Author Topic: Speed up Photo Mechanic  (Read 8059 times)

Offline Pixel

  • Newcomer
  • *
  • Posts: 30
    • View Profile
Speed up Photo Mechanic
« on: January 16, 2011, 12:52:17 PM »
I have a new MacBook Pro Intel Core i7 4gb of RAM
Latest version of PM.
I have large folders that I open in PM but it just takes FOREVER to display the images. Any tips for speeding up the process to get the images to display quicker. More RAM? Prefs I can change? Anything?!
« Last Edit: January 16, 2011, 12:56:01 PM by Pixel »

Offline Hayo Baan

  • Uber Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 2552
  • Professional Photographer & Software Developer
    • View Profile
    • Hayo Baan - Photography
Re: Speed up Photo Mechanic
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2011, 01:03:40 PM »
Kirk likely has some good default cache settings for you if you haven't already applied those.

One thing you may consider (if you find yourself frequently opening the same folder) is to let PM retain the cache files even after it closes down (this is likely to negatively influence startup times though).

Hope this helps,
    Hayo
Hayo Baan - Photography
Web: www.hayobaan.nl

Offline Kirk Baker

  • Senior Software Engineer
  • Camera Bits Staff
  • Superhero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 24731
    • View Profile
    • Camera Bits, Inc.
Re: Speed up Photo Mechanic
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2011, 02:18:38 PM »
I have a new MacBook Pro Intel Core i7 4gb of RAM
Latest version of PM.
I have large folders that I open in PM but it just takes FOREVER to display the images. Any tips for speeding up the process to get the images to display quicker. More RAM? Prefs I can change? Anything?!

There are two main things that will slow down the initial appearance of images.  One is enabling RAW rendering and forcing PM to always render RAW, and two is sorting the Contact Sheet by anything but Filename or Modification Time.

Lastly if you've put too much memory to PM's Memory Cache then that can be detrimental as well.  I don't recommend ever setting it higher than 768 MB.

HTH,

-Kirk

Offline Pixel

  • Newcomer
  • *
  • Posts: 30
    • View Profile
Re: Speed up Photo Mechanic
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2011, 03:11:16 PM »
Much better!!!!

Thanks!!!!!!!

Offline Luiz Muzzi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 704
    • View Profile
    • Luiz Muzzi Photography
Re: Speed up Photo Mechanic
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2011, 03:29:50 PM »
Kirk,
My PM's Memory Cache is set to 128. Do you think that is enough?
I've got a MacBook Pro, with a 2.4 GHz processor and 4 GB of memory.
TIA

-Luiz Muzzi

Offline Kirk Baker

  • Senior Software Engineer
  • Camera Bits Staff
  • Superhero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 24731
    • View Profile
    • Camera Bits, Inc.
Re: Speed up Photo Mechanic
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2011, 04:28:46 PM »
Luiz,

My PM's Memory Cache is set to 128. Do you think that is enough?
I've got a MacBook Pro, with a 2.4 GHz processor and 4 GB of memory.

It really depends on how much RAM your other applications are using, but I think 512-768 MB of Memory Cache would be fine.

-Kirk

Offline Luiz Muzzi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 704
    • View Profile
    • Luiz Muzzi Photography
Re: Speed up Photo Mechanic
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2011, 02:26:02 AM »
Thanks for your quick reply.

-Luiz Muzzi