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Incredibly slow rendering when editing raws from the new Nikon D800

I would be happy to hear from users of the D800 and Apple's "Aperture" 3.2.3. My own experience is that the rendering of f.inst. a "burned" file/picture (Raw-file) is incredibly SLOW....what is your experience. Any knowledge of whether Apple will come forward with an upgrade of Aperture?

Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on May 8, 2012 1:33 PM

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22 replies

May 8, 2012 11:11 PM in response to William Lloyd

I am fully aware of all about the file size, and that one should expect a slow down in the rendering, but this is really a significant slow down, and unless Apple come up with a solution I am afraid that one is obliged to find other solutions for the editing of Nikon D800 raw files. My details are:


MacBook Pro Intel

OS: Mac OSX, 10.7.3 Lion

Installed memory: 8GB


Would still much appreciate any comment from other Forum members with Nikon D800 having noticed the same problem.

May 8, 2012 11:56 PM in response to mamster37

How long does it take to open the image? Just to know exactly what your problem is.


Are your Aperture Library and your master image files on the system volume or on an external volume or a Network volume? What kind of drive do you have as an internal drive?


The location of the library and the masters makes a huge difference in loading time for editing:


I do not have your Nikon, but occasionally very large tiff-scans; - 1 - 1.8 GB.


Opening one of them for editing with an Intel i7 took:

  • ~ 15 minutes on an external USB drive
  • ~ 5 minutes on an internal drive
  • less than a minutes on an SSD drive.


Loding these images in Photoshop CS5 takes even longer btw.

So it would help to know your hardware and the exact loading times you see, also if you have any applications running in the background. What does the Activity Monitor show on RAM and disk usage when you are loading your images? Do you see any diagnostic messages or crash reports in the Console window?

May 9, 2012 7:54 AM in response to mamster37

mamster37 wrote:


I am fully aware of all about the file size, and that one should expect a slow down in the rendering, but this is really a significant slow down, and unless Apple come up with a solution I am afraid that one is obliged to find other solutions for the editing of Nikon D800 raw files. My details are:


MacBook Pro Intel

OS: Mac OSX, 10.7.3 Lion

Installed memory: 8GB


You have not described which MBP CPU/GPU, drives SSD/HDD, how full any HDDs are. That is essential information.


As all the photo sites have discussed, the D800 files are huge and will require more horsepower to handle. With a new D800 you are the experimenter here on the bleeding edge of technology, so all of us will learn from your observations.


I would guess that only the strongest Sandy Bridge MBPs with 8-16 GB RAM will do well. I was doing fine with 8 GB RAM (zero page-outs) and then recently I did some very aggressive Photoshop/Aperture work and page outs skyrocketed: I need more RAM, and I don't have a D800 yet so my NEF files run only ~20 MB each. How large (MB) are your NEF files?


You can evaluate whether or not you have adequate RAM by looking at the Page Outs number under System Memory on the Activity Monitor app before starting a typical work session; recheck after working and if the page outs change (manual calculation of ending page outs number minus starting page outs number) is not zero your workflow is RAM-starved. Ignore page ins, the pie charts and other info in Activity Monitor.


If your test shows that page outs increase at all during operation it is affecting performance. You can


• add RAM as feasible


• restart with some frequency if you suspect memory leaks (common especially with less-than-top-quality applications)


• and/or simply try to run only one app at a time, for sure diligently closing unneeded apps like browsers


• and/or switch 64-bit operation to 32-bit operation (which will make some additional RAM space available). Note that your Mac may already default to 32-bit. See Switching Kernels:


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4287


Note that RAM is cheap and heavy apps' usage of more RAM is a good thing. Photoshop for instance has been able to under OS X take advantage of up to at least 32 GB RAM for years.


Thanks for sharing your experiences.


-Allen


EDIT: Note my focus on discussing RAM above is because that is all we know about your MBP. It does not mean that I necessarily suggest that RAM may be your primary issue.

May 10, 2012 6:34 AM in response to léonie

Thks for coming back. I'll try to provide answers to most of your question raised, BUT from the very start let me underline that it is NOT the loading time from the D800 to Aperture that takes time, it works pretty well. It is the time of rendering when editing these huge files, for inst. the process of burning and dodging. I estimate that just one "pensel" movement og burning may take 10-15 seconds...


Until recently, when I got my Nikon D800 I had from the very beginning relocated my Masters to external drives. I am closing down all other programs when using Aperture.For the time being I run 64-bit, again to help from that end. Peronally I am inclined to believe that MORE factors are behind the slow rendering of files.


Here you have some more facts:


Modelnavn: MacBook Pro

Model-id: MacBookPro6,2

Processornavn: Intel Core i7

Processorhastighed: 2,66 GHz

Antal processorer: 1

Antal kerner i alt: 2

L2-buffer (pr. Core): 256 KB

L3-buffer: 4 MB

Hukommelse: 8 GB

Processorforbindelseshastighed: 4.8 GT/s

Boot ROM-version: MBP61.0057.B0F

SMC-version (system): 1.58f15

Serienummer (system): W80160U6AGZ

Hardware-uuid: 6AA74F15-2B80-5E8B-A0B9-5451373B604D

Sudden Motion Sensor:

Status: Slået til



My system HD is a 500GB SATA

of which:

168,16 GB is free


Any further help wil be most appreciated.


Oeksen37+

May 10, 2012 7:49 AM in response to mamster37

The model identification loses some in the translation for me, but as near as I can tell you have a mid-2010 15" 2-core Macbook Pro, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor, without Thunderbolt. Please advise if that is incorrect.


As a frame of reference that MBP is about 60% the CPU power of the best 4-core 2011-2012 Macbook Pros, and I believe that GPU is pretty weak.


Nevertheless that should be a workable setup.


• First importance is to find out if RAM is adequate. What happened with the page outs test I described above in my earlier post?


• Also, is OS X current at 10.6.8, or are you running 10.6.2 like it shows in your sig?


Thank you.


-Allen

May 10, 2012 9:24 AM in response to SierraDragon

Thanks a lot Allen for your kind coming back helping. Your mention of my model identification seems right to me. However, what OS-version ís concerned, I am more up to date than you believe (10.7.4)....you are most likely right in your assuming that my CPU power is insufficient for handling these huge files from Nikon D800. To me it

seems as if one shall have to change hardware every second year to keep track with file sizes, at any rate these from D800. No, I have not found time to make page out tests....sorry! Per+

May 10, 2012 10:16 AM in response to mamster37

I am not having such problems with individual RAW files and processing of them from my D800. I am using a 1st generation Mac Pro 8 Core. I keep my Managed Library in an exclusvie partition of a 2 TB internal SATA disc drive that is 7200 rpm. I have 10 GB of RAM. My Library has over 60,000 images in it, most of which are from RAW of earlier Nikons.


I am continuing to use Snow Leopard as my production OS, but I have used Lion with other Aperture Libraries -- I will test with the D800 images in Lion when time allows.


What I do notice, is that after a long session of processing numerous D800 NEFs, memory usage will show large amounts of RAM going in the Inactive category when observed in the Activity Monitor. This issue has really only been noticed since using the D800 images. OSX is not releasing the memory used by each image processing as I move to other images. While the release should happen, it does not, and I can see the app being starved for Free Memory to process with. It does not manifest itself while initially importing, but only with later editing or Export sessions.


Ernie

May 10, 2012 11:03 AM in response to mamster37

The reason that the page outs test is so critical is because increased RAM demands are a likely consequence of larger files sizes.


The fact that you are on 10.7 increases RAM demands. Quite a number of folks in the past had issues with Aperture on 10.7 with marginal RAM. Do make sure that Software Update is fully current.


8 GB RAM is normally quite fine, but each workflow is different. I can easily page out my 8 GB RAM with Aperture/PS workflows - and I am on 10.6.8 which is less RAM demanding than 10.7 is.


On your box with older CPU, GPU and a very slow 5400 rpm 2.5" laptop HDD, any page outs from RAM go to the very slow fairly full hard drive and bog down operation in a major way. On my MBP with SSD or on Ernie's 7200 rpm tower HDD page outs are much less problematic than on a 2.5" laptop HDD.


RAM upgrading to 16 GB RAM is expensive enough that we do not want to just assume it is a problem on your box; in fact it may or may not be possible to use 16 GB RAM on your box. And if RAM is a problem you still might want to consider other options like different software or a new box rather than spending $200 on an old box. The Sandy Bridge Macs (2011+) are an unusually large overall improvement over 2010 chipsets.


The GPU is also a likely culprit. Aperture performance in the past has been very GPU-dependent. E.g. the very strongest G5 Mac towers would not run Aperture unless the stock GPU was upgraded.


-Allen

May 11, 2012 11:53 AM in response to SierraDragon

I do appreciate the very kind feedback from all of you having brought forward your own individual D800/Aperture experience. However, I read the contributions as if there ARE in fact differences in the reports. Some faces slow down already when importing from camera/card-reader, OTHERS don't notice slow down until they initiate the file editing within Aperture.



Since I brought up my own proper experience (considerable slow down when "dodging/burning" of an imported D800 NEF file) - and being still rather convinced that my own problem for a great part is to be found in lack of recently up to date hardware - although my Macbook Pro is only about 2 1/2 years old.



BUT, look here: Today I thought that I would try out something that I had NOT tried before. I have for a couple of years had also "Photoshop CS5" installed on my MBP....consequently I loaded a D800 NEF file into PS, and expected the same issue - i.e. a lengthy rendering of f.inst a dodge/burn manipulation. But, what happened? On the contrary everything went smoothly - without ANY delay in the rendering of the file. How come that Photoshop, depending probably on exactly the SAME hardware as Aperture, can better cope with the D800 NEF files than Aperture ....I thought that I would share this experience with you dear forum fellows. This, my own experience, gives rise to various considerations for my part...


Is it likely that a coming upgrade to Aperture 3 will solve this problem, or?

May 11, 2012 1:22 PM in response to mamster37

I have not been impressed with speed in CS5 and these NEF from the D800 when compared to dealing with a single image in Aperture. Were I to have to, as is often the case, deal with say 200 images, I cannot imagined the basic workflow with CS5 vs Aperture. Furthermore, in tests just now, I found that changes made in the RAW dialogue were preserved to alter the RAW file for the next opening, even without using Save or Open.


CS5 puts a load on RAM, and when open along with Aperture, can hugely impact available memory.


A fair comparison would be between Aperture and Lightroom, but I leave you to make that test if desired. A pro friend on mine was really surprised to find that LR did not show the focus points in an image like Aperture does, but that is only a small thing.


Ernie

May 11, 2012 9:14 PM in response to mamster37

Hi,

I had the same experience when changing from my Nikon D40 to a D5100. The raw image file went from 5MB to 20MB and the responsiveness of brushed in adjustments declined noticeably. It's still usable, but there are more page outs happening than there used to be.


Maybe do some benchmarking of a D800 raw versus another camera raw versus a similar sized tiff????

Incredibly slow rendering when editing raws from the new Nikon D800

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