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Author Topic: Lightroom and RAM consumption  (Read 5477 times)

rdonson

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Lightroom and RAM consumption
« on: April 25, 2017, 03:58:22 pm »

Are there any benchmarks or reports available on how much RAM Lr can consume for various features?

The latest CC version seems awfully piggy on my 8GB RAM MBP Retina mid 2012.  It really hit home when I was trying to use the "Slideshow" module recently.  It could be some other startup programs gumming up the works but I've never before seen the OS messages that "App Memory" is exhausted.

Sierra 10.12.4
250GB SSD with 149GB free

P.S. not angry - just trying to understand the situation
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Regards,
Ron

luxborealis

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2017, 05:48:12 pm »

If it's any help, I just upgraded to 16GB on my mid-2011 15" non-Retina MBP and that solved the terrible lagging I was experiencing with a standalone LR 6.10. Definitely worth the $ as it's chugging along just fine, now.

When I finally upgrade to an SSD, I imagine I can get a few more years out of this old (and heavy!) beast.
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Terry McDonald - luxBorealis.com

rdonson

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2017, 06:59:51 pm »

Thanks for responding, Terry.  AFAIK my Mid 2012 Retina MBP has soldered in RAM.  There is no upgrade path for the RAM that I'm aware of.
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Ron

garyhill

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2017, 07:19:13 pm »

This site has some Lightroom benchmark tests showing the impact of CPU / file storage location but not a specific test around RAM. There recommendations for Lightroom are shown on the link below.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Lightroom-141/Hardware-Recommendations

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Gary

nemophoto

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2017, 09:00:30 pm »

It IS piggy. For quite a while, LR has really needed 16GB for it's best performance.
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Simon Garrett

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2017, 03:49:30 am »

It may be different on a PC, as I have 32G RAM on my PC, and I've never seen LR use more than about 6G.  I just tried doing 3 large exports in parallel as well as doing some heavy-duty editing on 36Mpixel images and it maxed out at 6G.  Nothing much else is running (total RAM use 9G) so it's not competing for RAM.  However, on my PC, PS is a real memory hog. 
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rdonson

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2017, 09:47:33 am »

Simon, I think you may have hit on the issue.  Adobe says 2GB RAM is required for Lightroom.  Obviously when I boot up my 8GB MBP there is only a couple of GB available for applications. 

I still need to do some homework though to see which of the apps that I load on startup might be contributing to the issue. 
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Ron

nemophoto

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2017, 02:12:14 pm »

It may be different on a PC, as I have 32G RAM on my PC, and I've never seen LR use more than about 6G.  I just tried doing 3 large exports in parallel as well as doing some heavy-duty editing on 36Mpixel images and it maxed out at 6G.  Nothing much else is running (total RAM use 9G) so it's not competing for RAM.  However, on my PC, PS is a real memory hog.

I, too, have a PC desktop with 32GB of RAM. As a result, I don't see that much of a difference. However, my notebook had 8GB previously and LR could bring it to its knees. Since upgrading the notebook to 16GB, much better. But as you said, you've seen LR use 6GB. On an 8GB notebook, that's significant.
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CatOne

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #8 on: April 30, 2017, 11:37:39 am »

Simon, I think you may have hit on the issue.  Adobe says 2GB RAM is required for Lightroom.  Obviously when I boot up my 8GB MBP there is only a couple of GB available for applications. 

I still need to do some homework though to see which of the apps that I load on startup might be contributing to the issue.

I don't think it's a simple RAM issue like you say. You can't look at Activity Monitor and see the amount of "free memory" and assume that's the exact amount available to Lightroom. macOS has technologies like compressed memory, etc. that are used to optimize for speed and performance. Your system has 8 GB of RAM available, and at least 4-6 can be used by LR at any given time, if you don't have any other applications open.

What camera are you using? These days if it's a 40+ megapixel image it is a LOT of processing necessary.
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rdonson

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Re: Lightroom and RAM consumption
« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2017, 09:48:20 am »

I don't think it's a simple RAM issue like you say. You can't look at Activity Monitor and see the amount of "free memory" and assume that's the exact amount available to Lightroom. macOS has technologies like compressed memory, etc. that are used to optimize for speed and performance. Your system has 8 GB of RAM available, and at least 4-6 can be used by LR at any given time, if you don't have any other applications open.

What camera are you using? These days if it's a 40+ megapixel image it is a LOT of processing necessary.

Thank you for your thoughts.

You are correct that Mac OS compresses RAM just like many other modern OSes.  If you use a tool like "Memory Cleaner" from the App Store you can initiate that compression more frequently or when you choose.

My machine has 8GB RAM installed.  After the OS boots up that full amount is NOT available for applications. 

On my MBP I also execute programs upon bootup such as Adobe CC, Duet, Memory Cleaner, DNSCrypt and a couple of others.  These take up RAM for applications as well.

Lightroom runs OK for me until I use the "Slideshow" module.  That's when I get the message about Application Memory being exhausted.  I got through that for a while by shutting down just about all the other running programs on the computer.   My learning so far is to avoid the "Slideshow Module" on this machine.  It's something I only do when at workshops as it's a way for us to share our work.

BTW, my camera is a Fuji X-T2 24 MP and I shoot in RAW and sometimes RAW+JPG.

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Regards,
Ron
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