After weeks of absolutely nasty performance with LR4.1 I today tried the trick someone posted here a while ago. I started LR via a batch file:

start "lightroom" /high /affinity 15 "c:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1\lightroom.exe"

And to my surprise it WAAAAAAAY faster! I know that developing multithreaded apps is quite demanding but what Adobe's dev delivered until now is just CRAP!

My machine: i7-3930 hexacore, up-to-date chipset X79 and two fast SSDs and 16 GB RAM - more than fast enough you would think...

It is the same resutls just the bat is easier since its a one click launch.

You go tmy attention.  LR has been giving me fits!  I am reloading it daily and Adobe support has no clue what they are doing.  I was thinking I needed to completely remove LR and start over but would like to give this solution a try.

Could you explain how to create a batch from your code.

I tried pasting it into the apple script editor but it wont run.

Thanks for the adivce!

Troy

Sacha_'s script is Windows-only.

Note: I start Lightroom at below-normal priority, so multiple simultaneous exports don't influence video watching etc, and it does not affect Lr performance.

I recommend checking whether it's the priority or the affinity that is helping the most.

If it's the former, then perhaps some other app or service is competing for CPU, if it's the latter, then you've been bit by a bug  that's keeping Lr from using all cores as it should - dunno what the origin of such a bug would be...

Rob

When I was developing/troubleshooting this bat I found that the affinity was most important. On my system I have 4 acutal cores and 4 hyperthread. If I use ANY hyperthread performance dies. If I use all 4 main cores performance slows. By setting it to use only 3 main core and then setting the priority to high windows does a nice job of leaving LR alone and running most everything else on the remaining main and Hyper cores. My results were undenyable that LR has issues with hyperthreading at least on my intel chip and asus motherboard.

SavagePhoto wrote:

 

When I was developing/troubleshooting this bat I found that the affinity was most important. On my system I have 4 acutal cores and 4 hyperthread. If I use ANY hyperthread performance dies. If I use all 4 main cores performance slows. By setting it to use only 3 main core and then setting the priority to high windows does a nice job of leaving LR alone and running most everything else on the remaining main and Hyper cores. My results were undenyable that LR has issues with hyperthreading at least on my intel chip and asus motherboard.

I hope you have forwarded this information to the Lightroom team.  I'm on a MacBook Pro and haven't yet found the tools to disable specific cores or hyper-threading.

SavagePhoto wrote:

 

My results were undenyable that LR has issues with hyperthreading at least on my intel chip and asus motherboard.

I hear ya. My ASUS+AMD board has no such problems (M4A89GTD): all cores shoot through the roof when doing something that warrants multiple cores. - mostly speedy too (some things are slow due to Lr s/w design...).

I've never heard of any other problems with AMD chips, but maybe that's because so few people seem to be running them.

My Advice: Get an AMD chip!!!

Rob

BigCPixelbender wrote:

 

My biggest issue is the lag switching between modules after first starting LR4.1.

Really? Lr only loads modules upon first use - it's a design thing. But 25 seconds sounds abnormally long. (I just checked, Book module takes several seconds to load (first time only), but not anywhere near 25). Anybody have any idea why it's taking "BigC"'s system so long to load Book module? - disk is healthy?

Rob

The disk is fine.  It's a 500gig 7400rpm HD with about 20% of the space used.  2010 MBP with Intel i5 2.3GHz, 8gigs of RAM.  There's no real reason for the length of time it takes for the modules to load.  And yes, I've even tried doing a clean install of Lion.

I know you're miffed. But, seriously: why 25 seconds to load the Book module - that sounds abnormal to me.

I mean, if Lr were performing abnormally for me, I'd be miffed too. - it's one thing to be disappointed with a normally functioning Lr, and another entirely if your perception of Lr is being influenced by abnormal performance issues.

Believe me, I have my gripes too, but Lr is mostly fast in develop mode, once loaded, and mostly fast in library mode, once previews are available. So I am mostly happy with Lr performance. I have my complaints, but it's *far* from "unusable" or "molasses in winter"...

Rob

BigCPixelbender wrote:

 

There's no real reason for the length of time it takes for the modules to load.

I wouldn't be so sure. I mean, it sounds like you're on the "Lr4 is pure yuck" track, but you may be seeing it through yuck colored glasses...

Book module took about 8 seconds to load (the very first time ever). But now after Lr restart it comes up in about 1 second, first time (subsequent times are instantaneous).

BigCPixelbender wrote:

 

The disk is fine.

I'm assuming you've double-checked this, as opposed to just assuming.

But, there should be a light-bulb pulsing inside your mind: "something *isn't* fine".

Don't get me wrong: I have no stake in whether you use Lr or switch to another app... (my aim is not "defensive") - the best one to use is the one that runs the best...

If Lr is behaving abnormally, its probably due to a bug in Lr - and I probably have gone on too long about it already - sorry...

The disk I use for templates is the same as system disk, paging disk, temp disk, program disk...(but not catalog disk, and not photo disk) - not high performance... (and medium-powered system), but my book module loads *much* faster than yours. Hmmmmm......

Rob

8 Seconds on my speedy new PC. 15 on my 3-year old MB 13inch.  In any case, 25-40 seconds seems like something is going awry.

Yes, once it loaded I could switch into and out of the Book module as quickly as any other.  It was only the initial load that was incredibly slow.

I also shut down LR, restarted it, and went back into Book, and it only took a second or 2...

It does load a lot of SOMETHING 'cause memory usage jumped from what it was initially (I didn't look) to right around 4.5 GB, of which lightroom.exe is just under 2GB.  So something is doing a lot of something.  Again, I don't use Book, so I'm not sure if there's some bizarre thing mine is doing by default...

Rikk, on your speedy new PC are you loading everything from SSDs?  'Cause otherwise, presuming we're all using 7200 rpm SATA drives, once the CPU hands a request off to the disk, everything goes on hold until the data comes back, so I'm not sure why there's such a drastic performance difference... 

When you jump from Library to Develop, and start walking through RAW images, do you have a feel for approximately how long the "Loading" stays on?  'Cause that's one area I see as extremely slow compared to V3.  And my RAW files are just 12 megapixel D300 files.

davepinminn wrote:

 

When you jump from Library to Develop, and start walking through RAW images, do you have a feel for approximately how long the "Loading" stays on?  'Cause that's one area I see as extremely slow compared to V3.  And my RAW files are just 12 megapixel D300 files.

It takes about 2-4 seconds for me, depending on editing (D300 raws), which is a little slower than Lr3 (which is to be expected due to CA, NR, & PV), but not a lot slower (win7/64, AMD).

Note: I have turned loading indicator off, since I can start editing after about 1 second.

PS - I have catalog & previews on SSD, and separate (plain vanilla internal) hard disks for system (including Lr program) and data (photo files).

davepinminn wrote:

 

...even if it's only 25% slower, that's a lot.

As a point of reference, very rough guestimate for me: PV2010 is 10-15% slower, and PV2012 is 25-50% slower. Significant, to be sure, but not extreme. And, I consider this "normal" performance.

I see some people reporting >100% slower - that's extreme (and abnormal). Anyway, I think it's worth keeping in mind whether we're talking about normal slowness vs. abnormal slowness.

Lr4's auto CA is more CPU intensive, as is defringe, and NR and such are being applied at all magnifications now - time is the cost: this should be expected. Personally, I'd like to see some optimization, but my point is that it's normal...

And, PV2012 is more sophisticated, and takes more CPU - expect PV2012 to be signficantly slower compared to PV2010. But if it's too much slower - you got a bugaboo problem.

davepinminn wrote:

 

Yup, that's about the times I'm seeing for D300 .dng files........

 

taking at LEAST twice as long to finish loading as V3

Anyway, if Lr4 is over twice as slow as Lr3, then you have abnormal Lr4 performance. However, the times I quoted for D300 raws (2-4 seconds), which you say are over double what you saw in Lr3, are not anywhere near double for me. Are you saying that you were able to render D300 raws in less than 1-2 seconds in Lr3? - not me, maybe I had abnormal Lr3 performance and didn't even know it...

Rob

After weeks of absolutely nasty performance with LR4.1 I today tried the trick someone posted here a while ago. I started LR via a batch file:

start "lightroom" /high /affinity 15 "c:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1\lightroom.exe"

This actually slowed my LR4 down by half on an i7 with 16Gigs.

This actually slowed my LR4 down by half on an i7 with 16Gigs.

Strange! I'm running Win 7 btw.

I've never used Book, but I tried it today.  It took 4 seconds to get into the Book module (or at least until I get an error message saying there were too many images or something).  It took a similar amount of time to get into Develop Mode.

It seems like there are two kinds of people in the world.  Those that think 4 seconds is great (the "Modals") and those that think 4 seconds stinks (the "Nonmodals").

The Modals have bought into Adobe's thinking.  They dutifully work in one Module for hours, then they move to the next Module, and the next Module.  They don't move back and forth much if at all.  They are deadly efficient.  They are communists.  Kidding.

The Nonmodals crave freedom.  When they read about "photo-centric workflow" in the marketing literature, they thought it meant I can do what I want when I want to the photo.  Awesome!  I can look at a bunch of photos, increase the contrast in one, make one black and white, print one, look for all of my Tahiti shots, make a book, print a photo in any order I want. 

No!  To all you Nonmodals out there, this is not Lightroom.  Lightroom was written by the Modals for the Modals.  Some Nonmodal ideas creep in here and there (such as Collections being included in Develop Mode), which confuses the issue.  But at the end of the rainbow, Lightroom is a Modal program at heart.  For the Nonmodals, if it took 1 second to switch from Library to Develop, that would be too much.  In fact even the act of switching is counterproductive and creativity-inhibiting. 

My advice to Nonmodals (you know who you are): learn to love it, live with it or go elsewhere.

I confess to being a Nonmodal.  I cannot efficiently and mercilessly go through a thousand photos adding keywords and ratings before trying to "Develop" the best one I see.  Ok, maybe I am a Seminonmodal because sometimes I try to pick out the best 12 pictures before I start developing.  But deep down I want to jump around.  That is how my creative energy flows.

Modals are just as valid as Nonmodals, but whenever attacking or defending Lightroom, we all need to recognize that it is not a swiss army knife.  It is a tool for Modals to get their work done, and us Nonmodals have to bear it because there is no competition that does the same stuff.

I've read that Aperture is Nonmodal, but that doesn't help PC users much because it is written for Apple and probably has other issues any way.

Apart from the Modality issue, I do think that Adobe purposely skruwed with users by releasing what was essentially a beta product and then FORCED users to upgrade because it dropped support for the latest cameras (Nikon D800 and Nikon D4) in LR3.  I mean come on, even the biggest fanboys and girls can see that, can't you?  Btw, if they hadn't pulled that stunt, there would be a lot less complaining because many people who didn't like LR4 for any reason would have stuck with LR3 for a short while until it got ironed out.