Lightroom Instability

[Mike Farley]

After upgrading to Lightroom CC 2015.1.1 release (6.1 for the perpetual licence version), it became unstable. After some research, it seems that GPU acceleration might be to blame and things have gone back to normal after I turned it off. My graphics card is a Radeon 6700, which is one of those Adobe says it is experiencing difficulties with. Initially I was not able to turn on the GPU acceleration until I updated the video driver to the latest version, but when this was accepted I thought everything would be OK. Apparently not.

I am not sure how much involving the GPU really adds and Adobe says it can slow things down in some circumstances due to the time taken to load the image into the graphics card's memory. It is primarily intended for displays with a much higher resolution than my monitor is capable of and is currently only used by certain functions in the Develop module. I have not done any specific tests, but response times do not appear to be significantly different with or without GPU involvement. Whatever is going on, Photoshop CC is using the GPU without any difficulties and this appears to be a Lighroom specific issue.

[GrahamL]

Hi Mike,

I've also got a Radeon card that is said to be affected (6900) but haven't had any problems using Lightroom, as yet...

I'm using the driver 15.20.1062 package which might be the reason I'm not been affected but as I'm only using Lightroom CC for processing my Fuji raw files and general file-management I probably haven't pushed it much either. Mind you my system crashed this today for no reason I've yet been able to identify.

Hopefully they will soon have the issue fixed.

Sympathies,

Graham

[Mike Farley]

Hi Graham

I am running the same version of the graphics driver and have not had any system crashes, but Lightroom was sometimes hanging when I switched into the Develop module.

[davidc]

I've got a dedicated gaming card and running the same version of Lightroom. Turning it on and off produces noticeable improvements in performance when the GPU is utilised.

No disrespect intended but the 6700M is a mid-range card at best and also 5 years old now, so it's maybe unsurprising Adobe have problems leveraging it. Personally I would not choose a radeon if I had the option. And if I didn't have the option, I'd choose a different laptop

[davidc]

On a semi-related topic, someone has posted some tips on improving PS performance -

http://petapixel.com/2015/08/18/how-to- ... ore-176861

I'll give it a go and test it out but on my new laptop performance is fantastic already. Better than a mac if benchmarks are to be believed!

[Mike Farley]

I've got a dedicated gaming card and running the same version of Lightroom. Turning it on and off produces noticeable improvements in performance when the GPU is utilised.

No disrespect intended but the 6700M is a mid-range card at best and also 5 years old now, so it's maybe unsurprising Adobe have problems leveraging it. Personally I would not choose a radeon if I had the option. And if I didn't have the option, I'd choose a different laptop

My reason for posting was to alert people to something which I had discovered with the latest version of Lightroom. My graphics card, which you rightly point out has gone beyond the first flush of youth, was mid-range when I bought it and in performance terms would fall well behind a modern card with a similar position in the market. I did not need a gaming monster back then, nor do I now and it has served my purposes well. It might not have all the bells and whistles which have since come alomg, but these devices are designed to conform to certain standards which ensures compatibility with other components. Mine supports OpenGL 3.3, which is the minimum specification Adobe says is required for Lightroom GPU acceleration. In theory, everything should work just fine, but in practice there is obviously an issue somewhere between Adobe and AMD, but neither company is saying what that is.

Of course, I could update the card, but the functions in Lightroom which employ GPU acceleration are currently quite limited and Adobe has said the improved performance mainly benefits systems with larger displays; in some instances utilising the GPU can result in slower performance. Eric Chan, Adobe's chief developer, has said that they were constrained by time when introducing GPU acceleration so what we have at present represents just a beginning and there will be further developments. Since I was not seeing any benefit and was finding response times OK when not harnessing the GPU, I'll sit this one out for the time being.

[Mike Farley]

On a semi-related topic, someone has posted some tips on improving PS performance -

http://petapixel.com/2015/08/18/how-to- ... ore-176861

I'll give it a go and test it out but on my new laptop performance is fantastic already. Better than a mac if benchmarks are to be believed!

Thanks, that's a useful article.

Which laptop did you get?

[davidc]

The aftershockl s15 I linked in the earlier laptop thread, built on a clevo chassis with 3k screen (for the gamut, not the resolution) and a high end gaming video card.

[GrahamL]

Hi Mike,

One follow-up to your warning.

Lightroom locked up twice on me today; once in library, once in develop mode. As advised by Adobe I've now disabled the 'use graphics processor' option in edit-preferences-performance. Hopefully they will get this sorted soon!

Cheers,

Graham

[Mike Farley]

Hi Mike,

One follow-up to your warning.

Lightroom locked up twice on me today; once in library, once in develop mode. As advised by Adobe I've now disabled the 'use graphics processor' option in edit-preferences-performance. Hopefully they will get this sorted soon!

Cheers,

Graham

Graham

I have experienced no further problems since turning off GPU acceleration. As you say, it is about time this issue was resolved. Can it really be that difficult?