WTF happened to Lightroom?

[Gera]

Is anyone else experiencing a massive slow performance in Lightroom with its latest 14.4 update or is it just me?

Current system:

i7-13700K
Nvidia 3070
64GB DDR5 RAM

Tried it on both, Win 10 and Win 11. 

Seriously thinking of moving to Mac as much as I'd like to avoid it...

[Damien Symonds]

Don't be silly. Move to Bridge.

[Gera]

5 hours ago, Damien Symonds said:

Don't be silly. Move to Bridge.

I use all three... each for a different purpose. 

[Brian]

On 8/8/2025 at 9:05 PM, Gera said:

i7-13700K
Nvidia 3070

There's your answer. Especially the Graphics Card. Adobe's products are using GPU for a performance boost, especially if you keep upgrading every time it's offered. I'm still on PS 2023!! I won't dare upgrade because my 2017 iMac won't be able to handle it and PS CC 2023 pushes things as it is. This problem you are facing is only going to get worse each and every time you upgrade. 

 

[Gera]

6 hours ago, Brian said:

There's your answer. Especially the Graphics Card.

 

Are you telling me I already need to look into a damn new 5070 or something? 

[Brian]

On 8/11/2025 at 3:27 AM, Gera said:

Are you telling me I already need to look into a damn new 5070 or something? 

Well, maybe not a 5070, but since the 4070 cards are tough to find...so the short answer is: Yes. 

Or quit upgrading each and every time when Adobe releases a new version.

Remember, Adobe Photoshop is a Professional Program. Lightroom is to a degree. In either case, all the stupid AI Crap they keep adding to add "Value" so you keep your Subscription active, compounds the problem. Adobe expects you to have a current computer, with current hardware...and that is usually on a 2-3 year cycle. This is why I recommend such expensive and powerful computer setups, for both Mac & Windows; I'm not only building a computer that will run the current version of PS/LR, but one 3-5 years from now...maybe even around the 7 year mark. 

You also have to keep in mind, the NVIDIA RTX 3070 was released at the end of October in 2020. That's almost 5 years! Video Cards are now "Computers within Computers," so you have a 5 year old Computer, that identifies as a Video Card, and the current version of PS / LR is killing it. Same difference if we were talking about a 5 year old CPU. Make sense? 

At this point you have two options: 

1. Upgrade your Video Card to at least a NVIDIA RTX 4080 with 8-12GB of Dedicated Video RAM. (That's if you can find one.) Also use the NVIDIA Studio Drivers, which are meant for Adobe's Products. 
2. Downgrade your LR / Photoshop to the last version that worked well AND STAY THERE UNTIL YOU GET BETTER HARDWARE. 

Remember, Adobe's Products have changed; it's not CS6 any longer...where you can run it for almost a DECADE without worrying about Hardware. Now with each and every major release, your Hardware becomes obsolete quicker. Years ago, PS would do a Major Update every 4 years or so, with a incremental update around 2 years. Now you'll get a whole new version every year and things just move so much faster. For example, Adobe could release a major update in October, come out with the mid-version around Feb/March and then release the next version in that August (or whatever.) Instead of 4-5 years, you are getting whole version upgrades within 10 months or so, instead of 4 years. See how things are now? 

At the end of the day, it's all about money. Whether it's Adobe or Hardware Manufacturers, Hell...even Microsoft with Windows 11 is forcing people to buy new Hardware for it to run well.

It never ends. 

It's only money, right?

[Gera]

On 8/12/2025 at 11:50 PM, Brian said:

The short answer is: Yes. 

I'm installing that SoaB on tomorrow... thank you very much.

[Brian]

So what did you end up getting? I'm curious. If it is a NVIDIA Card, definitely use the NVIDIA Studio Drivers that I linked to above and NOT the default ones that come with the Card; those are meant for Video Games and General Computing. The Studio Drivers were created for Adobe's Products like Photoshop & Lightroom.  

[Gera]

11 hours ago, Brian said:

So what did you end up getting?

 

If this doesn't make it better... I swear to baby Jesus I'm moving to Mac. I'll be editing tonight and report results tomorrow. 

[Brian]

You aren't gonna like the price of switching over to a Mac, keep that in mind.  

Looks like you got the latest and greatest with NVIDIA. That's what I would have gotten if I were in your shoes. Keep in mind, Adobe pushes out crap now that often is buggy. So it might take an update or two for things to settle down. That's why I recommend to turn off any auto-updates from the Adobe Mothership App; this way you can wait a little to see if any issues are reported or patches (update to the update) are released. While I feel it's important to be conservative, you also don't want to get so far out of date that it causes you problems. It's all a balancing act, IMHO. 

Keep me posted. 

[Gera]

I just updated to the latest (14.5) in hopes it will be better than the 💩 14.4.  Auto updates are off and from what I've seen, I'm probably gonna stay there for a while. 

On a side note... Win 11 sucks 😅

 

Thank you for all of your help, sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

[Brian]

Yeah, Windows 11 does suck, and we are stuck with it. As far as PS, going from 14.5 to 14.6 usually isn't THAT big of a deal, it's when it goes from 14.xx to 15.0 is where the biggest problems occur. From what Adobe has released about the changes to Lightroom 14.5 from 14.4...the one you are most affected is "Generate Previews using GPU." It seems with each and every update Adobe does, relies more and more on having a current (and beefy) Video Card; in fact, I feel it's more important now than the choice of CPU! Which is why you were having such grief with LR. A 3070 can still hold its own with many video games...but Adobe's products? Notsomuch...

*Sigh*

It's only money, right? 

[Gera]

On 8/17/2025 at 9:50 PM, Brian said:

*Sigh*

It's only money, right? 

It is indeed only money... worse case, I'll repurpose the beast I got as a gaming system to play retro games and side scrollers on Steam to drop another 4K on a Mac Mini and and a new monitor (which I'm already looking at as it is LOL)... 

 

And yes... I do notice a difference in AI performance and Lightroom itself. I can only hope at this point that Windows improves 11's performance from now on. Thanks for the tip of not updating. I think I would like Lr as it is now for a while for the work I do.