, and the time to switch from one image to another.

Third, GPUs aren't best for everything. For example, decompressing sequential bits of data from a file -- like most raw files, for instance -- sees little to no benefit from a GPU implementation.

Fourth, Lightroom has a sophisticated raw processing pipeline (such as tone mapping HDR images with Highlights and Shadows), and running this efficiently on a GPU requires a fairly powerful GPU. Cards that may work with in the Photoshop app itself may not necessarily work with Lightroom. While cards that are 4 to 5 years old may technically work, they may provide little to no benefit over the regular CPU when processing images in Lr, and in some cases may be slower. Higher-end GPUs from the last 2 to 3 years should work better.

So let's clear up what's currently GPU accelerated in Lr CC and what's not:

First of all, Develop is the only module that currently has GPU acceleration whatsoever. This means that other functions and modules, such as Library, Export, and Quick Develop, do not use the GPU (performance should be the same for those functions regardless of whether you have GPU enabled or disabled in the prefs).

Within Develop, most image editing controls have full GPU acceleration, including the basic and tone panel, panning and zooming, crop and straighten, lens corrections, gradients, and radial filter. Some controls, such as local brush adjustments and spot clone/heal, do not -- at least, not yet.

While the above description may be disappointing to some of you, let's be clear: This is the beginning of the GPU story for Lightroom, not the end. The vision here is to expand our use of the GPU and other technologies over time to improve performance. I know that many photographers have been asking us for improved performance for a long time, and we're trying to respond to that. Please understand this is a big step in that direction, but it's just the first step. The rest of it will take some time.

Summary:

1. GPU support is currently available in Develop only.

2. Most (but not all) Develop controls benefit from GPU acceleration.

3. Using the GPU involves some overhead (there's no free lunch). This may make some operations take longer, such as image-to-image switching or zooming to 1:1. Newer GPUs and computer systems minimize this overhead.

4. The GPU performance improvement in Develop is more noticeable on higher-resolution displays such as 4K. The bigger the display, the bigger the win.

5. Prefer newer GPUs (faster models within the last 3 years). Lightroom may technically work on older GPUs (4 to 5 years old) but likely will not benefit much. At least 1 GB of GPU memory. 2 GB is better.

6. We're currently investigating using GPUs and other technologies to improve performance in Develop and other areas of the app going forward.

The above notes also apply to Camera Raw 9.0 for Photoshop/Bridge CC.

Eric Chan

Camera Raw Engineer

[deejjjaaaa]

> But I`m pretty sure, this will get better in the future, because, as Eric said, this is only the beginning

true, so do release that code when it gets better - meanwhile, don't cripple the code with GPU switched off

[Victor Wolansky]

>>>true, so do release that code when it gets better - meanwhile, don't cripple the code with GPU switched off

Absolutely…. Most people I know is uninstalling Lightroom CC and going back to 5.7.1

If is not ready, don’t release it.

[barnao]

First thanks for this insightful post.   As systems architect (grid/infra/systems) I frequently have to design for vertical vs horizontal problems so I understand the exercise. 

I do have one question that does puzzle me though that you might have some insight into.   I've noticed thta many operations (face recognition, certain cataloging operations (page/scrolling/optimizing/finding), etc) seem to be bound to a single thread?   in my systems .... with a completely SSD system, 5820k (6 core/12 hyper-4ghz), 16GB-DDR4 (2400) system I find that I max out on operations at around 15-20% utilization.    So I'm trying to understand where these bottlenecks (that are not disk queue, corebound or memory constrained) are?  

P.S.  My catalog is 350k.

[mikeojohnson]

This is getting to be a long thread.  It would seem to me someone from Adobe should address the concerns expressed.  I, for one, would like to know that the problems are acknowledged and there is a priority at Adobe to make rapid improvements.

Mike

[ISeward]

I think Adobe can recover from this embarrassing incident if they utilise the fact that they are a large corporation and throw ALL available man power at properly implementing GPU support.  Eric Chan has said that that is the goal and if Adobe can get GPU support working in more areas of LR within a reasonable time then all will be well.

It is recognised in business management circles that communicating well with your customers is extremely good practice.  However, it is often difficult within large corporations where the "bunker" mentality is often common.  I hope Adobe will communicate what their plans are for the good of Adobe and customers.

We will see 🙂 

[mark-FOTO]

Lightroom 6 use model: Wedding photographer and editing service provider.

This post is more on the positive side.  LR6 is up and running smoothly.   An occasional flash between previous image when changing images or zooming.

Still need to test large exporting: 3000+ images.  (Indian weddings)

I have a PC running Win8.1 for OS.

basic i7 3770 CPU

16 gig RAM - matched set 2x 8gig

248 SSD with OS installed and use as working space for Lightroom 6.

Had HD7770 AMD video card that would pass openGL and system check.  I can say it worked.

Upgraded to AMD Fire Pro W5100.

Monitor: 1) Dell U2713H (2560x1440) operating in 10-bit mode, 2) Dell U2412M (1920x1080)

Catalog has standard preview size set to Auto.

Preference has GPU enabled.

Preference: Cache size set to 50 gig

I create catalog based on client since I edit for other wedding photographers.

Therefore my catalogs are many throughout the year.

When I switched graphics card, I noticed an improvement in performance.  The brush is very fluid and snappy - even with gradient/brush and brush used on same image.

LR6 is still a tad glitchy but no lock-ups encountered yet.  Nothing crazy or un-usable.

I have a slight delay 1-2 sec between images -sometimes- when in develop module.

I run the stand-alone version of LR6.

FYI: a gentleman on the Fred Miranda forum has a utilization software package and confirmed when in develop module, GPU use is on or hot.  Everything is being passed through GPU.  sliders/brushes .... I have to go back and verify zoom.

Not all is glooming.  Not a fan boy just a shooter (photographer) getting work done ... and good work at that. 

[jwArtWorks]

I originally installed CC on my HP Laptop while on a trip shooting many photos (Catalog for trip has 8500 RAW images). I needed to turn off the Graphics Processor Option or the develop performance was too slow to use. Switching from image to image took 5 times as long as w/o GCPU, Using the crop tool took 4 times as long as w/o GCPU just to show the bounding grid, etc. I decided to turn off GCPU so it would work faster and it did in fact work better. The other develop tools (brush, spot correction, etc.) seem to be about the same speed as LR5.7.

When I returned home, I installed LR CC on my HP Workstation. I copied the RAW photos to my DROBO (USB 3) and the Catalog to a second DROBO (USB 3). I had no BSOD's or other crashes but it seems like LR CC does not like my video board. The preferences tab tells me there is an error.

This is strange because I also am running Photoshop CC and it seems to be okay with my graphics option.

Before buying my Laptop, I checked the Adobe website and selected a compatible video at extra cost to make sure I would be okay.

When I upgraded to Photoshop CS6 (before I joined the cloud) I upgraded my video card in my HP Workstation so it would be okay with the improved graphics.

Now, I am not sure what to do as there has been no response at all from Adobe. I currently teach classes in both Photoshop and Lightroom software and I have advised everyone on my student mailing list (over 300 students) to stay with LR 5.7 and not upgrade for fear of them having issues after they upgrade. Where do we go from here?

I am a big fan of Adobe (Using Photoshop since version 3 - not CS3 just plain 3 & Lightroom since version 1) and I am okay if this is a bug, I am okay if this is something else, I am just NOT OKAY wondering what is going on and what is being done to help all of us loyal Adobe customers. All of us (or most of us) are willing to accept a problem if it exists and wait for the solution but it is extremely difficult to sit here wondering what is wrong and what to do.

If we all need to go out and buy new video cards, that is not a great thing but then you should have told us this before we upgraded.

Adobe, please communicate with us so we can remain your loyal supporters!

//----------- Laptop Specs ---------------------------

• Windows 8.1 64

• 4th generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4510U Dual Core Processor + 4GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M Graphics

• 17.3-inch diagonal Full HD WLED-backlit Display (1920x1080) Touchscreen

• 16GB DDR3L System Memory (2 Dimm)

• 1TB 5400 rpm Hybrid Hard Drive

• No Additional Office Software

• Security Software Trial

• 4-cell 48WHr Lithium-ion Battery

• Blu-ray writer and SuperMulti DVD burner

• Backlit Keyboard with Fingerprint Reader

• HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Dual Digital Microphone

• Intel 802.11ac WLAN and Bluetooth(R) [1x1]

// ------------- Desktop Specs from LR CC ------------------------

Lightroom version: CC 2015.0.1 [ 1018573 ]

License: Creative Cloud

Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium Edition

Version: 6.1 [7601]

Application architecture: x64

System architecture: x64

Logical processor count: 4

Processor speed: 3.3 GHz

Built-in memory: 16342.0 MB

Real memory available to Lightroom: 16342.0 MB

Real memory used by Lightroom: 1137.3 MB (6.9%)

Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 1109.8 MB

Memory cache size: 126.3 MB

Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 4

Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX

System DPI setting: 96 DPI

Desktop composition enabled: Yes

Displays: 1) 1920x1080

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

Graphics Processor Info:

Check OpenGL support: Failed

Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.

Version: 3.3.12002 Core Profile Context 9.12.0.0

Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 5500 Series

LanguageVersion: 4.20

GL_MAX_COMBINED_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS (actual = 32, minimum = 48)

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

Library Path: P:\Lightroom\20150415 - Australia & South Pacific Cruise\20150415 - Australia & South Pacific Cruise-2.lrcat

Settings Folder: C:\Users\Joel Weisbrod\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom

Installed Plugins:

1) Behance

2) Canon Tether Plugin

3) ColorChecker Passport

4) Facebook

5) Flickr

6) Leica Tether Plugin

7) Nikon Tether Plugin

8) Perfect B&&W 9

9) Perfect Effects 9

10) Perfect Enhance 9

11) Perfect Photo Suite 9

12) Perfect Portrait 9

13) Perfect Resize 9

Config.lua flags: None

Updated Toolkit: Adobe Camera Raw 9.0 for Lightroom 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Book Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Develop Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Import Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Library Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Map Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Monitor Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Print Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Slideshow Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: Web Module 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.AgNetClient 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.AgWFBridge 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.Headlights 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.LibraryToolkit 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.MultiMonitorToolkit 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.archiving_toolkit 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.bridgetalk 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.catalogconverters 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.cef_toolkit 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.coretech_toolkit 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.curculio 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.discburning 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.email 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.export 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.ftpclient 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.help 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.iac 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.imageanalysis 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.layout_module_shared 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.pdf_toolkit 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.sdk 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.sec 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.socket 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.store_provider 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.substrate 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.ui 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.video_toolkit 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.ag.xml 6.0 (build 1014445)

Updated Toolkit: com.adobe.wichitafoundation 6.0 (build 1014445)

Adapter #1: Vendor : 1002

  D

[J.P. Owens]

Mr. Chan,

Thank you for the well thought out response. Not from the aspect of explaining, cus' I am not into all that techno crap. I am a photographer and don't care.

Light room is a nice program, or was anyway. The truth is Adobe has sacrificed (or retarded) some short term performance of the software in the interest of future capabilities. So, please don't try to resurrect a corpse by blowing smoke up its backside. Tell us (your customers) the plain truth in small words so we can accept it and move on.

But... please work on getting back up to speed.

[Del_Pierro]

It's frustrating. I have an UHD monitor and a Geforce GTX 970, Lightroom feels like it runs on a C-64, it's unusable without gpu acceleration at such a high reoslution. I tried different drivers and disabled the second or third  monitors, no luck at all. Need to choose a different product for now because I can't work like that.

[StefanKlein]

del-pierro, is it also "unusable" with GPU enabled? Was LR 5 faster with the same monitors?

[Del_Pierro]

‌I can't enable gpu acceleration, that is The problem. I would love to try it but I can't find a way to make it work, it's always disabled due to an error. LR 5 is also very Slow in UHD. In Full HD everything is fine.

[mark-FOTO]

Del_Pierro,

There is your issue.

As I understand Adobe, LR performs 2 checks.... an OpenGl check and then a system level performance check.

If your system does not meet the requirement for both then no option to turn on GPU.

OpenGL >3.3.

System check: not sure other than Adobe telling us it check the system: I am assuming CPU/GPU/rest of video cards/monitor/etc.

How much memory does your video card have?

[Del_Pierro]

‌hm... Wehre would there be an Issue? Every component is very fast. The graphic card is brand new and high end with 4 gb of ram. It must be some individual problem, people with far lesser specs can enable gpu acceleration. Seems many people have the same problem and there is currently no solution.

[mark-FOTO]

del_pierro,

You could get a professional video card.

Plus ... whatis the rest of your system?

UHD will require a lot of juice ....

Just saying.

[Del_Pierro]

‌4.3 GHz Quad core CPU, 16gb RAM. I can play UHD games at 60 Frames so the system should be fine.

[mark-FOTO]

Del_Pierro,

Nice.... what about your video card memory?

Also... the games you play.... are they based on Direct X or openGl?

[StefanKlein]

Del, I know this won`t help you much, but I also have a GTX 970 and driver 350.12 (Win 8.1). LR6 works perfectly with that card. Did you try to reset driver settings to their default?

[Victor Wolansky]

When you say that with the new driver works fine, you mean you can use for example the brush tool at the same speed or better than with 5.7.1? I'm using $4000 GPUs and it won't work any faster, in fact, much slower.

Sent from the Moon

[StefanKlein]

Victor,

the brush is really a bit slower than without GPU, but still fast enough. I can, however, make it really slow, if I add sharpening or moire to the brush. As already reported in a previous post, I have no UHD monitor, but I`ve spread LR across my 3 monitors for testing (1920x1200 and 2 monitors 1280x1024). Develop sliders, gradients, crop etc .react in realtime. Moving from one picture to another is really fast, so I actually can`t complain.

[Victor Wolansky]

I use a lot of sharpening and contrast and other things to make diamonds pop or metal to look more interesting. That makes the brush behave like a if I was trying to do it on an old XT PC.

Sent from the Moon

[Del_Pierro]

Thanks! I used a driver cleaner and tried several nvidia drivers including the latest, no luck.

victorwolansky‌ thanks, I just wanted to explain that there is no bottleneck in my system. The issue is that I can not activate gpu acceleratio, with that I believe it should work much better.

[Victorwolansky]

In my experience and much others as you can see, there is no bottleneck either and the experience is pretty bad. I'm using an HP820 with 128 GB of RAM, an SDD card that gives me 1.5 GB per second, windows boot in about 8 seconds.... Tested with a Titan GPU, with several professional Quadro cards, nada... Every single combination LR CC is a turtle compared with 5.7.1. Now. For some people doing just cataloging and sorting, and small adjustments it might be faster, but if you are a user like me that makes heavy retouching with the brush tool and lots of color correction from very high resolution cameras like a Pentax 655Z, LR CC it's just unusable. 5.7.1 handle these images effortless.

Sent from the Moon

[StefanKlein]

Victor,

can you point me to a site, where I can download a testfile from a Pentax 655Z? I`d really like to test that. What do you mean with "color corrections"? How do you make them, with global slider corrections or locally with the brush?

[Del_Pierro]

‌so even with gpu support it's slow? Then there is no hope for me . That is really bad...

[mark-FOTO]

Victor I would not mind a test image also.

If you don't want to give out publicly

e-mail: markarnold.foto@gmail.com

Del_Pierro... as listed in previous thread ... I have a middle of the road I7 - locked CPU with a simple AMD fire pro W5100 pushing 2 monitors with no major issues.

The software is a little glichy from time to time..... when getting out of crop mode it likes to go back to a previous image for a 1/2 sec sometimes.

1 monitor is 27" 2560x1440 working in 10-bit mode (most users are in 8-bit mode) + 1920x1080 - 24 "

The GPU enabled makes a good bit of difference.

my files are coming out of 5DmkIII.