Please, no Mac vs. PC flamewars, or "Just buy a Mac."

When I click on an image in Lightroom, "Loading ..." appears on screen for 7 seconds (I've timed it). Sometimes the image is pixellated until loading is complete.

When importing, there are 3 settings for Initial preview: Standard, Minimal, & 1:1. I use Standard. Will Minimal make a difference?

My setup: Win XP, SP2, Pentium 4 @ 3.00 GHz, 2GB 800 MHz DDR2 RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS card, 6 GB dedicated pagefile.

The MB can take a 2nd video card. Can LR/PS take advantage of a 2nd card? Fry's has a sale on 4 GB RAM: any advantage?

Thanx!

Guess itīs the processor that drags. Mine got double speed with Core2Duo, T6750 2,6GHz @ 3,1 GHz

You also better check the hard drive. Old 5600 rpm or newer?
Sure disc defragmentation is necessary procedure.

old hardware....time to upgrade if you want better performance.

I have a P4 2.4 system with only 1 gig ram and my loading takes 8-9 seconds to accomplish. I had thought maybe it was more ram related, but after reading your specs I'm thinking PasiM is right. The bottleneck is the processor. Although everything else I do is satisfactory, that wait while loading is a PITA. I don't know why LR should take so much time and use so much cpu just to load a pic. Seems like that would be one of the more simpler things it does.

I do see Lightroom using all four cores on my machine. Which is nice. An image loads in under 2 seconds. Q6600, four gig ram, 7200 rpm terabyte disks for images, four 80 gig drives for os, paging, PS work files etc.
Don't forget you need a boot ini setting in 32 bit XP to make 3 gig available to programs. Same thing for 32 bit Vista but it's not in the boot ini file anymore.

The "Standard, Minimal, & 1:1" settings during import determine how much time lightroom spends importing your file... if you specify minimal, you just get an import, no preview images are created. if you specify standard, it creates the standard size preview, and it takes a ton of time (equivalent to reimporting everything again on my core duo 2.4 ghz machine)

I can only imagine what 1:1 would do to your performance... of course, if you have time to kick off the import and leave the building, that might be the way to go.

That's a pretty old processor with some fairly sedentary RAM though, you'd probably see a nifty speed increase with a new set up. The video card probably won't matter for viewing static images though. (in terms of rendering faster)

Thanks, everyone, excellent advice. Changing out the CPU seems to be the first item on my list, followed by RAM.

FYI, you'll find that the CPU, ram and motherboard all go together... it's difficult to switch out one without upgrading all 3. (which is probably what you should do). If you're comfortable with little teeny screwdrivers and static control, check out newegg and have fun upgrading

Add more system memory first
Make sure "hyper threading" is enabled in the P4 cpu. (emulates a dual processor)

You've got 2 gig now add 1 more gig.(if your motherboard chipset supports more)

If you add 2 more (4gig) your operating system will only access 3 gig (assuming 32 bit OS)

TrojanHorse wrote:
FYI, you'll find that the CPU, ram and motherboard all go together... it's difficult to switch out one without upgrading all 3. (which is probably what you should do). If you're comfortable with little teeny screwdrivers and static control, check out newegg and have fun upgrading


If you plan your system builds correctly you will plan ahead and buy the better board that will support the latest and greatest then you only have to swap out processors. I strongly disagree with the ram statement. Mother board platforms for ram are consistent for years and only change every so many years (5 to 6 years). Static is not a big deal. Just be certain to turn the power off but leave it plugged into a grounded outlet and touch the computer chassis every chance you get. Upgrading a computer is CAKE! don't be afraid just do it and when you mess it up you will learn a great lesson for next time plus most new parts have a year warranty. Do your research and get in there. Oh yeah the screw drivers are not little or Teeny. I use an electric black and decker cordless screw driver nothing special.

If you click on standard or minimal when importing, then your preview must be built the first time you view the image. How fast this happens depends on your machine as well as the size and type of your files.

I think minimal will just speed up your import, but not help and may hurt what you are describing.

Selecting 1:1 on import will slow the import down a lot, but you might find the delay in viewing images is dramatically better.

Buy a new computer to notice a difference.

Trying to make yours faster is, IMO, a waste of time.

Ram MIGHT make a bit of difference, but you will have to modify the boot loader to get normal xp to see it.

get 64 bit when you upgrade and just find the appropriate drivers.

I built mine for about 1200 and it screams.
e8400 @ 4ghz
8800 gts vid
4 rams of mushkin redline ddr2
10000 rpm 150 gb raptor
asus p5k3 MB
antec p180