Poor SW performance (getting worse with every update)

Hi @Required,
my photos are located on a NAS (connected via GBit-LAN to the router, Laptop is connected with fast Wifi to router. I know that storage on SSD might be faster for the picture access, but the NAS is better for my workflow. As PL3x was ways faster I do not expect that the NAS is the main bottleneck.

I`ll try the database hint later this day. Thnx.

Ticket is already active. I`ve sent some diagnosis data yesterday evening. “Barbara” is taking care.

Thanks for your reply, Joerg

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Welcome. It seems like this issue may be more specific to something in your computer configuration rather than a general one. I have not changed my desktop computer in several years as well. PL3 took 12 to 15 seconds to open and the current version, PL 4.2 takes about 9 seconds. Does your computer have all the latest Windows 10 updates? What else is running when you are using PhotoLab? Have you looked at your memory usage which PhotoLab is starting?

I hope you’re able to determine where the bottleneck is.

Mark

Hi @mwsilvers,
please check my other posting. Obviously there is a dependency on the number of (sub-) folders.

To your questions: Computer is SW and configurationwise up to date (and not a slow one). Mostly PL is used as the single application (or sometimes web browser or Windows Mail in parallel, but nothing which is really demanding).

Thanks, Joerg

Hello,

based on the questions of the support team I have now started a few trials and recorded the times….

  1. Start time in original configuration (last directory opened in PL4 was on the NAS, (one of approx. 600 parallel sub-folders)) reproducibly approx. 2.5 - 3.5 minutes
  2. Start time with disconnected network drives (last directory opened in PL4 was on the NAS, (one of approx. 600 parallel sub-folders)): approx. 30s
  3. Start time with reorganized / rearranged network folders (last directory opened in PL4 was on the NAS, (one of approx. 60 parallel sub-folders)): approx. 20s
  4. Start time with the last opened directory on the local SSD: 12-13s
  5. Measurement from 2020 with PL3.3 and the last directory opened in PL3.3 was on the NAS (one of approx. 450 parallel subfolders)), reproducible approx. 17-25s

From this I derive the following conclusions and questions:

  • PL4 apparently has a problem with the large number of folders (comparison 1 to 3).
  • The performance problem is not due to the use of the NAS (comparison 3 to 4)
  • Why has the performance loss in the original configuration been so severe since the last update?
  • Does the number of (sub-) folders influence the startup time (is it possible that exceeding 512 is a problem?)?

The findings above seem to solve my problem. Nevertheless, I would like to understand the rootcauses so that I can behave accordingly or so that DXO has a chance to improve something in the future.

Thank you all for your support. Regards, Jörg

Not sure if this performance regression is entirely if at all a problem caused by PL4 or DXOs fault.

  1. The Meltdown&Spectre CVE Mitigations necessary for almost all Intel CPUs can have a quite severe impact on the I/O performance of the system, especially with a large number of files and/or folders. But it could only explain parts of the problem and would require that appropriate patches have been applied in the meantime and that those Mitigations are active.

  2. On my HP Envy X360 convertible (Ryzen 4500U with 802.11ac) when opening PL4 directly onto a (1Gbps) NAS in a shared folder (there are above 4500 Folders and 60.000 files in the same share!) the whole startup of PL4 still takes only somewhere around 11-13seconds until the GUI is visible and around 16-18 seconds until the first Previews are loaded. (directly loading onto the SSD it takes around 11-12 seconds until those are rendered)

  3. On my Ryzen 9 Workstation the startup time of PL4 is always around 9 seconds!

So i don`t really think there is a limitation revolving around the number of folders/files and caused by PL4.

Maybe it´s another software causing massive additional i/o access? The AV Scanner for example?

I had the same problem until a few moments ago. Based on your issue I have looked into my setup and found that if I go into Edit / Preferences and tab along to Performance and select DeePRIME acceleration to Use CPU only - it speeds my PL4 startup time from 3 minutes down to 30seconds. I have an NVDIA GeForce GTX750Ti installed and it does have an marker against it informing that its partially supported. So - selected CPU Only and its now working very much more quickly. Hope this helps you.


Colmax
Colin

4h

I had the same problem until a few moments ago. Based on your issue I have looked into my setup and found that if I go into Edit / Preferences and tab along to Performance and select DeePRIME acceleration to Use CPU only - it speeds my PL4 startup time from 3 minutes down to 30seconds. I have an NVDIA GeForce GTX750Ti installed and it does have an marker against it informing that its partially supported. So - selected CPU Only and its now working very much more quickly. Hope this helps you.

Hi @Colmax,
thanks for your hint. I tried both options (CPU only and automatic). This had no influence to the startup time. The support for the Intel UHD Graphics 620 installed in my notebook is also “partly only”.

Up to now I had the best results with re-organizing the folders on my NAS to have a lower amount of folders in parallel. DxO is still investigating …

Let`s wait and see.

Thanks, Joerg

Colin,

I also have an NVDIA GeForce GTX750Ti graphics card. Despite only being marked as partially supported I have expressly selected the card to be used in the Preferences / Performance / DeepPRIME setting. I have successfully processed a few hundred images with DeepPRIME Denoising and not experienced any of the “stuttering and/or errors” that are indicated as possible problems. Also, I haven’t experienced any startup delays in PL4 with this graphics card setting. More importantly, to me, I’ve conducted benchmarks of the export times of DeepPRIME with and without using the graphics card and find the graphics card to be significantly faster than than the CPU-based noise reduction by a factor of 2-3.

Thanks for sharing this Paul. I’ve gone back and tried the other modes and lo and behold PL4 loads in approximately 30seconds with each! No idea what I’ve done but it had been loading in approx 3 minutes! Other than clearing out Google Chrome history, I have zero idea as to what I’ve done!!

hello all,
it seems that there is a random effect on the startup time which passes away in the same random way. Very strange. Would be interesting if other users have the same effect, too.

We arer talking about startup time, I believe ie: not CPU vs GPU performance…

I’ve had this problem for a long time now. It can take two minutes before PL4 is ready to work. I’ve noticed that it may be related to reading the database file somehow. I’ve tried to read the log file to see where the hold up is, but it is a huge file, and I don’t know what I’m looking for. But creating a folder to hold the contents of the database folder and moving all files to it and deleting all database files ALWAYS reduces startup up time to mere seconds. PL4 will create a new empty database file.

Dick

@rlebleu this could fit to my observations when reorganizing the folders. If the folders are reorganized on a very central level of the tree (like I did) all entries in the database file are not valid any more, which could have the same effect than deleting the old database.

Hoping that DxO developers read here, too :slight_smile:

Thanks, Joerg

Good morning guys,

Let me ask @alex or @gpailler to have a look at it.

Regards,
Svetlana G.

On my old MacBook Pro 2012 (but with SSD), my startup time is 20 s in project mode with 300 pictures in the project.
It seems you have a individual problem, not generic for DxO.

Hi Joerg, DxO developer here :wink:

We have received your support ticket #257124 and are investigating the issue. We will come back to you very soon.

Thanks

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I just bought yesterday Photolab, and experiencing 4 minutes startup, I’ve already created a separate thread but it’s not visible yet, and also wrote to support and didn’t receive an answer yet, I haven’t been able to fix it, but in my case, if I look at the logs it has to do with licensing, and if I keep my internet off, it starts in 4 or 5 seconds.

Do you have the Windows 10 or the Mac version?

Mark

The latest version of Windows 10 and freshly installed after a complete format of the disk just a couple of weeks ago, at first I was thinking of some hardware issue although I use this system successfully for heavy 3D rendering, but the log show lines like this “(name: N/A - customer: N/A - contract: N/A): -17” the vast majority of error says -17 which I’m guessing is the error type, deleting the log before starting, shows that a single start it’s producing a 28.000 lines log where the vast majority are errors, and if the internet it’s off, starts fine, even switching off Antivirus and firewall still giving errors.

I don’t see these performance degradations, neither on startup nor during use.

Apart from fixing the startup/verification procedure, DxO could possibly publish a few hints on how to best operate DPL from a performance point of view. Adobe publishes something for Lightroom Classic:

The best order of Develop operations to increase performance (in Lightroom Classic) is as follows:

  1. Spot healing.
  2. Geometry corrections, such as Lens Correction profiles and Manual corrections,
    including keystone corrections using the Vertical slider.
  3. Global non-detail corrections, such as Exposure and White Balance.
    These corrections can also be done first if desired.
  4. Local corrections, such as Gradient Filter and Adjustment Brush strokes.
  5. Detail corrections, such as Noise Reduction and Sharpening.

Note : Performing spot healing first improves the accuracy of the spot healing, and ensures the boundaries of the healed areas match the spot location.

Attn: @sgospodarenko