Lightroom and PC power

[seamus finn]

Unlike people on other threads, I don't know how to build a computer - just buy one. I run Lightroom on a PC with the following specs:

OS Name   Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version   5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer   Microsoft Corporation
System Name   SEAMUS
System Manufacturer   HP Pavilion 061
System Model   DY150A-ABU t550.uk
System Type   X86-based PC
Processor   x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~2800 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date   American Megatrends Inc. 3.24, 14/04/2004
SMBIOS Version   2.3
Windows Directory   C:\WINDOWS
System Directory   C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device   \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale   United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer   Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name   SEAMUS\Owner
Time Zone   GMT Standard Time
Total Physical Memory   1,024.00 MB
Available Physical Memory   487.22 MB
Total Virtual Memory   2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory   1.96 GB
Page File Space   1.65 GB
Page File   C:\pagefile.sys

I copied this stuff directly from the system info panel. Whether or not it's any help with my question remains to be seen. Anyway, on this system, LR is very volatile - it runs smoothly for a while, then goes into a stall while a lot of processing seems to be taking place in the background. After a while, LRrevives itself and the whole thing starts again, sometimes within minutes. It's driving me nuts because I'm a dedicated fan of LR and think it's the best thing since the sliced loaf. In the opinion of the experts, should LR run smoothly on the specs above, do I need more ram, do I need a new machine, or what??? I have about 10,000 pics in LR from files living on an external drive. Storage space is not a problem - two hard drives available. Sometimes I get a message up saying Virtual Memory Is Running Low - Windows will Fix this (or words to that effect.)

Incidentally, I run CS3 and Bridge without any great difficulty. My files are usually Raw from a Canon 5D or scanned negs from a Nikon V Ed film scanner.

When it comes to technical stuff, I am one of those ignorant morons I see people referring to in some posts. Believe me, there are thousands like me who would love to get an answer to this sort of question - but may be afraid to ask for fear of being ridiculed. Don't worry - if taking heat is the price of getting LR up and running smoothly, I'm your man.


Help please.

Seamus

[GLJ]

Unlike people on other threads, I don't know how to build a computer - just buy one. I run Lightroom on a PC with the following specs:

Processor   x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~2800 Mhz

Total Physical Memory   1,024.00 MB

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134843\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well 1GB of RAM isn't going to cut it. You'll get people telling you to get a MAC with 8GB, but in reality, going up to 2GB might very well sort you out if its working fine for you some of the time.

I don't know what your CPU is. Is is a Celeron or a P4 ??
You would see a distinct improvement going over to a new core2duo or quad machine, but if you could easily pop in another gig of RAM, I'd give that a go first.
Hopefully your windows is set up to automatically increase the pagefile size (which is giving you your out of space message) - not the ideal thing, but at least if it is, then putting more RAM in should up the size of this as well an stop the error messages.
Do a search on setting up a permanent pagefile. Say 3GB - this might help a bit. PS - defrag your drive first.

Cheers
G.

[Richowens]

Seamus,

 G is correct, upping your RAM to 2 Gigs should give you a boost in performance.

 What made the most difference for me was to change XP to performance rather than appearance. You can do this by going to Control Panel>System>Advanced  tab and check to favor programs. This will revert XP to the Classic windows appearance but will allow programs to run much smoother. Myself, I prefer smooth to pretty and gee whiz any day.  

 I was getting crashes and messages that "Lightroom must close" constantly, often with MSCVR80.dll errors. This stopped that behavior and along with defragging my hard drives has LR running very smoothly.

 HTH

 Rich

[seamus finn]

Hi G and Rich,
Heartfelt thanks for that. My machine is an Intel Pentium 4.

S

[John.Murray]

Seamus:

I'd agree with the above - add more RAM.  I would recommend that you let Windows determine pagefile size - *but* after defragging (which automatically loads startup drivers, etc at the head of the disk) be sure to defrag your pagefile:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...PageDefrag.mspx

Also, take a hard look at the number processes running on your system, mine which also hosts a Visual Studio Programming environment, including a local copy of SQL totals 36.  A handy utility that will identify *everything* that loads at startup is AutoRuns:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...s/Autoruns.mspx

Handy for eliminating Quicktime, Adobe Reader, Real Player, Java Update, Quickbooks, etc etc etc from loading at startup.

Finally, consider turning *off* AV/Spyware protection (gasp) while processing pictures - you'll be suprised at the difference.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=234

-John

[Richowens]

John,

 Thanks for the additional information.

 Rich

[seamus finn]

John and everybody,
I downloaded the autorun facility just now - good Lord, I never saw so many ticks in one window. Does this mean that everything ticked is constantly running in the background no matter what programme is 'on'? And if so, if I start unticking what I think I don't need, is there any danger of doing something really silly?

As for the other advice re pagefile etc., I'll have to find out how that is done.

In the meantime, I think I'll give my local shop a call in the morning and see if I can get a gig of extra ram installed.


S

[John.Murray]

John and everybody,
I downloaded the autorun facility just now - good Lord, I never saw many ticks in one window. Does this mean that everything ticked is constantly running in the background no matter what programme is 'on'? And if so, if I start unticking what I think I don't need, is there any danger of doing something really silly?

As for the other advice re pagefile etc., I'll have to find out how that is done.

In the meantime, I think I'll give my local shop a call in the morning and see if I can get a gig of extra ram installed.
S
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134915\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The Autoruns webpage describes how to filter the displayed list to "non-microsoft" entries only - I'd recommend you start there, uncheck *only* process you are sure about.  Anything above  HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services is worth a look:



Your local shop where you upgrade your RAM can help you with this as well.

The PageDefrag util is pretty easy - just run it *after* you defrag your hard drive:

Start Menu | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Defragmenter

-John

[wolfnowl]

John and everybody,
I downloaded the autorun facility just now - good Lord, I never saw many ticks in one window. Does this mean that everything ticked is constantly running in the background no matter what programme is 'on'? And if so, if I start unticking what I think I don't need, is there any danger of doing something really silly?

Seamus:

Assuming you're running XP, try this.  Close all running programs.  Do the three finger salute (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and a window will pop up that says 'Windows Task Manager'.  The second tab from the left says 'Processes'.  Click on that tab.  At the bottom left it will tell you how many processes are running.  If it's more than about 50 you probably have some unnecessary processes running.  These processes CAN include anything from necessary Windows processes to file loaders and even (possibly) to viruses and trojans.  Now there are ways to turn off or even delete those processes, but it's not something you can do without knowing what you're doing or you risk turning your computer into a large paperweight.

Mike.

[GLJ]

The PageDefrag util is pretty easy - just run it *after* you defrag your hard drive:

Start Menu | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Defragmenter

-John
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134921\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

John - thanks for the Technet links, useful.

Just a query on the above quote though, isn't the defrag on drive C going to fail because the pagefile will be active? What I've had to do in the past to defrag drive C is to allocate a new windows page file to say drive D, turn off the drive C one, defrag C, then go back in and reallocate a drive C pagefile - preferably NOW being a good time to set it as a fixed size one and not let windows manage it.

?
Gareth

[John.Murray]

GLJ:  
Windows defrag ignores both the pagefile and the registry hive files.

You *can* move, or even turn the Pagefile off, then defrag.  What you end up with is the pagefile physically located after all (currently defragged) system data; nothing better or worse than just leaving it alone.  Putting the pagfile on another spindle (spindle meaning another physical drive, *not* another partition on the same disk) makes great sense only if that drive is *not* sharing controller bandwidth with the system drive.  In other words two drives sharing the same SATA hub, or IDE cable will show no performance increase by moving the pagefile to that second drive.

If you *really* want to get anal - you can image a windows installation, reserving enough space for the swap file at the head of the drive - problem is - what happens if you change the amount of system memory?  When XP was in beta, MS had a utility called bootvis.exe that analyzed system boot time including driver loading etc.  I found the location of the swap file on the system drive made little or no difference, as long as the file itself is contiguous.

Getting back to the subject here - having sufficient RAM is orders of magnitudes more desireable than having your system begin to page chunks of memory out to a drive.  If your system is paging, it will make little or no difference where your swap file is - it's gonna  be  s-l-o-w!!!

Finally - I'm *not* talking at *all* about Photoshop scratch files here - thats another subject entirely.

Pagedefrag runs outside of the Windows Kernel, like checkdisk.

[seamus finn]

Hi guys,
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. My shop can't get ram for a week or two so I'm back to square one with Lightroom.

I  did as recommended above as best I know how, and then homed in on the work: Hey presto, no crashes, no whirring, no smoke from the computer, no virtual memory running low, no egg timer while LR did its thing, no interminable delays  In fact,  everything went like a dream. It was the smoothest session yet in my experience with Lightroom. All this without the extra ram.

I turned off a few things like AVG, Zone Alarm, etc. Turned on Task Manager and I noticed that the minute I did anything much in Lightroom, the CPU usage soars to 100% quite a bit. Is this telling me that in the long run, more ram is just a stopgap measure and that I really need more processing power along the lines you have suggested. Having said that, however, I see users with very powerful firepower also having speed problems with Lightroom.

Anyway, whether tonight's session is just 'a fluke' remains to be seen, but I want to express my sincere thanks to you all for helping out with your suggestions. Being a pessimist at heart, however, I fear I may be back to haunt you again with more questions!

Seamus

[gunnar1]

Rich's suggestion to revert to Windows Classic worked wonders for me. It eliminated virtually all of the issues that I was having with Lightroom. I still intend on upgrading the amount of RAM from 2G to 4G though.

The one issue I still have, and it may just be an inherent thing, is how long it takes to get files from a card into the machine (I use a card reader and a usb2.0 port). I do backup to an external drive at the same time so I figure that is part of the reason it takes so long. Anyone care to chime in on what method they use for image transfer? Any tips on making it quicker?

[seamus finn]

Hi all,

Just a quick update on how things are going, having implemented your collective excellent suggestions above. Well, the good news is that Lightroom has been running really smoothly over an extended period - the best yet since the early days of the beta version. It's a great programme when it works like this.

May I be presumptious enough (and perhaps unfair as well) to pose a question: given the situation as outlined in my first post above, which of the following would you suggest:

1. Buy extra ram. The cost here in Ireland is about 147 US dollars per gig (107 euros). That's about one tenth the cost of a new quad core dual processor machine at my local shop. At first glance, it seems the extra ram route is the way to go. The fundamental  processing power issue still remains unresolved, though. Putting extra money into a machine which, ultimately I suppose will end up virtually worthless is giving me pause for thought.

2. Looking to the longer term, however, and bearing in mind that any upgrades of LR or CS3 (or any other software) will probably require more powerful machines to run smoothly, would you go for the quad core dual processor?

Any takers?

Regards,
Seamus

[mahleu]

Anyone care to chime in on what method they use for image transfer? Any tips on making it quicker?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=135193\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Firewire card reader would help.

[AdrianL]

Hi Everyone,
I have been following this thread for a while now, and need a bit of advice.
In April I bought a 17" Mac Book Pro with 2GB of RAM.  I simply love this computer, compared to my 3 yr old Dell that causes me grief every day.
On the Mac I am running Lightroom and PS CS3. I have been on 2 one week workshops and found it easy to carry aboard planes.  Having the computer with me in the evenings was very productive.  I can watch "Camera to Print" and "LR Tutorial" while sitting in a comfortable chair with the laptop on a small table, not unlike watching TV.
I have decided to replace the Dell with a Mac Pro, but a trip to my local Mac dealer left me completly confused.  I know that more RAM would be beneficial for LR and PS running together, but how much is enough, and how much is simply redundant.
My choices are 1-16 GB.  I am an amateur, use a Canon 1DsII, shoot RAW and do panoramics about 10% of the time.  I stitched a 12 file pano in about 20 minutes, but this is really not a problem, I just let it running when I am having dinner.  
I would go with 2 hard drives, a 250GB for the primary and a 750GB for the secondary.  My photos would live on the secondary, and backup would be on 500GB external drives that I presently have.  
The most difficult choice is the processor.  You can spend over $12 grand on this beast.  I would like to stay under 6 grand, but thinking of the future, LR is only in it's infancy, I don't want to replace this computer for a while.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Adrian

[vandevanterSH]

"Looking to the longer term, however, and bearing in mind that any upgrades of LR or CS3 (or any other software) will probably require more powerful machines to run smoothly, would you go for the quad core dual processor?

How far into the future?  At the present time, an eight core machine doesn't give a cost effective improvement in the type of performance you are looking for. This is the answer that I got when I asked about upgrading my four core Mac.  Ram and fast discs is the way to go at the present time. I am running 6 gig and using 10,000 RPM W-D Raptor drives.  That combination runs the current versions of LR1.1 and CS3 quite well.

Steve

[seamus finn]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for that. What I know about the future is sweet-you -know what all.You may be tempted to add that I know even less about computers! You would be right.

When I talk about the future, I suppose I mean three years or so - that's been my experience with my machines up to now. They're nearly obsolete before you get them.  So the choice for me was more ram or a better machine. I get the impression you would opt for more ram if you were me.  But then, I notiice you have a pretty powerful Mac on your hands anyway to keep you on the road. Me. I'm coming to the crossroads. If  your case is for more ram,  I may have made a bad choice the other day because I've just ordered a quad core dual processer PC but hey, it has to be better for Lightroom than the one I have. Doesn't it??     Please say YES.

Otherwisde I'll have to undo the order and take my current machine back from the missus.



Regards,
Seamus