LR 4.1 RAM?

[jljonathan]

I have a Mac Pro 2.93Mhz Quad core 10.6.8 and running LR 4.1. How much RAM would you install for good performance; overall, including gradient and brush tool etc. It can take up to 16 gigs.

[francois]

I have a Mac Pro 2.93Mhz Quad core 10.6.8 and running LR 4.1. How much RAM would you install for good performance; overall, including gradient and brush tool etc. It can take up to 16 gigs.

I would go for 16 GB although Lightroom seems perfectly happy with less (8 or 12). RAM is not that expensive, have a look at OWC website. Other vendors offer similar prices.

Edit: typo correction

[mac_paolo]

Agree. Lightroom doesn't need so much RAM. Anything between 8-16GB will work just fine.
What you really need is a fast processor (your one should be right) and very fast storage drives. I wrote "drives" because you really have to keep the OS, the catalog, the cache and the actual photos as separated as possible.

[zobeleye]

is that really so
I have cache on one, files on another, and os and cat on the same one .
does anybody confirm that it would make a difference in speed, if these were on seperate drives
cheers
stephan

[Hans Kruse]

For Lightroom itself 8GB should be more than plenty. But if you also want to run Photoshop with HDR and or pano stiching 16GB (or more) would be good to have. I have noticed that it is very bad for performance if you set memory too high in Photoshop performance preference and it is important to specify scratch discs on fast drives. I have an SSD boot drive on my MacBook Pro and this is the only scratch drive. I can see on the activity monitor that there is sometimes a very very high write rate to the SSD. So an SSD scratch drive can compensate for a memory limit. On my MBP the current memory limit is 16GB which is what I have installed.

[mac_paolo]

is that really so
I have cache on one, files on another, and os and cat on the same one .
does anybody confirm that it would make a difference in speed, if these were on seperate drives
cheers
stephan

It's not a matter of Lightroom, it's a matter about any software which requests high volume I/O from the disks, and Lightroom is one of them