Adobe updated Lightroom to a Universal app. I opened it up on an M1 mini with 8GB RAM, and quickly skipped through photos. Take a look at that RAM usage, and swap!
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Adobe Lightroom for M1 available--using more than 8GB RAM
- Thread starter Mistercharlie
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Your memory pressure is still well within the green zone, and that is a better indicator of utilization than the raw numbers. I've noticed several reviewers start to say that the M1 runs as well with 8GB of RAM as Intel systems do with 16GB. While I feel that may be some level of hyperbole, I do think that UMA allows the system to allocate and use RAM more efficiently, and that is probably where these benefits are coming from.
I noticed that, and was quite impressed. Later I have some photo editing to do, so I'll see how it behaves when I'm not trying to stress it by flipping through a zillion images.
Scanning through my library of photos in Lightroom as I cull photos from a shoot has ram usage exceed 8gb on my base MBA (8gb,7core,256gb) and memory pressure frequently fluctuates between yellow and green (no lag/slowing down in the app though).
This was in a library with 2 folders and approximately 7-8000 photos.
Also had a one off crash (not sure if it was ram related) when the ram usage went above 10g, but worked fine after that without any crashes.
This was in a library with 2 folders and approximately 7-8000 photos.
Also had a one off crash (not sure if it was ram related) when the ram usage went above 10g, but worked fine after that without any crashes.
I also think that because of the really fast SSDs in these machines they have increased the "swapiness".
When I was new to Linux a long, long time ago I found deciphering its memory usage numbers confusing but Apple just takes this to a whole new level. Apple itself recognises how confusing their memory stats are which is why they included the Memory Pressure graph in the first place.
The 8.39GB of memory listed as being used by Lightroom has to include swap correct? Because it is not using that much physical memory. It must just be paging previously viewed photos out to swap.
I think that's the case.
That was using multiple apps. I actually had a Descript job running at the same time. If anything, this shows how impressive the memory management is on the M1. LR felt smooth the whole time.
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I've just been running a couple of "Enhance Details" tests. This is crazy. On both my 2015 MacBook Pro, using Enhance Details really chugs along for a while. Same with my i7 Thinkpad. Now it's near as damn-it instantaneous. And this is just the 8GB MacBook Air. I've noticed memory usage seems to constantly remain below 7GB but it uses swap space. Memory pressure likewise remains green.
Yeah, I've left both Lightroom & Activity Monitor open, while I browse the web. The memory pressure is now solid green, yet the memory used has not reduced, and the swap is sitting at ~5 GB. Yet, nothing seems to have bogged down and no beachballs. While in Lightroom I can hold down the arrow button and the pictures will just fly by!
I still think they need to tweak that memory usage though.
If nothing seems bogged down, why tweak memory usage?
The fixation with the activity monitor is crazy.
Free memory does no process any good. So there is no reason to reduce the working set of processes to free memory if there is no demand. Maybe the currently unused memory pages assign to some process will be used in the future. Leaving them in memory means if that occurs there is no need to load them again from storage.
I'm worried that our SSD's won't last long. When culling a folder with around 4000 photos I get similar results on a MPB M1 8G.
I'm writing around 100gb/day to disk... I wonder what's the WTB on these SSD's...
I'm writing around 100gb/day to disk... I wonder what's the WTB on these SSD's...
I was hoping memory usage would improve with Universal code, but my Mac mini 8gb is still hitting yellow too much and getting sluggish on importing the last wedding I did with over 1000 pics. My 16gb Intel machines nor my 16gb M1 MBA hit the yellow at all. Planning on returning this MM 8gb when my 16gb finally arrives some time next month....
I would not be surprised if they will last 1000 Tb, which means 27 years in your case.
I seriously doubt the universal/x86 code is much of an issue (not saying zero, of course).
Importing lots of pics and applying basic filters etc and raw conversion - that's multiple threads - all of them - screen buffers, colour space calcs, etc, etc. It's a big user of memory. It's not the 'code' here that's using the memory, it's the actual user data.
Consider it confirmed: heavy photography benefits from more memory. M1 magic doesn't change that.
Don't remember the speed of my Intel macs and they're sold, but I did just ran a couple panorama merges of six 16MP RAW files (u4/3). Lightroom Classic, so this is under Rosetta.
I "scientifically" used the stopwatch function of my Apple Watch, so timings are approximate.
Cylindrical, FillEdges. About 16 seconds.
AutoCrop instead of FillEdges, about 9.5 seconds.
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You are also worried when using a web browser or any app with auto save function or any app that relies on a database right?
Are those times from when you start building the preview or when you merge after already making the preview?Don't remember the speed of my Intel macs and they're sold, but I did just ran a couple panorama merges of six 16MP RAW files (u4/3). Lightroom Classic, so this is under Rosetta.
I "scientifically" used the stopwatch function of my Apple Watch, so timings are approximate.
Cylindrical, FillEdges. About 16 seconds.
AutoCrop instead of FillEdges, about 9.5 seconds.
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