DPP Slow generating high quality preview

Hi...I have an OK PC that is no speed demon, but its not sluggish either:
Core 2 Duo 1.86Ghz
4.00 GB RAM
Windows 8 32 bit

I have nothing but DPP Open and it takes 5 seconds to render the first image from RAW and then another 30 seconds to complete the High QUality Preview generation.

These are 20 MB .CR2 from Canon 70D

This is frustrating...often, while waiting for image to complete its high quality generation, I am thinking...is this picture soft, out of focus and then BAM, it completes its generation and its tack sharp.

Now, my machine is no beast, but come on...30-40 seconds to view a single image!

What can be done to fix this?

Well, that certainly does sound slow compared to what I see!

I will say, though, that I have an older camera with "only" 13Mps, and I also have a more "robust" system, with a quad-core processor and running Winx64 with 8GB of RAM...

But still your stuff sounds real slow!

I just opened a folder with 49 Raw files and it took less than 2 seconds to generate all the previews. Then if I double-click a file the image shows up in a full-screen view in the Edit layout, and it does that in, gosh, considerably less than a second. If I go back to the "Main" window, and click on the Quick View, it again takes less than a second, and if I in the Quick View click on Full Screen, again, less than a second, and when I say less than a second I mean way less!

Now granted, my 13Mp Raw files vary from 12-14 MegaBytes, but still it sounds like something's going on with your system...

Of course a place to start would be upgrading your Windows to 64-bit and then adding more RAM, in fact I'd say max it out and try it out before your next "move".

Then, though, things can get complicated...replacin​g your CPU may not be the best thing for you (depending on your budget)...in the meantime you'd want to see if anything shows up, such as stuff running (under the hood). You can take a look in your Task Manager for applications, processes and services, and if anything there is not needed to run your system turn it off, at least wile you trouble-shoot your DPP performance. In fact, the Task Manager can also be handy by checking out the Performance tag -- it shows you processor and RAM usage, you can look at it as you start DPP and then open a folder, do what your do (although you'll need to be using a smaller window with DPP so that you can see the Task Manager at work).

Then, there is a utility called MSConfig that you can get to by hitting the Start button then in the little Programs window typing "msconfig"/Enter. What will come up should have a lot in common with what shows in the Task Manager, but check it out and see if anything shows up...

And then, of course, there are viruses and malware that can creep in and really mess things up! Some of them you could "catch" with the TM and/or msconfig, but there is really no substitute for a decent antivirus/antimalware system. Fortunately, there a some decent ones available for free! They can both detect and remove the infections! Another app to install and try is CCleaner, it could pick something up.

Beyond that, well, if those things don't solve your problem, you will have to consider "system issues", which could be a combination of hardware and software...

You can try uninstalling and re-installing DPP, in fact, if you have a second hard drive you could even uninstall and re-install Windows, or, if there was a time when things behaved better, you could do a Windows System Restore to back then, but otherwise...

If you find that other programs, especially photo viewing/editing programs (try converting/saving some high-quality jpegs and opening them in something), well if they are also slow then that could give you a clue, although the bottom line would be "what is the root cause and what is the fix?".

Hey, if you are unable to at least upgrade your OS to 64-bit and then your RAM to at least 8-bits, then maybe it's time to save your nickels and dimes for a new workstation/

Thanks for the great response. I will have to see about upgrading my RAM for starters.

Also, I do have 2 monitors pulling from a single Graphics card...could that be a problem?
2 Dell 2007WFP connected to a NVIDIA GeForce GT630 via DVI cables.

Unfortunately, upgrading the OS to 64 bit will have to come first. 32 bit cannot support more than 4 GB of RAM and it doesn't even utilize all of that, only around 3 GB.
The CPU is rather slow, quad core and 34 Gh would certainly be faster, but changing it will depend on whether the mother board will support a newer CPU.

That's the easiest thing to test: just turn one off.

You might consider installing an SSD as the boot drive and for storing some photos. That would give you a considerable speed boost.

tzalman wrote in post #16947263
You might consider installing an SSD as the boot drive and for storing some photos. That would give you a considerable speed boost.

I did this a few months back and the improved performance was absolutely amazing.

Well, I don't have an SSD, and I see nothing as slow as the OP is describing, so seriously, kezug, sure, try turning off/unplugging a monitor, then take things a step at a time!

In Tools > Preferences > Viewing and saving RAW images > High quality,
try checking View images at high speed (moiré reduction off).

That brought a big speed difference on my machine and I'm yet to see any moiré since the change.

You also need to have enough free disk space for your virtual memory/paging file. Even if you have enough free space on your disk(s), you may have a look at the settings (Control Panel>System>Advanced System Settings>Performance section>Advanced tab if needed).

Something like 10G should be fine, or at least the equivalent of your RAM.

Did you upgrade from an older windows version? It's not always a good idea to upgrade the system on older hardware, as recent OS often use more ressources.

agedbriar wrote in post #16948262
In Tools > Preferences > Viewing and saving RAW images > High quality,
try checking View images at high speed (moiré reduction off).

That brought a big speed difference on my machine and I'm yet to see any moiré since the change.

^^That's also useful

I have done a lot of things to try and figure out where the bottle neck is for my PC when DPP is Generating a high quality preview including completely reinstalling Windows 8.1!

With barebones running, the performance was the same.
I tried opening up an image from my main drive rather than my secondary data drive...same performance.

All this was done over the weekend only to find that, my bottleneck has to be coming from my CPU.

I downloaded CPU-Z and GPU-Z plus using Windows own task manager...showing all monitors while DPP was "generating high quality preview" shows that my CPU is maxing out at 100% while other areas are showing activity, but nothing close to 100%.

I may look into a new CPU to support my old Motherboard to see if I can get a faster response...shouldnt cost much since I am looking for a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad chipset.

...and then I stumble upon this...which just happened to be announced today. Perhaps the software upgrade may help as well!

Canon to Launch Substantial Upgrades to DPP 4.0 and EOS Utility 3.0 Soon
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=9871

kezug wrote in post #16976183
...and then I stumble upon this...which just happened to be announced today. Perhaps the software upgrade may help as well!

Canon to Launch Substantial Upgrades to DPP 4.0 and EOS Utility 3.0 Soon
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=9871

Well, though, a question has come up, it's possible that DPP 4 doesn't support all the Canon cameras, although this could be a document "mixup", check out this thread:

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1383409

^^^ Thanks for that link...very disappointing though.

This is very annoying to me, that it takes so much CPU to render a 20 MB picture.

I am curious if others do not even notice that the "Generating a high quality preview" is still showing...its kind of hard to see the difference unless you are zoomed in 50% or more, but its a huge difference in quality.

kezug wrote in post #16977944
^^^ Thanks for that link...very disappointing though.

This is very annoying to me, that it takes so much CPU to render a 20 MB picture.

I am curious if others do not even notice that the "Generating a high quality preview" is still showing...its kind of hard to see the difference unless you are zoomed in 50% or more, but its a huge difference in quality.

I use Glary Utilities which is a free program. It does a cleanup job on defragmented disks and you might find as I did it speeds up your machine.

Going into windows 'clean up' in system accessories also speeds up my machine as raw really does defragment the drive. Also I find when I run videos they run more cleanly after the Glarys treatment.