speeding up lightroom - DPChallenge Forums

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LX100

08/07/2009 12:44:34 AM · #1

Hi,

I am running lightroom 2 on a 2GHZ PC under XP with 2GB of Ram.
every single operation takes forever, such as changing exposure, etc. every slider jumps around instead of moving smoothly with the mouse. I assume that working with a 20MB raw file is not 100% smooth, but I assume it's a bit too much.

What can I look for to speed things up?

thanks

Oliver

spiritualspatula

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

08/07/2009 01:11:44 AM · #2

Originally posted by tokyoahead:

An increase of RAM will help with that some and will be at a minimum cost to you. Keep in mind XP can only utilize up to 4GB if you're running a 32 bit system, so anything more than that is overkill.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

08/07/2009 03:05:16 AM · #3

See my list of LR-performance tips about mid-way through this thread.

Any tuning for LR is going to be relatively small incremental improvements in performance; what you are describing sounds like a serious performance issue. Is your machine thrash/paging? How familiar are you with general performance monitoring and tuning on XP? Have you been using LR successfully in the past, and now you suddenly see this behavior, etc.? Lots of details will help. Any advice without more background is going to be scattershot at best.

robs

Canon EOS R6 Mk II

08/07/2009 09:10:07 AM · #4

I had identical issues on my old machine and otherwise the machine was fine even with PS [3.2G processor/3G memory/decent graphics card]... I never did figure it out but moved to newer machine (vista 64bit - 4x2.8G, 8G memory and a much faster graphics card) and LR is now responsive. Bugs the hell out of me that it won't use the 4 cores properly but at least all the UI is responsive enough to be workable (I would not call it fast but different people have different perceptions).

If your on an older version of LR, the last 1.? version helped some with the speed. Make sure nothing is on a network drop, turn off XMP support and run database only..... or check out bibble.

Message edited by author 2009-08-07 09:10:41.

08/09/2009 10:49:10 PM · #5

thanks to all for the input. I went out on saturday and got myself 4 GB additional RAM. The MB supports 8, and running XP I thought I can upgrade to a Windows 7 64 later this year to support it.

Now I have the choice of running with 4 GB "normal" RAM (the OS won't see more) or 3 GB dualchannel... whats better?

totaldis

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

08/09/2009 11:53:31 PM · #6

if the OS can't see it the OS can't assign it.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

08/09/2009 11:57:03 PM · #7

Yeah I know.

I have 6 GB all in all now to distribute.

Either I do

2-1-2-1 which results in 3GB Dual channel which is about 2x as fast as single channel
or I do

2-2-1-1 which results in 6GB single channel of which I can use only 4GB because of the 32bit limitation.

I wonder which is the better. Higher speed or 1 GB more?

Sheryll

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

08/10/2009 02:33:57 AM · #8

getting an imac will work too....

08/10/2009 03:04:26 AM · #9

Originally posted by Sheryll:

getting an imac will work too....

I am not sure if this is supposed to hint me at a quick but expensive fix or an attempt to troll.

I assume in the good spirit of the other constructive points that have been made here that you are trying to help. So here my answer to that:

I spent 400 HKD for the additonal memory. (~ 50 USD).
I suppose throwing away all my bought software, the hardware, and invest in a longish time where I manage the transition but for several reasons, which I do not want to outline here in detail, I am not really willing to do that right now.

Oliver

08/10/2009 03:16:33 AM · #10

Originally posted by tokyoahead:

2-1-2-1 which results in 3GB Dual channel which is about 2x as fast as single channel
or I do
2-2-1-1 which results in 6GB single channel of which I can use only 4GB because of the 32bit limitation.

Without knowing the rest of your system specs, I really think this is almost a no-brainer -- 3GB of dual-channel memory, hands down. You'll really only have 3GB of addressable memory in Winblows XP in either configuration either way -- so why not make it as fast as possible?

It would be simple enough to run some benchmarks with each configuration -- but assuming your bus, etc, will support the full throughput to the dual-channel memory, that is real "seat-of-your-pants" performance you can enjoy in virtually any application you use.

Alternatively, you could install a 64-bit OS like (choose your distro) Linux, have access to all 6 GB and run a Winblows virtual machine with either 3+ GB of memory, and still have room left over to fart around with your native Linux box (similar to what I have here -- 8 GB native running Debian Linux, and I hand out just over 3 GB to a VMWare vm when I fire up Winblows. But, you still won't have the performance of that dual-channel memory access in that case.

Unless you want to get into running multiple OSes and/or upgrading to a 64-bit Winblows variant (there's a 64-bit version of XP out there, too -- or, of course, the V-word), I really think you'll be sitting fat and happy with 3 GB set up for dual-channel. Again, just run some benchmarks on both configs if you want to prove it to yourself (and you can see how much actual addressable memory XP will see in each config).

ETA - To put it another way, I'd personally much rather have a machine with a smokin' fast small memory footprint than a moderate-speed large footprint. I'd be happy with a smaller working set that runs much faster and deal with occasional paging, than to have a lot of memory headroom that performs more slowly. You can always limit yourself to a smaller working set of programs (and run them very quickly), and I'd rather have that than the ability to run a larger working set at a lower speed (within reason, of course).

Message edited by author 2009-08-10 03:24:29.

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 12-24mm f/4.0G IF-ED

08/10/2009 10:52:41 PM · #11

Originally posted by cdrice:

thanks a lot for the help and advice. I will keep it like that. Once I upgrade to windows 7 64 I can still think about getting more RAM and throwing the 1+1 out.

I already see it being faster. I am wondering if I switch from sidecar to database. I am a bit worried that I loose information or have trouble switching to another app in the future because the database is not accessible for others...

Oliver

jbsmithana

Nikon D300

08/10/2009 11:59:00 PM · #12

I'm running a Core 2 Quad CPU at 2.33 Ghz and 6 GB RAM and have great performance with Lightroom 2 64 Bit. My guess is that when you update to Win 7 and 6 GB RAM you should be good.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

08/11/2009 12:08:28 AM · #13

Originally posted by tokyoahead:

thanks a lot for the help and advice. I will keep it like that. Once I upgrade to windows 7 64 I can still think about getting more RAM and throwing the 1+1 out.

Be sure you get a 64-bit version if that's what you want; I'm sure the 32-bit version will be easy to get a hand on also.

Originally posted by tokyoahead:

I already see it being faster. I am wondering if I switch from sidecar to database. I am a bit worried that I loose information or have trouble switching to another app in the future because the database is not accessible for others...

If you don't *need* the XMP sidecars now, I wouldn't use them, especially if you have a large catalog. If you want to go to using sidecars later, it's easy to switch over to, and simply export your metadata -- or simply export your metadata for whatever subset of images you want to share with another program.

Sheryll

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

08/11/2009 12:11:38 AM · #14

Originally posted by tokyoahead:

Originally posted by Sheryll:
getting an imac will work too....

I am not sure if this is supposed to hint me at a quick but expensive fix or an attempt to troll.

I assume in the good spirit of the other constructive points that have been made here that you are trying to help. So here my answer to that:

I spent 400 HKD for the additonal memory. (~ 50 USD).
I suppose throwing away all my bought software, the hardware, and invest in a longish time where I manage the transition but for several reasons, which I do not want to outline here in detail, I am not really willing to do that right now.

Oliver

I honestly meant it as a funny.... I didn't really expect you to hit yourself upside the head (again trying to be funny... you know v8 juice) and go to the store for an imac. I realize you've spent quite a bit and obviously you are getting the knowledgeable help you need here. I just thought with a little laugh you you might have a better day because obviously the computer is frustrating you.

So I wasn't cut out to be a comedian.... sorry.

08/11/2009 12:12:09 AM · #15

Originally posted by cdrice:

Originally posted by tokyoahead:
Once I upgrade to windows 7 64

Be sure you get a 64-bit version if that's what you want; I'm sure the 32-bit version will be easy to get a hand on also.

Yeah thats what I meant. 64 bit. I will see if I can get it. I heard 7 also only supports 4GB in 32 bit mode.

Originally posted by cdrice:

sounds reasonable. I think I'll do that. I was not really willing to try to switch at the risk of loosing the information in the current sidecars.

08/11/2009 12:19:03 AM · #16

Originally posted by Sheryll:

it's ok, thanks for the followup... a " :-) " at the end of the post would help to understand the intentions though...
maybe I have simply seen too many posts in various forums where someone describes a technical problem and some people who do not want to be funny but simply be smartypants or troll as such, try to 'help' by suggesting to switch from Canon to Nikon, Windows to Mac, Wordpress to Joomla, MP3 to Vinyl, Hetero to Homosexual or to move from Iran to Switzerland - or the other way round...

no harm done.

Oliver

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

08/11/2009 01:03:24 AM · #17

Originally posted by tokyoahead:

sounds reasonable. I think I'll do that. I was not really willing to try to switch at the risk of loosing the information in the current sidecars.

LR will always give priority to the XMP sidecar files -- so if there is any discrepancy between the catalog the file, the file "wins". You won't lose anything.

To really get the performance back, you'll want to force LR to read the XMPs into the catalog, then manually remove the XMP files. If you leave them in place, even after turning off the "auto writing XMP sidecars" option, that will only take effect essentially for new imported files -- XMP files you already have out there (which would assumbly be for your entire catalog now) will not be deleted automatically. (You'll want to do that yourself after you've read them into the catalog to get the performance improvement, though).

dleach

Canon EOS-20D

08/11/2009 01:22:30 AM · #18

one simple thing to check is to make sure you have enough disk space on your system drive. If you are squeezed then clean up the disk.

mshimer5

Canon EOS-1000D Rebel XS

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

08/11/2009 02:28:16 AM · #19

Make sure you have a 64bit CPU also if you want to upgrade. Not all are 64bit.

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX Aspherical DF for Canon

08/11/2009 02:33:23 AM · #20

Originally posted by mshimer5:

Make sure you have a 64bit CPU also if you want to upgrade. Not all are 64bit.

I installed ubuntu 64bit parallel for testing and it works fine... I guess that is good enough for a test?

hankk

Canon EOS-5D

08/11/2009 12:40:15 PM · #21

After more RAM, I'd suggest another HDD. Check the specs, the drive's RPM is not enough to differentiate, and at least one 7200 RPM drive slows down to 5400 RPM to save power.

d56ranger

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

08/11/2009 01:33:27 PM · #22

the cheapest way is a cup of coffee and a little patience

linustgl

Nikon D80

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5- 5.6G ED DX

08/11/2009 06:40:04 PM · #23

I run lots of modeling software on a nice workstation at work. It auto updated to SP3 on me and all my performance went away with it. I uninstalled SP3 and everything worked really well again. So if all else fails, check your updates and downgrade to SP2. Worked for me.

08/11/2009 09:37:05 PM · #24

Originally posted by d56ranger:

the cheapest way is a cup of coffee and a little patience

well if it was waiting for a batch process I would not mind. But I had to wait when I moved the exposure slider in development mode for it to react. I was not able to drink that much coffee since my shaking hands made my slider-movement inaccurate.

anyhow with the additional ram its already much better.