Classic 8.4 GPU Woes ; Is GPU Worth it?

[Paul_DS256]

Lightroom Version Number

LR Classic 8.4

Operating System

1. Windows 7

I was interested in seeing if I could benefit from GPU support in 8.4. I was not ready for the issues I ran into and potential serious recovery issues. My real problems were with Nvidia software more than LR not recognizing my adapter.

I run a Dell XPS 8700 with 16GB of memory on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit. It comes with a Nvida GeForce GTX 650 Ti display adapter. The latest version of the drivers support the specs listed on the Adobe GPU Trouble Shooting page and my adapter is not listed as one not supported.

I downloaded and installed the latest driver for the NVidia but LR still would not recognize it. It simply said it was not supported and in System Info that OpenGL failed. It didn't even list the NVidia adapter. The problems came in when I started following the Adobe GPU Trouble Shooting suggestions. A 'clean' install raised additional issues in that the NVidia Control Panel would not open. Through research, I found that this is a know 'feature' that I was not able to overcome.

I decided to perform a hard boot. At that point, the NVidia adapter was not detected and I was using the default low res Dell adapter. I looked in the Device Manager and found the PCI Controller device driver had not loaded because it was missing or corrupt. Additional reseach showed this could because of a registry problem. I suspected the Nvidia 'clean' install. I ended up having to uninstall the PCI Controller and reload it using scan for new devices.

At the end of the day I was able to get back to (what I hope) is a stable environment by completely uninstalling NVidia and reinstalling it. For some reason, some PCI devices had to be rediscovered and I think I have an issue with recognition of my additional monitors.

LR still does not recognized my NVidia and because I still can't open the NVidia control panel, I can't continue the troubleshooting steps.

So, this is a long description of problems with NVidia that I discovered which was frustrating and very time consuming. I have a computer background and can see that someone else could be left with an unusable systen and having to resort to a Windows recovery to an old check point to get back a stable environment.

I really wish Adobe would invest in a tool to check a system for compatibility with LR features. It could save a lot of grief. I did find the Trouble Shooting articles by Adobe useful but that only shows that Adobe knows there are problems dealing with GPU's.

Hence, with the apparent danger, if you have an older (which I suspect could be an issue) system, is it worth trying to get GPU working?

 

[mcasan]

So what happens if you move to the latest Win10 release and corresponding drivers?

 

[clee01l]

Win 7 may be too obsolete to expect your video card provider to have a driver that is compatible and will support Adobe's GPU requirements. Microsoft support for Windows 7 will be ending on January 14, 2020. Lightroom by merest of coincidences still supported Win7 but not Win 8 up until the most recent release of LR.
In case you haven't noticed, the hand writing is on the wall for Win7.
The problem is really a Windows issue. There are so many combinations of hardware and drivers versions that it might be unrealistic to expect Adobe to have tested with all the permutations and combinations and especially with legacy OS which Win7 is. I think you will have better luck with Win10 and the latest video drivers.

 

[PhilBurton]

To anyone sitting on the fence here, or clearly on the Win 7 side of the fence. Cletus speaks truth and widsom here and not just for Adobe. Change is a constant in dealing with high tech. Is/was/always will be for software and hardware vendors, and for users.

You always have the option to remain with Win 7 indefinitely, or until your current system stops working and can't be repaired. Your current system still will work the way it was before Adobe released LR 8.4.

Phil

 

[Paul_DS256]

It sounds like you are all saying that if I was on Windows 10, I would not have the issues with Nvidia software which I think is a stretch. I'm sure Microsoft has not solve all the complexities of drivers in W10. I realize that I will need to upgrade but then I'm not sure I'll still have the same problem.

As to Cleetu's accurate observation of "There are so many combinations of hardware and drivers versions that it might be unrealistic to expect Adobe to have tested with all the permutations and combinations and especially with legacy OS which Win7 is " I agree. It would just be nice if Adobe came back with more information to help resolve the problem. See screen shot of my System Info. A little more detail would be helpful especially given the known trouble shooting steps documented for GPU.

 

[newsbox]

@Paul_DS256 New here, but using Windows since 1985: Move to Windows 10. No reason (absolutely none) to stick with Windows 7.

 

[Philippe Coudé du Foresto]

With Windows 7, LR 8.4 will support no GPU acceleration, whatever the graphic card and the driver version is. Worst : even the Display GPU acceleration available in LR 8.3.1 is no longer available in LR 8.4.
This is because Adobe took the decision to deprecate OpenGL and instead use DirectX 12 , which is not supported by Windows 7. You must have Windows 10 to have DirectX 12 available. In 8.3.1, display GPU acceleration was using OpenGL, whereas in 8.4 it uses DirectX10, hence being not available under Windows 7.

 

[clee01l]

It sounds like you are all saying that if I was on Windows 10, I would not have the issues with Nvidia software which I think is a stretch

What I mean by this is that if you upgrade to Win10 you stand a better chance of getting an nVidia driver that is compatible with Lightroom's GPU requirements. It might work out of the box OR nVidia will release an updated driver that fixes the issues that prevents nVidia form working with Lightroom out of the box. I think it is unlikely that nVidia would devote the resources to fixing the nVidia problems on a legacy version (Win7). I also think that Adobe is just as unlikely to devote resources to fix GPU issues on Win7

 

[Paul_DS256]

Thanks Philippe. You comment "Adobe took the decision to deprecate OpenGL and instead use DirectX 12 , which is not supported by Windows 7. " is very helpful. It further supports my idea that if Adobe provided more info like that in an introspection tool it would keep is from chasing down getting something to work that will not.

 

[Paul_DS256]

Since I suggested Adobe provide an introspection GPU tool, I decided to see if there were any out there.

There is a DirectX tool that comes with Windows. You run dxdiag.exe from a command prompt.

A more useful tool (and I assum there are others) is OpenGL Viewer. It shows both the OpenGL and DirectX versions supported in the GPU (see attached). From this you can see that since it's W7, only Direct 11 is available.