Well to add to my post: I installed LR2 on my home box. This is the one that I used to run LR1 on with good results. It's a Dual 2 gz G5 with 4 gigs of ram and the video card is an ATY 9650 with 256 megs (an aftermarket add on)
This machine is of course no longer the latest, but then that was the attraction (among other things) to running LR instead of Aperture - the speed on less that the best hardware. LR version 1 certainly performed on this box, while aperture could get bogged down less than I was willing to live with on it.
To get to the point, LR version two run unacceptably slowly. It run exactly the same speed as Aperture on my two year old hardware. That is a grand surprise to me, and a major disappointment.
I've noticed that several posts had people judging processing speed as the only metric. In that regard LR is fine, but that metric is pointless to me. Its the speed of working with the program, that counts, I believe.
Why, when LR1 was instant, does LR2 take four or so seconds each time you look at a file in the develop module to render the file? That would be frustrating enough ... but it does so each time I look at it, even if I've just worked on the file two minutes earlier and go back to it. Does that not seem strange? Is that how you gents have it work? Or does LR, like Aperture require the best hardware of today or tomorrow?
As I had mentioned earlier, I like some things about each program but it was time to get off the evaluation pot. I was quite happy to live with some of the short comings of LR2 due to the expected performance advantage, as I had grown to expect from my adventures with LR1. I was all pumped, and now I'm back to square one - having to deal with Capture one's new and convoluted interface. At least the feedback is instant.
I do have to confess that this experience makes me feel a bit like I've been cheated. Not cheated ... but misled by all the glowing LR reviews. Nowhere is there a suggestion that performance sucks on but brand new hardware. I know that such shall be an unpopular opine ... but either my experience is unique or people have become partizan about converters the way they are about camera brands.
Lastly, there is the ever more faint possibility that I've missed some vital setting. Any ideas? I'd love to eat humble pie here ... and have a converter I can love and use as I need to, without looking at unexpected beachballs many steps of the way. Does Adobe perhaps ship ... and optimize later?
It's unlikely to be my system. I'm an apple certified (or was with 10.4) sys admin and keep the box running as well as a two and a half year box ever will.
So ... any suggestions would be appreciated. LR seems like the best mix of possibilities of the raw converters out there. I really am looking forward to the day when its more that just a "possibility" for my needs.
Thanks!