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04-28-2012, 02:19 PM   #1
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Is Lightroom 4 ridiculously slow....?

....or is it just my system? I almost want to give up in the middle of a project.

I have an older i3 2.13 GHz with 4 gig RAM running Windows 7. I'll have to try it on my iMac and see.


Last edited by Sage97; 04-28-2012 at 04:26 PM.
04-28-2012, 02:37 PM   #2
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You got a graphics card? The new Adobe products use it to speed up processor-intensive tasks, so if you don't have one, the performance might be choppy at times.

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04-28-2012, 03:11 PM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by Adam Quote
You got a graphics card? The new Adobe products use it to speed up processor-intensive tasks, so if you don't have one, the performance might be choppy at times.
It just says Intel HD Graphics. I'll try to update the driver but maybe I need to go get a better one. Any suggestions?

Last edited by Sage97; 04-28-2012 at 03:17 PM.
04-28-2012, 03:54 PM   #4
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Lightroom does not benefit from a powerful graphics card. Buying a better one will not help you one iota.

Try updating your drivers but the most likely explanation for the slowness you are experiencing are bugs in Lightroom.

For some Lightroom works fine, others just see it crawl.

Which version are you using? Version 4.0 is particularly bad, but even the latest 4.1 RC2 still has severe performance issues on some systems. System speed is not the deciding factor, BTW. Adobe's hackers are doing something wrong and only get away with it on some machines.

P.S.: Adobe have published an article on how to increase LR performance (in which they state that the graphics card doesn't matter). However, it only contains tips to fine tune performance with working LR installation. From my experience it never helped anyone to get around the slowness bugs.


Last edited by Class A; 04-28-2012 at 04:03 PM.
04-28-2012, 03:57 PM   #5
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QuoteOriginally posted by Sage97 Quote
....or is it just my system? I almost want to give up in the middel of a project.

I have an older i3 2.13 GHz with 4 gig RAM running Windows 7. I'll have to try it on my iMac and see.
You are absolutely correct.
I've been running LR 4 on a state of the art workstation and it's been pretty clunky at times. In fact, I was using it today to process a series or D3200 RAW files and had to restart it toward the end due to it becoming so sloooooooow. Anyways, I don't use LR enough to know if this is typical of the software but when I compare it to Photoshop(especially CS6) I'd say its pretty bad to say the least.

PS. I commonly run 2-3GB work files in Photoshop very smoothly.

Last edited by JohnBee; 04-28-2012 at 04:53 PM.
04-28-2012, 04:16 PM   #6
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I've found LR 3 slow, particularly in importing files from my camera, and generally slow all around compared to Bridge and Adobe Raw, and I've got a fast system with a dedicted graphics card. I've just upgraded to LR 4 and haven't seen any improvement. That and the fact that I've never found the LR catalog system intuitive keeps me coming back to Bridge and Photoshop. The RAW adjustments in Bridge/Adobe Raw are pretty much the same as in LR; I like the fact that the catalog system is the date the photo was taken; and of course Photoshop is a more powerful tool than LR. I'm sure I'm missing something by not using LR but until they fix the speed issue they've lost me.
04-28-2012, 04:25 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
Lightroom does not benefit from a powerful graphics card. Buying a better one will not help you one iota.

Try updating your drivers but the most likely explanation for the slowness you are experiencing are bugs in Lightroom.

For some Lightroom works fine, others just see it crawl.

Which version are you using? Version 4.0 is particularly bad, but even the latest 4.1 RC2 still has severe performance issues on some systems. System speed is not the deciding factor, BTW. Adobe's hackers are doing something wrong and only get away with it on some machines.

P.S.: Adobe have published an article on how to increase LR performance (in which they state that the graphics card doesn't matter). However, it only contains tips to fine tune performance with working LR installation. From my experience it never helped anyone to get around the slowness bugs.
Using the 4.0 30 day trial. I was about to buy it but then it started to crawl really, really bad. It was not this bad when I first tried it. I've been to the Adobe Optimization page and I've done their instructions. Definitely thinking twice about purchasing this product.

04-28-2012, 08:13 PM   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by Sage97 Quote
It just says Intel HD Graphics. I'll try to update the driver but maybe I need to go get a better one. Any suggestions?
Even if LR doesn't use hardware acceleration much, I think not having a graphics card will still hurt the app's overall performance. If the machine you're on is a desktop, I'd buy a graphics card.

One of my laptops doesn't have a graphics card, and even stuff like watching youtube slows it down, as it ends up having to use an entire CPU core for it. Then, if I fire up something like GIMP, the computer tanks.

I've done a little bit of low-level graphics programming, and you could even tell the difference when drawing simple 2d stuff.

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04-28-2012, 08:43 PM   #9
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Lightroom runs better with more memory. Upgrade your 4 gig to 8 and you will see a world of difference. With less memory, Lightroom will use your more of your hard drive for a scratch disk space and that will slow the program down to a crawl, especially if you have only one hard drive that doesn't have a lot of free space on it.
04-28-2012, 09:23 PM   #10
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QuoteOriginally posted by reeftool Quote
Lightroom runs better with more memory. Upgrade your 4 gig to 8 and you will see a world of difference. With less memory, Lightroom will use your more of your hard drive for a scratch disk space and that will slow the program down to a crawl, especially if you have only one hard drive that doesn't have a lot of free space on it.
I have 24GB w/a 240GB SSD OS device at less than 30% capacity. So I don't think that is the problem. IMO. somethings not running right in the code with this latest release. And oddly enough, when it's running slow/clunky, the performance meter doesn't show it(+/- 3% load)..
04-28-2012, 09:24 PM   #11
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Thanks reeftool and Adam.

The Windows machine I am on is a laptop. I also have an iMac that has been running with no problems whatsoever but I exclusively purchased it for guitar/vocal recordings. I doubt it will have any issues tackling a 2nd gig/hobby. Downside is I prefer to do PP in bed as opposed to my home studio.
04-28-2012, 10:06 PM   #12
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Yes Lightroom 4.0 is slow. LR4.1RC2 is now a lot better, but still needs improvement. However adobe are on the case and see this thread they have suggested a workaround to try. It's nothing to do with Graphics cards or amount of memory.

Adobe Forums: Lightroom LR4 - Silly RAM usage!!
04-28-2012, 10:36 PM   #13
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3.0 had similar problems, 3.5 was much better.. Seems 4 might follow the same pattern.
04-29-2012, 05:38 AM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by Adam Quote
Even if LR doesn't use hardware acceleration much, I think not having a graphics card will still hurt the app's overall performance.
It won't hurt, but it won't help either.

From Adobe's "Optimize Performance" article:
Lightroom requires a video card that can run the monitor at its native resolution. Built-in, default cards that ship with most desktop or laptop systems typically suffice for Lightroom.
I've used LR extensively on different hardware and the problems are inefficient programming and bugs, not lacking graphics card performance.

If you reduce LR's window size, the Develop module adjustments will become rather fluid. Enlarge the window, or go full size, and the adjustment updates become choppier. My graphics cards can all display full screen images at 30Hz or more. It's the image generation that is the problem.

LR does not use the GPU to speed up anything.


QuoteOriginally posted by reeftool Quote
With less memory, Lightroom will use your more of your hard drive for a scratch disk space and that will slow the program down to a crawl, especially if you have only one hard drive that doesn't have a lot of free space on it.
In my experience, LR can become really slow without any disc activity going on whatsoever. If paging were always the problem, one would be able to tell from the hard disc trashing away.

You are right, paging (not only in terms of main memory but also in terms of the infamous "ACR scratch file") can be a problem, but in my experience most of the time paging is not the source of slowness.
04-29-2012, 05:43 AM   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by timh Quote
3.0 had similar problems, 3.5 was much better.. Seems 4 might follow the same pattern.
True.

Judging from how they are in the dark right now (just observe the "feedback" forum and see the various attempts they are trying to improve the user experience), it will take a number of iterations until they may get something that will work for most users that now have problems.

My bet is it won't be happening before LR 4.4.
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