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Develop module Slow Lightroom on extremely fast M1 MAX MacBook pro 16"

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gary_11

Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2022
Messages
31
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic 11.3
Operating System
  1. macOS 12 Monterey
Hi everyone.

I am new to the forum and hoping you will be able to help me out.

Recently, I have received my new MacBook Pro 16" M1 MAX. 64gb ram with 2tb storage (1.5 tb still available). After lots of research and watching videos online, I was made to think this thing would be like a rocket ship! Especially at the price point of just over £4000!

I have been very disappointed with the speed within lightroom. For example, after making fairly basic changes within the software (exposure, contrast, saturation, white balance etc) even tapping the '\' button to scroll between the before and after edit, there is a 2-3 second delay with the rainbow loading circle coming up. I only really use the laptop for photo shop and Lightroom, and the rest of my basic use within the laptop seems to be ok (still not crazy fast like I was expecting). Other viewers I see online, seem to have instantaneous response and are all reporting incredible speeds within adobe.

I have been onto Apple support today and after various calls, they found one problem with the 'spotlight' however apart from that, most of the answers I get is the fact it's a 'third party software' problem.

To give you a bit more background Lightroom is installed on the Mac, and the files are kept on the Mac itself too. I build 1/1 previews and there is around 500 culled images 5 star from a catalog of around 2000 shot on the Sony a7iii and a7riii which I am filtering by 'rating'.

Has anyone got any suggestions of what I can do / try? Does this sound normal and am I just being unrealistic?

I am so hopeful someone can help with a suggestion or a new avenue to explore, as right now, it feels like I have wasted a lot of money!

Thank you,
Gary
 
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I’d suggest running the Activity monitor along side Lightroom Classic to see what is eating your CPU cycles.
I have a 16GB 24” M1 iMac processing 48mp RAW NEFs and I don’t see any slowness.

Are you running any Malware apps in the background that might be interfering with LrC trying to access files?

A suggestion: create a new empty catalog and import a few of the images from the master catalog and process these as you did in the master catalog. If you don’t see any problems, then we will take a look at the master catalog itself.

How much freespace do you have on the Primary drive? What were you using for LrC before the M1 MBP?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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clee01l said:
I’d suggest running the Activity monitor along side Lightroom Classic to see what is eating your CPU cycles.
I have a 16GB 24” M1 iMac processing 48mp RAW NEFs and I don’t see any slowness.

Are you running any Malware apps in the background that might be interfering with LrC trying to access files?

A suggestion: create a new empty catalog and import a few of the images from the master catalog and process these as you did in the master catalog. If you don’t see any problems, then we will take a look at the master catalog itself.

How much freespace do you have on the Primary drive? What were you using for LrC before the M1 MBP?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Thank you for your reply.

I have been running the activity monitor and 'window server' & 'kernel task' seem to be the 2 main suspects that keep coming up on the CPU.

Apologies for the stupid question, but what's a Malware app? I have Backblaze installed but I pause the back ups when ever I am editing.

I create a brand new catalog for every wedding, so it's unlikely to be that as I have experienced the problems over multiple weddings / catalogs.

I have 1.5 TB free on the hard drive, and before M1 MBP I was using an I7 windows machine, 32 gb of ram.

Thank you,
Gary
 
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I have the same laptop with 32GB RAM, and Lightroom rocks.
 
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A Malware app is an program that scans your computer for viruses and other malware.
 
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Further to my comment originally, I should also say that I use a Logitech keyboard and mouse via blue tooth, and an external 4k dell monitor so I am not sure if that could be causing the problems?
 
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gary_11 said:
Thank you for the suggestion. I just downloaded this, and unfortunately it's above my skillset!
Click to expand...

Your Skillset is irrelevant. Since posting I have learned that Memtest will not boot on an M1 Mac.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
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I would check what is configurable within Lr which may impact performance.
eg. GPU Settings, Size of Raw Cache, preview settings.

Also, resetting the parameter file seems to be a fix all remedy.

I picked up from the Lr Queen blog today that the latest release of Lr has a new option to reset the parameter file. I have been pushing for an official Adobe tool to allow the parameter file to be reset but preserve the user settings. I am hoping this new tool might do this rather than reset to factory settings and lose the user settings. I am keen to get an answer to this question myself.

[ Ps. Are you using an external display, does it have the fastest and correct cable connection, maybe it has a slow refresh speed, maybe using a hub to split USB C connections in the mix, using a poor quality USB c cable instead of a proper Thunderbolt cable, etc]
 
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clee01l said:
Your Skillset is irrelevant. Since posting I have learned that Memtest will not boot on an M1 Mac.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Thank you for your reply. When I looking into the instructions it was asking me to do things that I wasn't sure how to do it, and I was worried about causing more problems than I already have!
 
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Gnits said:
I would check what is configurable within Lr which may impact performance.
eg. GPU Settings, Size of Raw Cache, preview settings.

Also, resetting the parameter file seems to be a fix all remedy.

I picked up from the Lr Queen blog today that the latest release of Lr has a new option to reset the parameter file. I have been pushing for an official Adobe tool to allow the parameter file to be reset but preserve the user settings. I am hoping this new tool might do this rather than reset to factory settings and lose the user settings. I am keen to get an answer to this question myself.

[ Ps. Are you using an external display, does it have the fastest and correct cable connection, maybe it has a slow refresh speed, maybe using a hub to split USB C connections in the mix, using a poor quality USB c cable instead of a proper Thunderbolt cable, etc]
Click to expand...
Thank you for your in-depth answer and suggestions so far.

GPU settings is turned on to auto within Lightroom. Cache size was 50gb, previews I make 1/1 (I'm not sure if that's what you meant).

Do you mind explaining about resetting the parameter file as I haven't heard of this before and would love to try it.

I didn't know the cable could potentially make a difference. It's a dell 4k monitor and I am using the standard cable that come with it, so it potentially could be causing a problem. Is there a certain cable that you would suggest I use?

Thank you for some great suggestions for me to try out! Excited to see if it may make a difference.
Gary
 
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The cable might be a long shot, included just to cover the possibility but with the arrival of different USB C standards, evolution of Thunderbolt 2 and 3 and 4 the potential to have hubs between the computer and screen and massive variance in the quality of the physical cable, there is room for greyness in actual video performance. Not sure if a slow screen refresh rate might have a knock on effect on cpu /gpu performance.

There is some reference to Reset Preferences in the new 11.3 update and I have seen at least one comment where improved performance has been detected by 11.3 release, but I am awaiting clarification on this.

Various hard to explain issues have been linked to internal issues within the parameter file. The solution is to trash the parameter settings file and then for the user to try and remember and re-enter the previous settings, This may be a last resort for some people. I am hoping that Adobe might have finally given the Reset Parameter option some intelligence, where it clears any rubbish built up by Adobe in this file but protects any settings entered by the user. I hope…. but not optimistic.
 
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I'm sorry if I missed this in the other posts, but I looked. And this is potentially a stupid question on my part, but are you sure you are running the M1 version of LR and not the Intel version?
 
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Woodbutcher said:
I'm sorry if I missed this in the other posts, but I looked. And this is potentially a stupid question on my part, but are you sure you are running the M1 version of LR and not the Intel version?
Click to expand...

Lightroom Classic runs M1 as a default on an M1 Machine. You would need to manually force it to run the intel version under rosetta. It does not seem that the OP has the skillet to know how to do that. I expect his response to your poost is “How do I know if I am running Rosetta?”


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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Gnits said:
The cable might be a long shot, included just to cover the possibility but with the arrival of different USB C standards, evolution of Thunderbolt 2 and 3 and 4 the potential to have hubs between the computer and screen and massive variance in the quality of the physical cable, there is room for greyness in actual video performance. Not sure if a slow screen refresh rate might have a knock on effect on cpu /gpu performance.

There is some reference to Reset Preferences in the new 11.3 update and I have seen at least one comment where improved performance has been detected by 11.3 release, but I am awaiting clarification on this.

Various hard to explain issues have been linked to internal issues within the parameter file. The solution is to trash the parameter settings file and then for the user to try and remember and re-enter the previous settings, This may be a last resort for some people. I am hoping that Adobe might have finally given the Reset Parameter option some intelligence, where it clears any rubbish built up by Adobe in this file but protects any settings entered by the user. I hope…. but not optimistic.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestions. I will buy a new cable as it's only the free one that come with the Dell screen so I can't imagine it's very high end. When I plug it in, and notification comes up saying

USB-C is connected
3840x2160, 60Hz 30 bit
Data - USB 2.0

So I am not sure if any of that is a concern?

Ok I will research into reset preferences.

Could you point me in the right direction to where I may be able to find the parameter file? Sorry I am a bit basic on a computer.
 
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Woodbutcher said:
I'm sorry if I missed this in the other posts, but I looked. And this is potentially a stupid question on my part, but are you sure you are running the M1 version of LR and not the Intel version?
Click to expand...

EDIT- I am indeed using the Silicon version, I just found out how to see this. Thanks.

When I am within adobe CC and click on the 3 dots next to Lightroom I see open (Intel) - could this potentially be a problem?
 

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clee01l said:
Lightroom Classic runs M1 as a default on an M1 Machine. You would need to manually force it to run the intel version under rosetta. It does not seem that the OP has the skillet to know how to do that. I expect his response to your poost is “How do I know if I am running Rosetta?”


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Thanks for all of your support, sir!
 
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gary_11 said:
Hi everyone.

I am new to the forum and hoping you will be able to help me out.

Recently, I have received my new MacBook Pro 16" M1 MAX. 64gb ram with 2tb storage (1.5 tb still available). After lots of research and watching videos online, I was made to think this thing would be like a rocket ship! Especially at the price point of just over £4000!

I have been very disappointed with the speed within lightroom. For example, after making fairly basic changes within the software (exposure, contrast, saturation, white balance etc) even tapping the '\' button to scroll between the before and after edit, there is a 2-3 second delay with the rainbow loading circle coming up. I only really use the laptop for photo shop and Lightroom, and the rest of my basic use within the laptop seems to be ok (still not crazy fast like I was expecting). Other viewers I see online, seem to have instantaneous response and are all reporting incredible speeds within adobe.

I have been onto Apple support today and after various calls, they found one problem with the 'spotlight' however apart from that, most of the answers I get is the fact it's a 'third party software' problem.

To give you a bit more background Lightroom is installed on the Mac, and the files are kept on the Mac itself too. I build 1/1 previews and there is around 500 culled images 5 star from a catalog of around 2000 shot on the Sony a7iii and a7riii which I am filtering by 'rating'.

Has anyone got any suggestions of what I can do / try? Does this sound normal and am I just being unrealistic?

I am so hopeful someone can help with a suggestion or a new avenue to explore, as right now, it feels like I have wasted a lot of money!

Thank you,
Gary
Click to expand...
Hi,
same issue for me with my macbook air M1 and only 8Gb RAM... Solved some minutes ago by this simply tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArbjC-kc034&t=56s

Hope is good for U2

Regards
 
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Resetting Lightroom Preferences.

See this blog feature from the Lightroom Queen to give you some background on Lightroom Preferences and how to reset them.
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-...ces/?msclkid=81848cc6bbe711ecb2c0cdbb89471c26

Resetting the preferences can sometimes resolve unusual Lightroom Classic behaviour. The downside is that it is the equivalent of a factory reset and you need to re establish your own settings again after the reset.

Ver 11.3
This contains a new feature to make it easier to reset the preferences.

Victoria refers to it in her blog post.... which you can find here.... https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-classic-11-3/


1649936714361.png


Unfortunately, you still need to re enter your personal settings after resetting, as it acts like a factory reset.

Cable.
It is likely that the Dell supplied cable should be ok. However the physical characteristics (and resulting bandwidth) of a USB C cable may differ depending on the protocols to be used over the cable and the bandwidth required. You will notice that Thunderbolt 3 cables, for example, will be much thicker and often shorter than the most basic USB C cable, should have a Thunderbolt 3/4 logo and can cater for 40 Mbps throughput. A cheap USB C imported cable make work to charge small peripherals such as keyboards, but may not cater for the bandwidth to drive a 4k monitor, thunderbolt 3 external drive, etc... Use this as an opportunity to define what cable you need for your screen and then tape a label to the cable, so you will know that is the cable to be used for your screen in future. Cables get mixed up all the time, especially if you introduce a docking station between your computer and screen.
 
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