Was your upgrade from 3.6 to 4 worthwhile?

Question

I'm not sure whether the net plusses of LR 4.1 are worth the moderate performance penalty I experience compared to LR 3.6. 
When I first tried LR 4, I was impressed at the superior raw conversiona I got with a few 5D2 images previously converted with LR 3.6.  But going back to LR 3's PV 2010, and using a LR 4's PV 2012 conversion as a guide, I find I can closely replicate the LR 4 results with LR 3.6.  They are not exactly the same, but they  are different in a way that I wouldn't call one or the other clearly superior, just slightly different.
Now I'm thinking that my initial awe at the LR 4 processing was because the new tool-set guided me in a  different direction from the old tools.  I responded to the surprising behavior of the new  tools by changing my "vision" of the image, odd as that may sound.  In a way, I found the new tools inspirational. But once inspired I think I can go back to the old, and more or less, accomplish the same kinds of improvements.  At least I've done so with a couple of images.
Some of the new LR 4 features are nice--softproofing was the initial attractor--but none are "must haves."
Now that I own it and have gone through the teething pains,  I'll happily keep using it. But at this point I'm not certain I would have upgraded if I had a clearer picture of the advantages versus performance slowdown of LR 4.  Feels like a toss up right now.
I am curious to know ithe thoughts of other 3.6 to 4.0 upgraders. 
Do you find the conversion tools superior to what can be done with PV 2010?  (Not what you've done in the past with PV 2010, but what can be done.)
Are there other features/abilities that I may be missing that make 4.1 clearly superior to 3.6 in your applications?
Thanks for your thoughts.    
Jerry

Answer 1

JerryGerber wrote:
trshaner wrote:
I'm seeing about the same LR4 launch time, which I think may be partly attributable to LR3.6 still being installed. Changing images in the Develop module is about 2 sec. in LR3.6, and 3 sec. in LR4, and I have no issues with the sliders.
Can you provide your system processor, memory, hard drive and OS specs?
Sure, but I'm not about to upgrade hardware in my 2-year old computer because one program runs slightly slower than it's predecessor.  But if you are curious, I am running an HP 250f  PC, Win 7 Home, 8GB RAM, and a Core i7- 860 processor.  Not sure what HD they gave me, but it is the original.
I 'm using an HP HPE-170t with the same i7-860 processor, Iona-GL8E motherboard, 1TB Hitachi 7,200 RPM hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium. The only difference is that I have 12GB memory and you have 8GB, which is still more than enough to maximize LR's performance. We are also both using the same Canon 5D MKII CR2 raw image file type.
You are running the latest LR4.1 final release available here, correct:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5393
Obviously there is something different with your LR setup that is causing the sluggish sliders, etc. Try purging your Camera Raw Cache and make sure it is set to at least 20GB. Mine is set to 50GB and was completely full after working with LR4 for a few months. LR4 creates cache files that are about 1/2 the size (5DMKII .6 MB vs 1.2 MB) of LR3's, which is another good reason for purging the Camera Raw Cache.
I also created a separate sector (J:) for the LR catalog, previews and Camera Raw Cache. I'm not sure how much this helps, but it does reduce drive fragmentation. Ideally you would also want to put the image files on a separate fast internal drive . There is one (1) open drive bay on my system and I'll probably add a 2 TB internal drive shortly. I'm sure others in the forum can provide some additional tips.