Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: Pindy on November 16, 2008, 11:39:00 pm
-
I have seen in every review and forum, including this one, that LR2 improves its speed over v1.4, but I'm finding the overall speed is about 50% of what it was in v1.4 on both my MacBook Pro (dual 2.16, 2GB RAM, 10.5.5 and intel iMac 24" dual 2.4, 4GB RAM, 10.5.5). Scrolling can be measured with a calendar and switching between modules (usually Grid or Loupe to Develop) takes around 6 seconds.
This is both in my main catalog, which has a little over 10,000 photos and in a couple of temporary catalogs that have between 5 and 200 photos, which, to be fair, aren't as bad. Since I experience bad performance on two different machines using the same catalogs, I'm at a loss to find a cause. I thought a clean install might help, if there was anything legacy from 1.x in the chain. What would be the best practice vis-à-vis performance?
-
2.0 or 2.1?
-
2.0 or 2.1?
2.1. I didn't actually notice any difference between 2.0, 2.1rc1 and 2.1 with respect to performance. Bug fixes? yes indeed.
I cannot find an uninstall command in the installer nor in the notes and I would be open to trying that. I should also add that on the 24" iMac, I have 64-bit enabled. LR 1.x just flew on these machines so I figure something's impeding the performance. Jeff Schewe's main library is something like over 56,000 photos and I'm not close to that.
-
Try turning off 64-bit - with only 4gb of RAM, that could be bogging it down.
-
If Victoria's suggestion doesn't work try optimizing the catalog. I don't know about Mac OS but this often provides a performance boost for me on Windoze.
-
You shouldn't have to live with this; it sounds like Lightroom is fighting with other processes on your system. Clearly, the catalog size is not the issue; some other ideas:
1. Make sure the LR pref for Auto Saving XMP is OFF. Auto Save XMP is a disaster waiting to happen; save out your metadata manually and frequently.
2. Take a look at whether LR performance varies with other apps running. Especially stuff running in the background, like anti-virus etc.
3. Leave plenty of free disk space on all drives LR knows about, including system disk (at least 20% at all times).
4. Clear the ACR cache through Bridge.
5. Check hardware (like RAM) for performance/failure condition and verify all settings for drivers and hardware controllers. For example, Open GL settings on various video cards have been reported to cause problems (but not on Mac).
...With the above in mind, it could be that Lightroom is having trouble generating previews. That can always bring performance to a crawl. Check all the preview status and prefs; delete previews and see if that makes a difference.
Since you're having the same problem with both machines it seems to me like it's a software config that's similar between the two, and not hardware. And not LR. Could be a set of files (a folder or collection) that is wonky and can't resolve the necessary operations.
Although it would appear that LR is misbehaving, I think it's much more likely that there is some other system-level process that is interfering.
Try both 64-bit and 32-bit. I don't expect you will see a difference.
I always pay close attention to the performance problems that others report; I have had none. OS X... XP... Vista, shouldn't matter. Properly configured, LR 2.1 can fly on all kinds of systems.
Find a way to determine the cause of the problem and I believe you should expect to be completely satisfied with LR's performance. If it's not a LR pref; it's a system or software setting elsewhere.
...One final thought - for years, working in prepress, I was plagued by what might seem the most benign of troubles - corrupt system fonts.
If you're having inexplicable trouble be prepared to examine absolutely everything.
A while back I made a post on my blog (http://www.prophotoworkflow.com/?p=78) about LR performance; might be worth a fresh look.
-
This'll take me a wee while to read through again and check but many thanks for you encouragement. Stay tuned.
-
1. Make sure the LR pref for Auto Saving XMP is OFF. Auto Save XMP is a disaster waiting to happen; save out your metadata manually and frequently.
this has been off.
2. Take a look at whether LR performance varies with other apps running. Especially stuff running in the background, like anti-virus etc.
I typically close everything else and the only things with background processes are things like my Kensington mouse driver and that kind of thing. With the Activity Monitor open, none of these things show more than 0.1% of processor time.
3. Leave plenty of free disk space on all drives LR knows about, including system disk (at least 20% at all times).
Laptop: 50-90 GB at all times. iMac: over 200GB. I sure with this was the answer!
4. Clear the ACR cache through Bridge.
Can't I do this through Lightroom? Just did and will report back.
5. Check hardware (like RAM) for performance/failure condition and verify all settings for drivers and hardware controllers. For example, Open GL settings on various video cards have been reported to cause problems (but not on Mac).
RAM appears fine. Not sure if the video card settings have anything to do with it, as I don't have any installed. I think it's an ATI chip in the iMac.
Will reply on the other items shortly.
-
Okay, I threw out the previews file and started LR. I imported about 200 shots from a card and ever since the import finished, activity monitor shows LR pegging during simple tasks like moving through the loupe mode. If I leave it alone, it spends half the time between 130-185% CPU. The fan has gone on the MacBook Pro. I even quit and relaunched. This is so not cool. There is nothing else running and no competition in the activity monitor. Something is making LR very busy, even though the activity bar shows NOTHING.
-
5. Check hardware (like RAM) for performance/failure condition and verify all settings for drivers and hardware controllers. For example, Open GL settings on various video cards have been reported to cause problems (but not on Mac).
Did Memtest OSX today. All passed.
...With the above in mind, it could be that Lightroom is having trouble generating previews. That can always bring performance to a crawl. Check all the preview status and prefs; delete previews and see if that makes a difference.
I set to minimal and deleted previews file.
Still looking. I just optimized as well. Prefs next?
-
Okay, I threw out the previews file and started LR. I imported about 200 shots from a card and ever since the import finished, activity monitor shows LR pegging during simple tasks like moving through the loupe mode. If I leave it alone, it spends half the time between 130-185% CPU. The fan has gone on the MacBook Pro. I even quit and relaunched. This is so not cool. There is nothing else running and no competition in the activity monitor. Something is making LR very busy, even though the activity bar shows NOTHING.
I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs - but your comment "since the import finished" could mean 2 things ; either you mean literally, the images have just imported, or the images have imported and the previews have been built by LR. Which is it? If it's only the former, then LR will still be trying to build the previews, which explains the CPU usage. If it's the latter, then we're looking at a different problem.
-
I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs - but your comment "since the import finished" could mean 2 things ; either you mean literally, the images have just imported, or the images have imported and the previews have been built by LR. Which is it? If it's only the former, then LR will still be trying to build the previews, which explains the CPU usage. If it's the latter, then we're looking at a different problem.
I wasn't careful enough to differentiate. There was ZERO activity in LR's busy-meter, having had written minimal previews immediately after import. I'm talking about the 30-minutes post-import, post-preview generation, including having restarted! I removed all items (save for LaunchBar) from my Login Items, though to be fair, the 6 or so Login Items weren't taking up any appreciable CPU time in the Activity Monitor.
Thanks again
-
I wasn't careful enough to differentiate. There was ZERO activity in LR's busy-meter, having had written minimal previews immediately after import. I'm talking about the 30-minutes post-import, post-preview generation, including having restarted! I removed all items (save for LaunchBar) from my Login Items, though to be fair, the 6 or so Login Items weren't taking up any appreciable CPU time in the Activity Monitor.
Thanks again
That is odd.
If you're comfortable with the command line and have some understanding of coding, then you might want to check out two handy utils (assuming you're on 10.5) - dtruss and fs_usage
If you can find the process id of Lightroom (ps or top should show you), then you can use dtruss to find out what it's doing (from a system calls point of view). fs_usage will tell you what's accessing what on the file system too. Caution - dtruss will probably generate a lot of output.
Might be time to call Adobe and ask for their help.
-
Tried running same catalog/same drive on my Mac Pro. It was hugely better performance, though the adjustment brush is still prone to SWODs and delays. Not sure exactly where I stand on this issue, but it helps to get this perspective.
-
I can't be of any help here, but I have a somewhat related question..
I read that rendering previews will speed things up. That makes sense (I'm used to Iview MediaPro which is so much faster at scrolling through images because they're all rendered to small jpegs), but what is 'standard sized' previews? Since I can change thumbnail sizes with the slider I'm not sure which is standard.. also, since I like varying thumbnail sizes like that I would need a way to easily get back to whatever was the standard size so that no on-the-fly rendering is necessary when I want to scroll through quickly.
-
I read that rendering previews will speed things up. That makes sense (I'm used to Iview MediaPro which is so much faster at scrolling through images because they're all rendered to small jpegs), but what is 'standard sized' previews? Since I can change thumbnail sizes with the slider I'm not sure which is standard.. also, since I like varying thumbnail sizes like that I would need a way to easily get back to whatever was the standard size so that no on-the-fly rendering is necessary when I want to scroll through quickly.
'Standard size' is whatever size you set in preferences. 1440 pixels along the longest edge by default. Having rendered that, the on-the-fly rendering to the different thumbnail sizes is much quicker.
-
I cannot find an uninstall command in the installer nor in the notes and I would be open to trying that.
Have you uninstalled 1.4? That made a significant difference for me. See this thread here. (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=27107&hl=uninstall+1.4)
While that thread is about v2.0, it's worth uninstalling previous versions to see what that does. I'm on a PC so I can't help you with finding the uninstall command.
Dave Chew
-
Have you uninstalled 1.4? That made a significant difference for me. See this thread here. (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=27107&hl=uninstall+1.4)
While that thread is about v2.0, it's worth uninstalling previous versions to see what that does. I'm on a PC so I can't help you with finding the uninstall command.
Dave Chew
I think "uninstalling" means deleting the LR 1.4 application. The installation process is simply to copy the app from the disk image or CD and it creates a handful of folders and files in ~/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom.
I have App Zapper, so I can try to see if it finds all the support files it created. But otherwise, the installation on the Mac is so simple, I don't know what could have been left behind other than the odd pref file. I think today I will uninstall any and all LR files and start from scratch. My main catalog lives with the media on a portable drive so it's "hotel-able".
-
I think "uninstalling" means deleting the LR 1.4 application. The installation process is simply to copy the app from the disk image or CD and it creates a handful of folders and files in ~/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom.
I have App Zapper, so I can try to see if it finds all the support files it created. But otherwise, the installation on the Mac is so simple, I don't know what could have been left behind other than the odd pref file. I think today I will uninstall any and all LR files and start from scratch. My main catalog lives with the media on a portable drive so it's "hotel-able".
Correct, on a Mac, just drag the Lightrom 1.4 icon to the trash. Have you tried to move your library to another hard drive to see if it would improve the performance?
-
Correct, on a Mac, just drag the Lightrom 1.4 icon to the trash. Have you tried to move your library to another hard drive to see if it would improve the performance?
That's my next step.
-
'Standard size' is whatever size you set in preferences. 1440 pixels along the longest edge by default. Having rendered that, the on-the-fly rendering to the different thumbnail sizes is much quicker.
I must be doing something wrong.. I've selected all images and rendered standard size preview to all of them, but they all still show pixelated when I scroll around. When I stop scrolling it takes about 5 seconds for the thumbnails to be rendered sharp and detailed in the library window. I can't tell any difference from before I rendered the previews at all..
-
OK—I completely uninstalled LR 2.1 on the MacBook Pro and re-installed it. I removed every possible file, including the registration files. Even opening a blank, new catalog and switching between the grid and develop for the first time still takes 6 seconds...WITH NO PHOTOS IN THE CATALOG. After the first time of loading each module, it seems to switch much faster between modules.
I opened LR 2.1 in my office on the 24" Intel iMac. I noticed something that I'll bet is a bad omen. Upon launch the "Silvertone" splash screen comes up. I don't think I noticed this before, but it distinctly said Silvertone in a sort of Fender guitar font, NOT Lightroom. I ran the 2.0 beta on this machine some time ago, but can't think of why it would still be there and being accessed. I will do the full-on uninstall tomorrow and report back. Could it be so hard for Adobe to write in an uninstall script in their installer?
***LATER*** You can toggle the LR and Silvertone splash screens by pressing R. Don't know why, but the LR team are being cute.
-
OK—I completely uninstalled LR 2.1 on the MacBook Pro and re-installed it. I removed every possible file, including the registration files. Even opening a blank, new catalog and switching between the grid and develop for the first time still takes 6 seconds...WITH NO PHOTOS IN THE CATALOG. After the first time of loading each module, it seems to switch much faster between modules.
…
On my dual 2GHz G5 Mac, switching for the first time between the library module and the develop module takes approx. 3-4 seconds. That's with my current library with more than 10000 1Ds Mark 3 raw files.
Removing leftovers from the beta and reinstalling a clean Lightroom certainly won't hurt.
-
Switching from Library to Develop module the first time (on loading) also takes about 5 seconds on my fairly modest dual core pc. After that switching between the modules is basically instant though (although with a little background loading that doesn't really interfere). I don't really have speed issues other than the slow rendering of pictures in library view that I mentioned earlier. Just thought I'd add some perspective - Lightroom should feel fairly quick on a basic computer.
This is a huge change from when I tried Lightroom 1.1 or so, it was so slow it felt like it was running on a Commodore 64.. with a tape recorder.
-
I've got a G5 dual 2.3 with 6.5gb in RAM and was having issues with LR2.1rc but have recently noticed that it's been running smoother since 2.1. I moved my catalog of 48,966 images made up of Canon 5D and scanned 6x7 TIFFs to an external eSATA hard drive that's empty, increased the cache to 60gb, and for good measure, created a new user account on my machine that's used strictly for editing/retouching. I even disabled internet access for that user (that's more of a productivity thing), just to make sure the system didn't get junked up with anything else. So far, so good. The program is running smoother than before and I keep auto XMP write ON.
-
I've got a G5 dual 2.3 with 6.5gb in RAM and was having issues with LR2.1rc but have recently noticed that it's been running smoother since 2.1. I moved my catalog of 48,966 images made up of Canon 5D and scanned 6x7 TIFFs to an external eSATA hard drive that's empty, increased the cache to 60gb, and for good measure, created a new user account on my machine that's used strictly for editing/retouching. I even disabled internet access for that user (that's more of a productivity thing), just to make sure the system didn't get junked up with anything else. So far, so good. The program is running smoother than before and I keep auto XMP write ON.
That's not a bad idea.
-
Sorry to resurrect this thread.
The evidence of MacBook dual 2.16, OS 10.5.6, 2GB RAM hell:
(http://pindy.smugmug.com/photos/449436277_qQJRv-O.png)
(http://pindy.smugmug.com/photos/449436290_wVxUG-O.png)
This was captured about 4 minutes after having exported a single JPEG and the computer was otherwise idle. Note that LR2 was referred to by the Activity Monitor as "(null)". The range of CPU percentage was from 105% to 190%, mostly in the upper 30 percent.
I recently uninstalled LR2.2 in an effort to get rid of any lingering LR1 or LR2 beta crud. I freshly installed LR2.2 but so far, I'm seeing no change. What on earth is LR doing?
I have thought of completely rebuilding the OS on the MBP and "starting over" despite the hell that that implies. Even though the activity monitor doesn't show any other offenders, I can't help but think there's too much junk in my Library and System folders. The only thing I have left to try before that is changing the type of drive. The catalog (and photos) are on a LaCie Rugged
-
The catalog (and photos) are on a LaCie Rugged
I haven't been following this thread but I do have an interest as I've just upgraded to from 1.4 to 2.2 (on 32-bit Windows).
I couldn't help but wonder - is your LaCie Rugged drive an external USB drive? Does this maybe have something to do with your problem? Access and transfer speeds for a USB drive are way slower than for a normal system-attached hard drive, or an eSATA drive.
-
I shall up it to 3GB today—the max. Funny, 2GB was the max when I bought it, but progress marches on I should think. Thanks for the tip.
-
CRAP—I only have the Core Duo, not the Core 2 Duo, therefore, I'm stuck at 2GB. I even bought some and tried it. Wouldn't boot. Have to figure something else out for now.
-
I haven't been following this thread but I do have an interest as I've just upgraded to from 1.4 to 2.2 (on 32-bit Windows).
I couldn't help but wonder - is your LaCie Rugged drive an external USB drive? Does this maybe have something to do with your problem? Access and transfer speeds for a USB drive are way slower than for a normal system-attached hard drive, or an eSATA drive.
Mine has FW800 ports on it and I use those or the 400 ports depending on the computer. I should find a 7200 FW portable. The portable thing is kind of important.
-
I don't think that your problem is so much the amount of RAM you have installed as the way that Lr uses it. v 2.2 is a disaster for many. Many are dropping back to v 2.1 while they wait (and wait) for a fix. See the U2U forum on adobe.com.
-
I don't think that your problem is so much the amount of RAM you have installed as the way that Lr uses it. v 2.2 is a disaster for many. Many are dropping back to v 2.1 while they wait (and wait) for a fix. See the U2U forum on adobe.com.
Thank you, but once again, same performance 2.0b, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2. I cannot increase my RAM past 2GB. Regressing isn't going to help. I don't doubt that 2.2 is trouble for some, but as usual the stock answer doesn't apply to me. This is a 2.x thing for me. Maybe I should just upgrade the laptop and be done with it.