Does Adobe Lightroom take advantage of >4 CPU cores?
That is, if I buy a CPU with 6 cores (like Intel 3960 or 3930) would I see an improvement in performance?
I currently have a quad-core CPU and I find that the performance is slower than I would like when working with large RAW files. I know that the CPU is the bottleneck because I have a CPU monitoring software and the activity goes up to 95% for all 4 cores during the times when Lightroom is processing images.
Yes but there are limits with LR. I cant say wether or not it will help. There are people on here that have 4 cores and say it flies but others who have 8+ cores are still unhappy. For me its ok until I adjust noise, then the noise sliders have a 1-2 second lag on them and everything else slows down.
I use 4 cores @4.5Ghz. Its not just as easy as throwing more MHz at it. The experiments I have done indicate to me that RAM throughput is an issue but not the only one.
You need to hit up Amonline for some help, he has a six core box that works for him. Also look in the wedding forum for one of my posts were I asked what platforms were being used by ppl that were happy with LR4. performance.
Dont listend to anyone that says that an SSD will fix everything. You know it wont fix the dev module which is what I assume is your bugbear.
Sorry.
Do read the article mentioned above. Increasing the cache can help a lot, but it still doesn't solve it's speed problems. I'm a little dubious about people who say they've got this problem licked by simply doing this or that - LR's lack of responsiveness are really coding issues that Adobe software engineers haven't solved yet despite two minor revisions and a new beta.
The meat of that article is good, but LR has come a ways since then. Look for some updated references.
Yes, you will see a difference if you upgrade the CPU. However, there are plenty of quad core chips that are capable of being overclocked higher than six core chips. (if your mobo will take them) Do your research and you'll save some money.
I'm running a six core at 4.2 and it's more than fast enough. That's now a two-year old build. (the bonus to building pc-side ) Look for chips capable of being OC'd higher than you're currently running. Just make sure you have adequate cooling for it. There are plenty of YT videos to show you how to overclock.
Gamer mobos usually help as well. For instance, my ASUS Rampage III has all the tweaks built in. I simply choose the level of stable OCing I want, and it does the rest. I used to be into the tweaking, but I have no need for playing around with it anymore. There's no need for manual OCing anymore. It's built into today's decent mobos. (this is if you're building a new system)
Adequate & fast RAM is a key component as well. You need a minimum of 12gb. 16gb is fine, but you'll never peg it unless you're doing video.
An SSD will help. (if you're running an HDD now) However, just keep it simple. Get one that will provide the room you need for apps and OS, and has great long-term ratings & reviews. I still stick to Intels so far, but there are many choices today. Don't worry about RAID. If you max the mobo, CPU and RAM out, it's only going to go so fast. (pretty much what morgan said above) I've found RAID0 to be kind of pointless.
Having nearly completed a new build (3770K on an Asus Z77 Pro), I was eager to install LR4 and see what kind results I'd get. Having only used LR3 up to this point (on my old XP box at that) I was in a position to make at least a seat-of-the-pants comparison.
In my initial run I experienced no lags at all. Bear in mind that I'm testing with smallish files (14bit D300), but my new computer is far from optimized with everything running off a single Velociraptor. In final config, the Raptor will be the OS / app disk since SSDs have little value for that purpose. I know others feel differently, but honestly, once the OS and apps are loaded "bunny quick", the SSD sits there twiddling its thumbs. My SSDs will hold the LR catalog and preview cache along with the pagefile, PS scratch and working files.
My results, while encouraging, are not completely valid since I wasn't working with my final configuration, the LR catalog contained only about 400 images and my session was relatively short at under an hour. I've seen some reports that LR doesn't start to slow until one is using it for an extended period. I assume a large catalog and cache will take a toll as well.
Raptors are awesome. I have a couple in my backup machine. However, I don't think you'd see much difference trying other configs anyway. I tried them in tandem with my SSDs at first and saw no differences. You want your OS, Apps and work where the fastest read/write is located. That's the bottom line.
Individual catalogs is the best practice for most professional photographers, but so many do not take this route. I've always done one catalog per job. It's a key to keeping things lean.
I am the OP of this thread. I know that the bottle neck is not the hard drive because the CPU monitoring program reports heavy 4-core CPU usage (and minimal hard drive usage) during the times that LR is working hard (and being sluggish).
I will probably not do any overclocking because of the risk that a crash will corrupt image data on the hard drive. I've been in the PC business/industry long enough to know that it happens quite frequently with overclocked rigs. Overclocking a PC meant for gaming and entertainment is fine with me, but I would personally not risk it on a PC that supports my livelihood.
So I am faced again with the question of whether LR will use all 6 cores of a CPU, and based on the responses here, it sounds like the answer is yes.
I've been overclocked for over two years on this machine without one hiccup. If you know what you're doing, it's not an issue. If you buy quality components, it's not an issue. If you stay within reason, it's not an issue. Overclocking is simply allowing the chip to do what it truly can. Problems only arise when you try to break the bounds of common sense.
Your answer is yes; LR will use multiple cores, but you have to coax it along. Break up exports to force LR to use those additional cores. My practice is to export the following all at once...
Considering a typical full-day wedding is about 500-600 images, I output the above, all at once, in around 45-60 minutes. I usually watch an hour-long show and it's done long before I'm back at the computer. I do this as regularly as once a week. I also do the same for engagements when I get back to the computer, but that takes about 5-10 minutes. (same stuff above) I'm usually working in the background, creating my DVD images, print release, etc.. I generally have a wedding client's job ready to burn in right at an hour. (that's from edit completion, obviously)
Adding a newer CPU with two additional cores will increase your speed; obviously. I don't recall you mentioning how much RAM you had though. 12gb is kind of a minimum. (if you're doing wedding-type quantities)
^Never seen that one happen in my life. Remember that once the images are in imported into the LR cat, they are not really touched.
OC is fine these days, its practically mainstream. That being said I saw very little gain in doing so - read on....
The point of my post is that this is a lottery, I cant guarantee that 6 cores will get you were you want. There are people with 4 cores that are doing really well with LR and people that have 8 cores that are doing terribly. Your should recheck your observation that you are getting high usage across all 4 cores as this is not consistent with the many pissed off individuals in the adobe forums. Im not saying your wrong, Im just saying you need to verify it - very few people see all cores maxxing out when using any aspect of the dev module which is why the community is up in arms about it; we have high end machines that are not being utilised correctly/consistently.
LR, at least in the dev module, does not appear top support multi threading therefore throwing extra cores at it will not necessarily get you the expected improvement that one might expect.
I have 4 cores and my machine performs poorly when I try to use the noise sliders. Until last night I was considering a 6 cores SB-E solution to this problem however I accidentally restarted my machine in a mode where the multipliers are clamped at x16 and believe it or not I saw pretty much the same level of performance in LR noise sliders as I did at x45. I can not therefore justify an extra load more money on an application that does not appear to make best use of the extra headroom.
Its a shame we cant try before we buy.
HOWEVER, if your platform yields a near zero lag on the noise sliders, after other adjustments have been performed, then please post your setup here, the adobe forums and everywhere so that we can get a better idea of what is going on.
Uh wow. I just did some experimenting... With no sliders adjusted in LR I get near instantaneous results on my 4.5Ghz OC machine and ok results on the 2.5Ghz MBP.
Adjusting sliders causes some lag - only a little, but the major culprit is the shadow/highlight fader. Adjust either of these by as much as +/- 1 and it all goes to crap....!
Matthew Cham wrote:
I will probably not do any overclocking because of the risk that a crash will corrupt image data on the hard drive. I've been in the PC business/industry long enough to know that it happens quite frequently with overclocked rigs. Overclocking a PC meant for gaming and entertainment is fine with me, but I would personally not risk it on a PC that supports my livelihood.
The risk of actually losing data on a hard drive because of system instability caused by moderate overclocking of the cpu is minimal (IMO) if done right. To overclock a CPU for a production machine you should follow the following steps:
1. Buy a good aftermarket CPU cooler.
2. Be moderate with clock speeds and voltages. Most SandyBridge and SB-E unlocked processors will safely run 4.5 to 4.7GHz rock solid 24/7 with good cooling and a modest bump in voltage. The new IvyBridge processors are a different beast, but even those can usually run 4.2 to 4.4 all day long without stability issues or excessive temperatures.
3. Test the stability of the system using programs like Prime95 (12 to 24 hours), IntelBurn (8 to 10 passes) and MemTest (overnight). Monitor the temperature of the CPU cores to make sure they are acceptable (you want to keep them to 75 or 80C or lower under full sustained loads for extended periods of time). If your system is unstable, back off the clocks and settle on a speed/voltage/temperature/noise combo you can live with.
4. Use a good uninterrupted power supply so you don't lose data during a power outage or brownout. At a minimum, use a high quality power conditioner.
If your data is critical, buy/build a system with parts designed for workstation use (Xeons or AMD equivalents). This will allow you to use ECC memory (typically not supported by consumer processors or motherboards). You can also use RAID1 drives for your temporary work files, and back up your data with frequent snapshots. However, you will likely lose the ability to (significantly) overclock your system with server grade hardware since these are designed to operate in tight spaces within strict thermal envelopes.
I agree with everyone's comments re: small risk of data loss with modest overclocks and proper precautions. I also have to say that if *all* CPUs leaving the assembly line could run at guaranteed 133% clock speed at normal operating temperatures, then Intel would sell those units at premium price. The fact is, some CPUs will overclock reliably while other CPUs of the same model from the exact same assembly line may not overlock as reliably. Intel labels the CPU according to the bare minimum performance that *every* unit can achieve, so it is correct that for most units there is untapped potential. I just don't want to risk it with my work data.
My original images are backed up on a stand-alone raid server, but the workstation (where work gets done) is only backed up every couple days and I do not want to risk an entire day's worth of labor (due to overclock related crash) even if it were to happen only once every 5 years.
I'm actually and avid overclocker and every gaming rig I have built since 1995 has been overclocked and water cooled. This is why I know that serious data loss is a very real possibility. Prime95 works great for initial testing, but dust build up in your heat sink and other causes of cooling inefficiency (like warmer summer temperatures) can kill maximally overclocked rigs that may have initially passed a rigorous torture test. Sure, I can back up my workstation data every hour, clean my heat sinks every month, but that inconvenience outweighs the benefits from an overclock IMHO.
since SSDs have little value for that purpose. I know others feel differently
Let me see if I understand what you've written: There's no point in installing the OS and Apps on the SSD? Maybe I'm confused, but your claim is contrary to every single article/commentary I've read about the usefullness of SSDs.
BluesWest wrote:
Let me see if I understand what you've written: There's no point in installing the OS and Apps on the SSD? Maybe I'm confused, but your claim is contrary to every single article/commentary I've read about the usefullness of SSDs.
John
Hardware tweaker's forums make for entertaining reading but Microsoft and Adobe, among others, see things a bit differently than your average gear head:
Solid-state disks
Installing Photoshop on a solid-state disk (SSD) allows Photoshop to launch fast, probably in less than a second. But that speedier startup is the only time savings you experience. That’s the only time when much data is read from the SSD.
To gain the greatest benefit from an SSD, use it as the scratch disk. Using it as a scratch disk gives you significant performance improvements if you have images that don’t fit entirely in RAM. For example, swapping tiles between RAM and an SSD is much faster than swapping between RAM and a hard disk.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't under any circustances put your OS and apps on an SSD, especially if you have two or more in your system (reliability concerns aside). Gamers may see a particular benefit in this arrangement. However it makes more sense from my non-gaming perspective to put the OS and apps on a spinner and dedicate the SSDs to the type of files and usage that suits their strengths, as I outlined in my post above.
As for Microsoft's part, they say the pagefile absolutely belongs on the SSD, but I've read countless ill-informed forum posts that claim you'll send your drive to an early grave by putting it there.
Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?
Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well.
In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that
•Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1,
•Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB.
•Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size.
In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD.
Putting the OS and Apps on an SSD speeds up all application loading. It does not in any way speed up the running of an application unless that application needs to save/load data to/from the disk. So loading new levels in games can be significantly sped up, and putting your temp files and cache's on an SSD is also a good idea. The performance of Photoshop is however unchanged, unless you run out of RAM and need to swap.
LR is a slightly more complex issue as you do read and write from disk quite a lot, However, the rendering pipeline in LR is quite complex and in most cases will be processor limited (especially in the develop module) unless you have very slow disks.
The limited read/write cycle problem of SSD's is vastly exaggerated. Do the numbers and you'll find that it will take many years to wear them out in normal service. Certainly longer than the actual lifespan of a normal spinning disk.
Ho1972 wrote:
I'm not saying that you shouldn't under any circustances put your OS and apps on an SSD, especially if you have two or more in your system (reliability concerns aside). Gamers may see a particular benefit in this arrangement. However it makes more sense from my non-gaming perspective to put the OS and apps on a spinner and dedicate the SSDs to the type of files and usage that suits their strengths, as I outlined in my post above.
You don't have to choose between applications/data and scratch space. Buy one large SSD (256 or 512GB) or two or more smaller drives and you can have it all! Even a single 128GB SSD can hold both the OS and Programs with more than enough room for scratch files.
Also, SSDs shine with random, small I/O, which has the greatest impact to the system/browsing experience. When reading or writing large data chunks sequentially, the disparity between spinners and solid state storage is much smaller (SSDs are faster, but not by as much) because latency is not an issue with large sequential I/O.
Gamers may see a particular benefit in this arrangement. However it makes more sense from my non-gaming perspective to put the OS and apps on a spinner and dedicate the SSDs to the type of files and usage that suits their strengths, as I outlined in my post above.
An SSD will only speed up game startup/load, and map loads. It does nothing to speed up actual gameplay. Games are the last thing I would put on an SSD if space were an issue.
SSD : OS, apps, scratch/workspace
Spinners : data
is the order I would use or recommend.
15Bit wrote:
Putting the OS and Apps on an SSD speeds up all application loading. It does not in any way speed up the running of an application unless that application needs to save/load data to/from the disk.
Dont understand why this message is taking so long to get through to a LOT of people. A SSD will not noticeably improve your slider lag in LR.
I think its more likely to be a CPU/MB interaction issue rather just CPU but the point is there, the newer and higher your core count, the more likely (not definite) you are to have trouble.
) Look for chips capable of being OC'd higher than you're currently running. Just make sure you have adequate cooling for it. There are plenty of YT videos to show you how to overclock.