I wonder if the performance you are seeing is specifically Mac related. On my aging 2016 Windows 10 desktop computer, upgraded last year with an RTX 4060 and a WD Black 2TB SSD, I get equally excellent performance with both PL 9 and PL 8,. However, my full frame Nikon Z f sensor is only 24.5 mp and if I recall correctly from several years back your camera’s sensor at the time had a much higher megapixel count, and processing those larger raw files in Photolab was slow. So my experience and yours may be like comparing apples and oranges.
According to an other post by DxO, there is an issue between macOS 26.1 and PL9.2 that got worked around with an intermediate PL 9.2.1.32. This “fix” forces a few features away from the faster ANE which might explain the molasses.
Anyways, PL9 needs a lot of work as does macOS 26…but I expect reasonable performance to come up…just not in 2025.
I’m using macOS Sonoma (14). If this issue corrupts macOS 14 too, then the problem is PhotoLab. Apparently there are huge issues with Windows graphics drivers as well. At some point, one must consider these issues are DxO’s responsibility.
I faced these slowdowns issue with both Nikon D5 files (20MP) and Sony A7C II files (33MP). I’m late to the table with PhotoLab 9 so perhaps I’ll eventually find some workarounds.
On the same sets of images, PhotoLab 8 flies and PhotoLab 9 is clunky. It sure as heck isn’t my computer. It’s an M2 Ultra with 64GB of RAM.
There were initially some very serious problems using the then current Nvidia driver with AI Masks on Windows. Nvidia acknowledged the issue and was working with DxO to resolve it. In the interim we were advised to use an older Nvidia driver which was a significant improvement but still very problematic. In addition, DxO released updates and the Windows version is now at 9.2.1. Eventually Nvidia fixed the issue and Windows users can now use the most current drivers.
While some performance issues remain, primarily related to AI Masking presets and export speed, most Windows users, like me, seem to be getting acceptable to excellent performance. However, there are also a number of Windows users on this site with relatively high spec’d hardware who are still having significant issues while I and others with higher and lower spec’d hardware are not. It leads me to believe that there may be some other, as yet unknown, hardware, software or operating system interactions with PhotoLab 9 that are impacting its performance. How DxO will be able to resolve those issues I cannot say.