39 Replies Latest reply: Oct 2, 2008 1:12 PM by hungchi RSS

    RAM usage in Lightroom

    klsteven-vBdprK Community Member
      I`m on Vista Ultimate 32bit/4GB RAM Quadcore system. When I go to "help-systeminformation" that dialogbox shows the following:
      Integrated RAM: 3069 MB
      Available RAM for Lightroom: 716 MB

      I don`t run any other programs. So why ìs the available RAM for Lightroom only 716MB?
        • 1. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
          klsteven-vBdprK Community Member
          Can anyone tell me what his/her systeminformation displays?
          • 2. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
            michael shaffer Community Member
            Built-in memory: 2046 MB
            Real memory available to Lightroom: 716.8 MB
            Real memory used by Lightroom: 556.2 MB (77.5%)
            Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 554.4 MB
            ~~~~~~~~~
            Lr2 trial
            Windows XP
            • 3. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
              Community Member
              Built-in memory: 3069 MB
              Real memory available to Lightroom: 1228.8 MB
              Real memory used by Lightroom: 205.4 MB (16.7%)
              Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 190.6

              Vista Ultimate 4G RAM
              --
              Charlie...
              http://www.chocphoto.com
              • 4. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                Community Member
                Built-in memory: 8190.2 MB
                Real memory available to Lightroom: 8190.2 MB
                Real memory used by Lightroom: 1734.2 MB (21.1%)
                Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 1715.7 MB
                Memory cache size: 1538.9 MB
                • 5. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                  ChrisN45-bdnBR1 Community Member
                  Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                  Operating system: Windows Vista Professional Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                  Version: 6.0 [6001]
                  Application architecture: x86
                  System architecture: x86
                  Physical processor count: 2
                  Processor speed: 2.9 GHz
                  Built-in memory: 3321.4 MB
                  Real memory available to Lightroom: 716.8 MB
                  Real memory used by Lightroom: 304.4 MB (42.4%)
                  Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 291.4 MB

                  My opinion: 716.8 MB for LR is set "by design" as upper limit. AFAIK there is no such parameter in LR as "Edit->Preferences->memory" in PS/PSE.
                  Chris
                  • 6. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                    Community Member
                    >My opinion: 716.8 MB for LR is set "by design" as upper limit. AFAIK there is no such parameter in LR as "Edit->Preferences->memory" in PS/PSE.
                    Mine shows "Real memory available to Lightroom: 1228.8 MB" under Vista Ultimate
                    SP1 (32 bit). Check out the /setuserva switch under Vista (similar to the /3GB
                    switch in XP) to make more RAM available to applications.
                    --
                    Charlie...
                    http://www.chocphoto.com
                    • 7. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                      Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
                      LR needs contiguous memory, not fragmented chunks.
                      • 8. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                        klsteven-vBdprK Community Member
                        Very strange, some of us only get 716 MB available Ram. BTW. I have the "setuserva-switch" activated, but nothing changed (in PS it DID change! ;) )
                        • 9. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                          Community Member
                          Lee Jay, I can hardly say I'm an expert on this, but Windows memory management is a lot more sophisticated than that these days. My understanding is that each application gets a private "logical" address space (up to 2 GB for 32-bit apps and the OS-specific max for 64-bit apps). This logical address space is mapped (in 4 kb chunks) to physical memory and/or virtual memory (hard disk) as needed, with the mapping managed by the OS.

                          The result is that an application always sees a contiguous address space but the memory that is "filling" that space may be noncontiguous in physical memory. It doesn't matter, since the application *can* only see its private logical memory. This is one the strengths of modern OSes - no matter how bad an application misbehaves, it simply cannot see memory that is being used by the OS or by other applications.

                          Having said that, there is only so much physical memory to go around. 32-bit Windows only allows 2 GB of memory in total for user applications, and that is shared across all running applications, so LR may simply have a hardcoded maximum to prevent it from requesting so much memory that the OS starts handing it virtualized memory and negatively impacting performance.

                          Again, I'm not an expert, so I may have messed this up entirely. I'm sure I'll be corrected if I did so. :-)
                          • 10. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                            Community Member
                            DW Harrison - you may not be an expert on virtual memory, but you got it exactly right. Memory fragmentation isn't a contributing factor to the differences folks are seeing.

                            Dan
                            • 11. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                              Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
                              > Memory fragmentation isn't a contributing factor to the differences folks are seeing.

                              Memory fragmentation is an issue for Lightroom.
                              • 12. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                Community Member
                                >Memory fragmentation is an issue for Lightroom.

                                Only if it's within the private address space that Lightroom could control. And that has nothing to do with what is shown in a OS monitor screen. So if Lightroom is having a memory fragmentation problem - it's self inflicted and not a helpful answer. And of course if it SQLite or Lua - that's what Lightroom is made of - so still self-inflicted.

                                Please amplify your assertion.

                                Dan
                                • 13. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                  Community Member
                                  Dan, you beat me to it. I was just going to respond with the same thing.

                                  Lee Jay - when LR gets an allocated segment of (say) 512MB, it then manages its usage of that memory. It is entirely possible for LR to have fragmentation problems within that space (not saying that it does, BTW, just that it is theoretically possible).

                                  But the point is that so long as the system itself is not running out of physical memory, an application making a request for memory will NOT have its request fail because of fragmentation at the OS level. It will get what appears to be a single contiguous chunk of memory even though it may actually be mapped to multiple chunks of physical RAM.
                                  • 14. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                    Community Member
                                    To clarify a bit: the assertion above is that fragmentation is stopping LR from getting the amount of memory it is asking for. The answer is that that is not possible under current Windows/x86 architecture. There must be another reason why LR is using different amounts of memory on different systems.
                                    • 15. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                      Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
                                      http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc442b2/1
                                      Jeff Schewe, "1.3 memory leak?" #3, 21 Nov 2007 2:34 pm
                                      • 16. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                        Community Member
                                        No offense intended Lee Jay. But although the posts you referenced do mention memory fragmentation they have nothing to do with the OP's question or the follow-on chime-in showing a different amount of memory available.

                                        A memory leak is the most common example of self-inflicted memory management problems.

                                        Anyway, I'm sure you were trying to be helpful, but any memory fragmentation going on here is unrelated to what Vista is showing in it's memory available to Lightroom.

                                        Dan (who's profession is computers, not photography)
                                        • 17. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                          Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
                                          Yes, I know the tools don't show that. What I was trying to say was that LR can't just use all the physical memory available if it happens to be fragmented (which it usually is).
                                          • 18. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                            Community Member
                                            Again, Lee Jay - the point is that physical memory fragmentation is irreverent because the memory seen by LR has been abstracted by the hardware (they get logical memory, not physical memory). NO software running on a modern OS gets to directly access physical memory, so fragmentation at that level simply doesn't matter.

                                            The tools don't show fragmentation within LR's usage because it simply doesn't matter at the OS memory allocation level.

                                            David (whose profession is also computers, not photography, and who sometimes wishes it were the other way around)
                                            • 19. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                              Community Member
                                              I'll also add that if memory fragmentation were a real issue at the OS level, my company would need to reboot its web servers - hosting dozens of customer sites running on hundreds of worker processes - every day instead of, well, never.

                                              David (who is now wasting time at work waiting for his long weekend to begin)
                                              • 20. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
                                                > Again, Lee Jay - the point is that physical memory fragmentation is irreverent because the memory seen by LR has been abstracted by the hardware (they get logical memory, not physical memory). NO software running on a modern OS gets to directly access physical memory, so fragmentation at that level simply doesn't matter.

                                                Well, I don't understand the issue as it applied to LR, but I do know for a fact that some of the LR team members have stated that memory fragmentation is an issue for LR.
                                                • 21. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                  Community Member
                                                  Very possibly - any program that uses large amounts of memory is going to have to fight this issue. But that's an issue of LR's use of memory while it is running for a long period of time, not it's ability to get the memory in the first place.
                                                  • 22. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                    Community Member
                                                    To the OP: the fact that you have 4GB is irrelevent, since on 32-bit Vista only 2GB are available to applications (as opposed to the OS itself). Also in that space will be other things like system services running under your account, even if you don't see any other programs in the taskbar.

                                                    This doesn't mean that it isn't a bit of a mystery, but the gap is much less than it appears to be.

                                                    Under what circumstances are you looking at the system information? Is this immediately upon starting up LR or, say, after exporting 2000 images? LR may "only" be using 716MB because that's what it needs under the circumstances.
                                                    • 23. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                      Community Member
                                                      If an application does a lot of dynamic memory allocation and deallocation the
                                                      heap can become fragmented over time and result in a performance hit. Even
                                                      though there may be plenty of memory available, it may be impossible for the
                                                      system to satisfy an allocation request on a fragmented heap since there may not
                                                      be a chunk of contiguous memory large enough. That said, this is most likely
                                                      unrelated to the amount of system memory LR reports as available.
                                                      --
                                                      Charlie...
                                                      http://www.chocphoto.com
                                                      • 24. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                        Community Member
                                                        Yes, and that is probably what the developers Lee Jay heard from were talking about. If the application is using 1K out of every 4K of address space it allocates (assuming a 4K page size), then it is actually tying up 4 times the physical memory that it may think it is using because of page fragmentation.

                                                        > That said, this is most likely unrelated to the amount of system memory LR reports as available.

                                                        I agree. Our banter doesn't have anything to do with the OP's question. I think that DW is on the right track asking questions about context. Another possible factor is, what exactly does "Available RAM for Lightroom:" actually mean?

                                                        I don't run Vista, but I know that reported total available ram often causes confusion (bios reserved areas, graphic card memory size ...). "Available RAM for Lightroom" may also not be as straight-forward as it appears. I poked at a few articles in the KB on MSDN and wasn't able to find a formal def for what it means (unlike that for total available RAM).

                                                        Does anyone have a formal definition for what it means?

                                                        Dan
                                                        • 25. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                          Community Member
                                                          Dan, "Available memory" on the Vista screens is installed memory s of SP1 (MS changed it to avoid confusion for people like the OP with 4GB on 32-bit systems, although I'm not sure it was the right decision) Certainly the OP's available system memory is going to be at least 512MB below that because of video card and other reservations within the hardware's 32-bit address space. LR seems to be showing a number that *could* be this as "integrated RAM".

                                                          But I have no idea what "available RAM for Lightroom" actually means either.
                                                          • 26. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                            Lee Jay-7OQGJF Community Member
                                                            > If an application does a lot of dynamic memory allocation and deallocation the heap can become fragmented over time and result in a performance hit. Even though there may be plenty of memory available, it may be impossible for the system to satisfy an allocation request on a fragmented heap since there may not be a chunk of contiguous memory large enough. That said, this is most likely unrelated to the amount of system memory LR reports as available.

                                                            This is my understanding. Well said.
                                                            • 27. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                              Community Member
                                                              >That said, this is most likely unrelated to the amount of system memory LR reports as available.

                                                              Thanks Lee Jay. And now we can all agree that memory fragmentation has nothing to do with the subject of this thread.
                                                              • 28. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                Michael Tissington Community Member
                                                                After restarting my computer and then starting LR2 this is what I get.
                                                                716.8MB seem crazy small why isn't it using all my other memory ???

                                                                Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                Operating system: Windows Vista Professional Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                                                                Version: 6.0 [6001]
                                                                Application architecture: x86
                                                                System architecture: x86
                                                                Physical processor count: 2
                                                                Processor speed: 2.1 GHz
                                                                Built-in memory: 3069.6 MB
                                                                Real memory available to Lightroom: 716.8 MB
                                                                Real memory used by Lightroom: 79.7 MB (11.1%)
                                                                Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 53.5 MB
                                                                Memory cache size: 0 MB
                                                                Serial Number: removed by Forum Host
                                                                Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
                                                                Library Path: C:\Users\Michael\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat
                                                                • 29. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                  Community Member
                                                                  Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                  Operating system: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                                                                  Version: 6.0 [6001]
                                                                  Application architecture: x64
                                                                  System architecture: x64
                                                                  Physical processor count: 4
                                                                  Processor speed: 2.7 GHz
                                                                  Built-in memory: 4085.1 MB
                                                                  Real memory available to Lightroom: 4085.1 MB
                                                                  Real memory used by Lightroom: 275.9 MB (6.7%)
                                                                  Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 269.4 MB
                                                                  Memory cache size: 136.7 MB
                                                                  • 30. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                    Community Member
                                                                    Michael -- you might want to edit out your Serial number . . . would be a shame to have someone hijack it and cause you problems down the road when you have to reinstall or upgrade and you need an internet download.
                                                                    • 31. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                      Community Member
                                                                      deleted post
                                                                      • 32. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                        As discussed memory fragmentation is a separate issue. The amount of memory LR chooses to use on 32-bit windows systems seems to be hard wired and depends on how much memory the OS reports is available to an application. Under 32-bit versions of Vista/XP this is restricted to a maximum of 2048MB regardless of how much physical memory your puter may have unless you specifically override it during start-up.

                                                                        If Vista reports you have more than 3G available, then you can increase this by running the following command (then reboot):

                                                                        bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072

                                                                        Rather than using a percentage of available memory like CS3, LR's memory allocation seems quite chunky and only appears to increase when it has 3G+ available. I tried it with more conservative settings (2560) but LR refused to allocate more than 768MB.

                                                                        With the above change in place LR now reports I have 1228.8MB available:

                                                                        Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                        Operating system: Windows Vista Home Edition Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                                                                        Version: 6.0 [6001]
                                                                        Application architecture: x86
                                                                        System architecture: x86
                                                                        Physical processor count: 2
                                                                        Processor speed: 2.9 GHz
                                                                        Built-in memory: 3326.3 MB
                                                                        Real memory available to Lightroom: 1228.8 MB
                                                                        Real memory used by Lightroom: 182.5 MB (14.8%)
                                                                        Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 168.6 MB
                                                                        Memory cache size: 1.6 MB

                                                                        This limitation obviously does not apply to 64-bit versions of Vista.
                                                                        • 33. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                          Community Member
                                                                          "This limitation obviously does not apply to 64-bit versions of Vista."

                                                                          or the x64 version of XP:

                                                                          Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                          Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 3790)
                                                                          Version: 5.2 [3790]
                                                                          Application architecture: x64
                                                                          System architecture: x64
                                                                          Physical processor count: 8
                                                                          Processor speed: 3.7 GHz
                                                                          Built-in memory: 16381.3 MB
                                                                          Real memory available to Lightroom: 16381.3 MB
                                                                          Real memory used by Lightroom: 466.6 MB (2.8%)
                                                                          Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 451 MB
                                                                          Memory cache size: 1223.6 MB

                                                                          Regardless of memory size etc. I can't really see an improvement in speed, and the sliders seem a little less responsive if anything.

                                                                          1.4.1 :

                                                                          Lightroom version: 1.4.1 [439926]
                                                                          Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 3790)
                                                                          Version: 5.2 [3790]
                                                                          Application architecture: x86
                                                                          System architecture: x64
                                                                          Physical processor count: 8
                                                                          Built-in memory: 4095.9 MB
                                                                          Processor speed: 3.5 Ghz
                                                                          Real memory available to Lightroom: 1228.8 MB
                                                                          Real memory used by Lightroom: 78.7 MB (6.4%)
                                                                          Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 68 MB
                                                                          Memory cache size: 43.3 MB
                                                                          • 34. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                            Community Member
                                                                            What does "Memory cache size" mean?
                                                                            • 35. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                              Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                              Operating system: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                                                                              Version: 6.0 [6001]
                                                                              Application architecture: x64
                                                                              System architecture: x64
                                                                              Physical processor count: 4
                                                                              Processor speed: 2.4 GHz
                                                                              Built-in memory: 4092.7 MB
                                                                              Real memory available to Lightroom: 4092.7 MB
                                                                              Real memory used by Lightroom: 180.4 MB (4.4%)
                                                                              Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 158.4 MB
                                                                              Memory cache size: 127.5 MB
                                                                              Serial Number: N/A
                                                                              • 36. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                                jsut thought i'd throw this one in

                                                                                Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                                Version: 10.5 [5]
                                                                                Application architecture: x64
                                                                                Physical processor count: 8
                                                                                Processor speed: 3 GHz
                                                                                Built-in memory: 32768 MB
                                                                                Real memory available to Lightroom: 32768 MB
                                                                                Real memory used by Lightroom: 202.9 MB (0.6%)
                                                                                Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 2771.6 MB
                                                                                Memory cache size: 5 MB
                                                                                • 37. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                                  don solomon Community Member
                                                                                  I have LR 2.1 on a dual boot Intel 9550 2.83 ghz w 8 gigs fast ddr2. Vista Ultimate 64 is one one side of the dual boot and xpSP2 is on the other. I see no advantage for LR 2.1 on the Vista 64 with more RAM available, either in the amount used by LR or in performance. That RAM does make a difference in some of my other apps, of course.
                                                                                  • 38. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                                    Dorin Nicolaescu-Musteață Community Member
                                                                                    That's after accumulating metadata for all my 17000 images.

                                                                                    Lightroom version: 2.1 RC1 [508271 Beta 1]
                                                                                    Operating system: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                                                                                    Version: 6.0 [6001]
                                                                                    Application architecture: x64
                                                                                    System architecture: x64
                                                                                    Physical processor count: 2
                                                                                    Processor speed: 2.6 GHz
                                                                                    Built-in memory: 3965.5 MB
                                                                                    Real memory available to Lightroom: 3965.5 MB
                                                                                    Real memory used by Lightroom: 2183.3 MB (55%)
                                                                                    Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 2176.6 MB
                                                                                    Memory cache size: 793 MB

                                                                                    It's curious that the same operation in a 32-bit LR resulted in this:

                                                                                    Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                                    Operating system: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                                                                                    Version: 6.0 [6001]
                                                                                    Application architecture: x86
                                                                                    System architecture: x64
                                                                                    Physical processor count: 2
                                                                                    Processor speed: 2.6 GHz
                                                                                    Built-in memory: 3965.5 MB
                                                                                    Real memory available to Lightroom: 1228.8 MB
                                                                                    Real memory used by Lightroom: 483 MB (39.3%)
                                                                                    Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 473.9 MB
                                                                                    Memory cache size: 245.7 MB
                                                                                    • 39. Re: RAM usage in Lightroom
                                                                                      hungchi Community Member
                                                                                      After reading all the posts I wonder what is up with the memory in LR. Shouldn't we have a slider like in PS to set the ram LR can use?

                                                                                      here is the report from my system: Real memory available to Lightroom is always 716.8 MB -----and what is the deal with LR telling me I have a different version of Vista?

                                                                                      Lightroom version: 2.0 [481478]
                                                                                      Operating system: Windows Vista Professional Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
                                                                                      Version: 6.0 [6001]
                                                                                      Application architecture: x86
                                                                                      System architecture: x86
                                                                                      Physical processor count: 2
                                                                                      Processor speed: 3 GHz
                                                                                      Built-in memory: 3325.5 MB
                                                                                      Real memory available to Lightroom: 716.8 MB
                                                                                      Real memory used by Lightroom: 292.2 MB (40.7%)
                                                                                      Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 293.3 MB
                                                                                      Memory cache size: 142.3 MB

                                                                                      My system specs:
                                                                                      Vista Ultimate 32bit SP1
                                                                                      AMD 64X2 duel core 6000+ 3Ghz
                                                                                      6GB 666mhz Ram PAE force enabled
                                                                                      NVIDIA Gforce 7600 256MB video card (1.75GB total video ram with system shared ram)
                                                                                      Primary hard drive: 500GB
                                                                                      Hard drive 2: 400GB (system and photoshop paging files and lightroom catalog drive)
                                                                                      Hdrive 3: 1TB (primary image storage)
                                                                                      user control turned off
                                                                                      system graphics set to performance
                                                                                      Duel display
                                                                                      Lightroom 2.0
                                                                                      photoshop CS3