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Author Topic: Lightroom's speed is just so-so  (Read 15424 times)

jani

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #20 on: April 16, 2007, 02:15:46 am »

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i keep database and photos on a portable drive - temporary solution until it gets filled up -
anyway it randomly slow down -
If that portable drive is a USB drive, that's something you just have to expect and live with, unless you're willing to dig pretty into the technicalities of your motherboard construction.

Basically, if there is more than one USB device on a USB controller, that device can disturb or be disturbed by other USB devices. With some controllers, you even risk that USB 2.0 high-speed devices ("480 Mbps") could be brought down to low USB 1.1 speeds (2 Mbps).
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Jan

tve1964

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #21 on: April 16, 2007, 09:53:37 am »

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This is usual the result of software companies prioritizing the development of new features over software quality, and is has little to do with supporting multiple  platforms.
Don't be quick to criticize the Lightroom developers, you are basing your opinion on two invalid assumptions.

I do share your opinion that Lightroom is inexcusably slow, but I was happy to discover that 40% of Lightroom's code was written in Lua.  The use of interpreted languages can greatly increase programmer productivity and reduce the number of bugs, in the long term this is a good thing for users.

PS:
  Lightroom's performance problems are mostly the result of poor memory management.  I have noticed that Lightroom's memory usage will unexpectedly balloon for no apparent reason.  (If it means anything to you, I suspect the culprit may be a poorly designed garbage collection system.)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111958\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for the response:
I accept that my "possible" explanations may be wrong, not knowing for sure.
Since this is a photography forum, I guess we shouldn't get too technical. But we are users and like others who commented here, I couldn't care less if one or another language is used, provided that our experience is not unacceptably degraded. Most of us working on a "normal" but "not beefed up machine" think LR's speed IS a problem (when I buy a PC, I choose a fast but not top of the line machine and then keep it for 5 or 6 years, only upgrading subsystems like HD, memory,etc.. when needs arise. My next is for Vista, but not before at least one year).
My multiplatform hypothesis is an observation, not a demonstration. I did not aim to discredit Lua or interpreted languages whatsoever.  Moreover, I agree that there could be ways to make multiplatform software as fast on all platform (FrameMaker, that Adobe acquired many years ago, is such software). But I have observed that the shortcuts (compromises) often made in crossplatform software DO cost performance. Probably that the effort to NOT compromise are deemed unecessary, assuming folks will upgrade their machines sooner or later.
Anyway, I did not intend to create an argument. Regardless of the multiplatform development'relevance to this discussion I would simply point out that it might be a sort of wishful thought that LR's speed improve dramatically in the short term since it is probably resulting from design choices that would be hard to fix. Owning a version of the software, I can only hope to be proven wrong, but when I look at other Adobe software, I can tell that performance, minimal memory usage etc. is really not something Adobe spends a lot of effort fine tuning.
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macgyver

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #22 on: April 16, 2007, 11:30:32 am »

I would be interested to hear what Jeff has to say about any of this; if he could give us any insight into if Adobe recognizes the issue or if it's "in the works" as they say.  I want to say I remember his talking about how V1 would be siginificantly faster than the betas.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2007, 11:31:34 am by macgyver »
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theophilus

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #23 on: April 16, 2007, 12:36:03 pm »

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Thanks a lot for the test results.

That's what I feared most. The very idea of LR is to keep data live for quick and easy access. This is not practially doable with workstation HD as soon as you go beyond a few thousand images.

My personnal conclusion is that LR, and Bridge for that matter, appear to be basically unusable with a NAS for anyone needing to be productive.

The only solutions that are realistic from a performance standpoint become firewire, eSATA, SCSI or fiber channel arrays... all these being significantly more expensive that NAS.

Cheers,
Bernard
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Yes, I think eSATA is the best solution for portability with Lightroom, with some 10,000 rpm hard drives.

It doesn't appear to be too expensive
[a href=\"http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=eSATA&x=0&y=0]http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....n=eSATA&x=0&y=0[/url]

eSATA enclosure: $35 US (need 2 or more for raid)
eSATA card for PC: $60-$75 US (has raid controller)
eSATA cables: $5 ea for 4 feet
eSATA expresscard for notebook: $60-$80

plus HDD costs.
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theophilus

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #24 on: April 16, 2007, 12:37:07 pm »

I would also say that moving the Lightroom database shows good speed improvements for switching between different folders.  The preview cache is ready much sooner.
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Ben Rubinstein

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #25 on: April 16, 2007, 04:48:00 pm »

I use LR only for choosing and then developing the photos, as yet I haven't bought into the whole 'library' idea and prefer Bridge as a real browser.

As such I import a folder only to rank and then develop the photos with automatic export to .xmp, as soon as I'm done the folder is deleted from the library. That means that I'm working with a library of only a few images at a time.

Today I processed a short portrait shoot of 90 images. The time that LR takes to show a 1:1 preview is inexcuseably slow and ditto the time it takes to stop bloody well 'Working' and let me process. This is on a Dual 2ghz with 2 gig ram, remember the library is practically empty!

I can open a file in Bridge to ACR and view it a 100% in about 3 seconds on my machine. In LR it's 10-15 seconds. Why should that be acceptable?
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fahrenhyde

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #26 on: April 21, 2007, 07:01:40 pm »

hello. what do you think if having a better graphics card would increase lr's speed? i've read almost everything now in this thread, but nothing about using a different graphics card. the reason why i'm asking is because i'm planning to buy a new card cuz someone told me i could accelerate things in lightroom as well.
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BernardLanguillier

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #27 on: April 21, 2007, 07:16:08 pm »

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hello. what do you think if having a better graphics card would increase lr's speed? i've read almost everything now in this thread, but nothing about using a different graphics card. the reason why i'm asking is because i'm planning to buy a new card cuz someone told me i could accelerate things in lightroom as well.
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I'd be very surprised if a "faster" graphic card helped at all. Those fast cards are fast at rendering the facets of 3D objects used in games, they aren't any faster than good old Matrox for the type of 2D rendering used by Lightroom.

Regards,
Bernard

timhurst

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #28 on: April 22, 2007, 06:34:59 pm »

Perceptions shift...

I've been using LR since version one was released and I have gotten quite used to the feel/speed of the interface. I'm running a dual core Pentium D at 3.4ghz, 2gig of ram, win xp home, separate physical esata disks for windows/programs, files and data and page/scratch files. Hardly cutting edge but a solid system. When dealing with 16MP RAWS LR feels a little laggy/jumpy in responsiveness when in develop module but still productive. I was even starting to feel like it was running pretty nicely...

BUT THEN ... I went back into Rawshooter for the first time in ages and what a revelation.  Near instant 1:1 preview generation, real time update of histograms and previews when editing and a totally fluid feel to the controls. It was as if I had just upgraded my computer.

LR now feels like a snail again and the time it takes to generate previews is frankly ridiculous.

Is it wishful thinking to hope that LR will ever be as responsive as RS?
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jani

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #29 on: April 23, 2007, 04:58:41 am »

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I'd be very surprised if a "faster" graphic card helped at all. Those fast cards are fast at rendering the facets of 3D objects used in games, they aren't any faster than good old Matrox for the type of 2D rendering used by Lightroom.
Well, actually, they can be, and they are (as far as I know; modern tests usually don't concern themselves with ancient hardware, but there seems to be a steady improvement anyway).

However, whether you can actually get at this improved performance depends on whether the functionality in these modern graphics chips is utilized or not.

Perhaps what you say is true for Lightroom, but it certainly doesn't seem to be true for Aperture.
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francois

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #30 on: April 23, 2007, 05:32:20 am »

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...Perhaps what you say is true for Lightroom, but it certainly doesn't seem to be true for Aperture.
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Yes, this is right. Aperture is much faster with a top-of-the-line graphic card. It looks like Photoshop CS3 can also take advantage of fast graphic cards. Here's a screenshot of PSCS3 preferences (taken from Martin Evening what's new in PCSCS3 document). I must say that I haven't been able to test for improved performances as I'm still waiting for my upgrade to arrive.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2007, 05:32:52 am by francois »
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Francois

timhurst

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #31 on: April 23, 2007, 06:07:52 am »

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Yes, this is right. Aperture is much faster with a top-of-the-line graphic card. It looks like Photoshop CS3 can also take advantage of fast graphic cards. Here's a screenshot of PSCS3 preferences (taken from Martin Evening what's new in PCSCS3 document). I must say that I haven't been able to test for improved performances as I'm still waiting for my upgrade to arrive.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113751\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

No luck I'm afraid, in Extended version only and just used for rendering of 3D layers...

From the documentation:

"Enable 3D Acceleration (Adobe® Photoshop® CS3 Extended)
Enabling 3D acceleration lets you override software rendering of 3D layers."
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francois

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #32 on: April 23, 2007, 06:19:14 am »

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No luck I'm afraid, in Extended version only and just used for rendering of 3D layers...
....

It looked too good to be true, unfortuntely!

 
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Francois

jeffok

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #33 on: April 25, 2007, 04:49:32 pm »

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I am no hardware/software expert, but the computers mentioned here sound like they are G5 macs and older pc's, is anyone running lightroom on an intel duo 2 core mac or comparable pc and experiencing the same speed problems?
I assume since lightroom came out just recently it was written with the universal intel core coding, and is faster on the intel macs (and current pcs). 
Running any program through Rosetta will slow it down like molasses.
just a thought!
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I am running a quad core 2.66 Ghz Mac Pro with 2 GB RAM. My images are stored on an external Lacie 320 GB Firewire 800 drive and copied simultaneously onto my internal 500 GB drive. The performance of LR is very good, no significant delays in importing files and rendering standard size previews. I am even importing large psd files with layers off a network drive linked to a PC, renaming , adding metatags and saving to dual disks. While that DOES slow things down, given the operations being performed, it is quite acceptable.

I think the expectations here may be either too much, or some of you ought to consider upgrading your mac's.
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The View

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Lightroom's speed is just so-so
« Reply #34 on: May 05, 2007, 02:08:40 am »

I am surprised to find that LR is considered slow.

I have read several reviews on the web, and they all stated that LR was much faster than aperture, especially on "older" macs (I have an iMac g5 2.1 ghz 16 months old, 1.5 gig ram).

I was considering lightroom for this speed issue, but now, after reading this thread I'm not so sure any more.

Hay anybody experience with both programs?
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The View of deserts, forests, mountains. Not the TV show that I have never watched.
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