Lightroom 5 and 6 System Requirements Questions

[MAKO762]

My wife and I use Lightroom 4 and were looking into getting Lightroom 6. We have iMacs from 2010 and the only thing that it lacks is the VRAM.

One iMac has an i3 with an ATI Radeon 4670 256mb and the other an i5 with AMD Radeon 6750M 512mb. Both have 21.5" screens and plenty of RAM.

According to Adobe the system requirements for Lightroom 6 is a VRAM of 1GB or higher. Also According to Adobe, Lightroom 5 has no requirements for VRAM. That seems to be a big jump between 5 and 6. So here are my questions:

1. Has anyone ever tried using LR5 or LR6 on 256mb or 512mb?

2. Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade VRAM on the iMacs?

3. What are the main differences between LR4, LR5 and LR6?

I've tried the wild goose "contact us" chase with Adobe and haven't figured anything out yet. Contacted Apple and no word back yet.

If it's NOT possible to upgrade the VRAM on our Macs than we'd have to go to Lightroom 5 (if anyone still sells it), unless we purchase a whole new computer just to run Lightroom 6. This sounds like the phrase "building a new wall to mount a new picture". My wife loves Mac, but we can't see us spending that much on a new computer. I can work with any computer, but absolutely hate windows 10 and would rather continue using LR4 to save us the headache.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[dj_paige]

According to Adobe the system requirements for Lightroom 6 is a VRAM of 1GB or higher.

1. Has anyone ever tried using LR5 or LR6 on 256mb or 512mb?

I'm pretty sure the requirement for 1GB of VRAM is if you want to use the graphics acceleration; I don't think it is a requirement to use Lightroom 6 without the grpahics acceleration ... and I'm also sure that if I'm wrong, someone will correct me. But why worry about what us internet folks are saying, download the free trial and see if it runs on your computer.

2. Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade VRAM on the iMacs?

I'm not a Mac person, so I can't answer.

3. What are the main differences between LR4, LR5 and LR6?

I'm not going to make a list. There are lists out there on the Internet. Lightroomqueen.com is usually very comprehensive on these matters.

[John Waller]

2. Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade VRAM on the iMacs?

No. What you see is what you get with minor exceptions e.g. RAM. The best time to customize a Mac is at purchase time.

Can I upgrade the VRAM on my Intel Core i7 iMac? |Official Apple Support Communities

[Jao vdL]

Do your Macs run Sierra? If Sierra will install it is likely that LR 6 will run. For LR 6 you need a fairly recent OS install. 10.10 is the lowest you can run for the latest version. Like dj, I would guess that the 1GB requirement is probably only needed for the graphics acceleration. If your machine won't support that, Lightroom just defaults to using the main processors. Simplest is just to try the trial indeed.