MattP

Hi deeds, I'm not suggesting any of the things you're saying. I was simply asking if you'd try something out for me and tell me if it fixes the problem you're seeing, that's all - I just simply wanted to know and I'm trying to help you. Other people are not coming forward saying they have this problem. This doesn't mean the problem isn't real, it means that you're the only person I've spoken to about the problem and I'm trying to get as much information as possible about it from you so I can look at it. For reference, as I said earlier, changing Affinity Designer to use the integrated GPU should make essentially no difference to the apparent performance of the application - we use only a small amount of hardware for presentation of the document's render so you shouldn't even notice a difference. My laptop shows no noticeable difference running integrated or discreet. If yours is showing a very marked difference in performance then something is wrong somewhere - not necessarily with our application. All of the heavy work is done on CPU no matter what option you've chosen and we're asking to draw a few hundred primitives to the screen which even a 1990s GPU would've excelled at, so if your integrated GPU is chugging at that then there is a problem... Thanks again, Matt

Errr, I'm not asking you not to use your discreet GPU for everything on your machine - I'm asking you to try to use the setting in Affinity Designer to just use the low-power (integrated) GPU and see if it gets rid of your problem. Your discreet GPU will carry on working just fine in any other applications... If you could let me know what your results are that's all I'm asking. As I said, it's in the Affinity Designer -> Preferences -> Performance tab and it's labeled as "Use only integrated GPU". It only affects how Affinity Designer requests a hardware surface from the OS and it will have no other knock-on effects for your other programs.

When I set my preferences to 'Use only integrated GPU' I don't even see the Affinity apps appearing on the 'Using Significant Energy' area of the battery dropdown... Have you tried this option? Edited to say: I believe the 'energy usage' you're seeing is as a result of the fact that the app is keeping the full GPU 'alive' due to the hardware render surface requesting this... If you use the integrated GPU (as per the option I mentioned) I see basically no usage at all...

Hi deeds, Can I check what you've got set in 'Preferences'->'Performance'->'Display'? I'm using 'OpenGL' (which is the default) and I have 'Enable Metal compute acceleration' enabled (again, the default if your Mac supports it). I am running a 2018 MacBook Pro, 6 core i9 with Radeon Pro 560X GPU and I run these apps (Designer, Photo and Publisher) all open, all day along with many other apps - my Mac is not running hot, not using excessive battery and is not showing any adverse effects from having the apps open. As an example, here is my Activity Monitor from a moment ago - both Designer and Publisher are running but inactive... As you can see, neither application is preventing the system from sleep (so they are not rampantly generating messages or poking things to refresh) and they both support App Nap, so are playing nicely with timers. The only thing I can think of that may be affecting you is that you'll note they both state 'Requires High Perf GPU' which is because they are allowed to use the Radeon GPU. If you don't want this, you can choose the option 'Preferences'->'Performance'->'Use only integrated GPU' which will force the hardware display to run only on the integrated Intel GPU which will be more than adequate for the view requirements. I'm not saying there's nothing we could do to improve things, but I'm saying that a good first step will be to check your preference options and see how it affects the behaviour you're observing. It is true to say that I'm not experiencing the problems you describe, but I've also not got your software, nor am I undertaking your workflow, so there may be something to investigate. Just to add, lets please keep all comments on-topic and about the software, not personal comments or attacks - that goes for everyone Many thanks, Matt

That's great!!!

Hi saikat, There have been a number of fixes already made for version 1.8 that should address the bulk of this, hopefully we can improve things much further in the future too... We are about to release a 1.7.3 version which is mainly compatibility fixes, but we plan to make 1.8 beta available in the not-too-distant future Many thanks, Matt

Very nice work!!!

Status: Release candidate Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer Mac App Store: Submitted Download: Here Hello, We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the first release candidate build of Affinity Designer 1.7.3 for macOS. If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry. This beta is an incremental update to the 1.7.2 version recently released to all customers. We recommend that you use this beta in preference to the store version if you are affected by any of the issues listed below. Matt Changes Since 1.7.2 - Fix for importing .abr brushes - Fix for masked adjustment groups drawing incorrectly - Fix for PSD import crash - Miscellaneous text fixes and improvements - Fix for brush angle input occasionally producing an unwanted artefact when used as a dynamic - MacOS Catalina compatibility

Yes, it does explain why things are faster when they're grouped. The problem seems to be around some of the picture frame/text flow changes added for Publisher... they should be easy enough to get around so we'll try to sort them out asap Sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime...

Hi saikat, Thanks for the file - I'm going to look into this... Designer didn't perform this badly a while ago with files like this, so it can definitely be resolved... Leave it with me Hopefully you can see from the rendering performance that we have no fundamental issues with there being this many objects in the document, but it appears that something in our command architecture is now incurring an overhead, which with larger selections is becoming noticeable. I feel sure we can make this go away... Matt

I've not had time to use it with Designer yet - so many things to do!

No problems, CraftLe@rner! Maybe update us with a photo of your results whenever you get chance - I've always enjoyed seeing how people use their cutting machines! I've got a Craft Robo at home that I've had for ages, but I've not used it for a while...

Here is the test curve svg - the first curve I created. Try for yourself, there is no lying (obviously - why on Earth would there be?) and the results are the results I showed. testcurve.svg And what exactly is the point of you trying Affinity Designer 1.7 when we've acknowledged the problem and I clearly labelled the results I showed as being from Affinity Designer 1.8 Beta. Many thanks for your input, Matt

LOL! Thanks for explaining things to me, very educating, I'll try to do better in the future. So if everything else is so accurate, do you want to explain to me what I'm seeing here? (Blue background, white curve, semi-transparent pink result of expansion) and, just for those commenters who are about to say "But what about CorelDraw? You didn't include it and it would've been perfect!"... (white background, black original curve, pink expanded result) You'll notice that NOBODY has the right answer because - as I stated A LOT before - there IS NO RIGHT ANSWER because one curve does not perfectly become one other curve at an offset - MATHS DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY! It becomes potentially many curves, but in different ways. You need to use an algorithm to generate the offset and the results of the algorithm will vary. So... sorry to break the awful news, but.... we're actually not that bad. Shocker. Double-shocker is the fact that I've actually shown you that we really do actually have a new stroke expansion function and the 'fanboys' aren't actually fanboys at all - they're just not ridiculously pessimistic keyboard warriors. /micdrop

Hi! I'm not sure if it will work or not, but can I suggest you try the options "Flatten transforms" and/or "Relative coordinates" on the SVG export options... I suspect Cricut's software may have issues with hierarchical transforms? It's just a guess though - please let us know how it goes! Matt

VERY cool! I really like the wave texture!

@Hokusai - this is just absolutely incredible! What an amazing and inspiring piece!!!

As I said - you deliberately used a small object which you know will go wrong. You can't claim this wasn't deliberate as it very obviously was. Showing that something you know is wrong is definitely wrong is not achieving anything in my book? It didn't help me (or anyone else already contributing to this thread) know where the problem is or show me how good CorelDraw does with something we fail at. If I wanted to, I could show you ways in which any other program can fail at certain functions - I do not as it is not helpful.

To be fair, you did deliberately choose to use a small object there (or a low document DPI) because you know that's what provokes the incorrect behaviour. The results only look so wrong here because of the size it has been performed at. This is currently being fixed, as I mentioned many times before.

I've just unhidden it for you

As I said earlier in this very post, I want an end to the name-calling. It's not helpful. I'm locking this thread now. Nobody has any right to decide that someone else is 'obviously' an amateur because they can use the software and enjoy it whereas the poster cannot: This is a really flawed way of thinking and even if you believe it to be true, you gain nothing by saying it other than alienation and being judged by others as arrogant.

This is lovely! Very nice tone and colours, big bold style - I really like it!

Good heavens!!!! :O

Lack. Of. Time. This is the reason for the current state (needed doing very quickly before release) and the reason I'm only now getting chance to look at it again. It's not like we ever said "No really, that's how it's meant to be! Trust us!" and in fact we explained that it was not good enough and would be implemented the right way when we got chance. We've explained many times before that from the customer's perspective it must be very frustrating that we seem to be prioritising other things, but that actually we are not and that there are very good reasons why certain things appear before others - but they cannot (and do not need to be) reasoned-through on a public forum. I personally don't understand the rationale of constantly reiterating "This isn't good enough/not professional/inadequate/badly implemented" on a subject that has been discussed ad nauseam already. It is very clearly already acknowledged, understood and agreed that it is being looked at. As I said earlier, complaining that it has not happened fast enough is not making it suddenly happen faster and I simply cannot do more. We are always looking for the 'right' people to help us and the 'right' person does not have to live on our doorstep. But, to be honest, I will not look to how another company that is not dominant dealt with their issues - they may have been in a different circumstance to ours and we do not have any issues that will not be adequately resolved by just doing what we were planning to do and giving ourselves the time to do them without beating ourselves up along the way. In short, we get it. There doesn't need to be constant scab-picking - it doesn't help. New subjects, new bugs, new requests - great stuff, I'd like to read about them and know about them

The difference being, of course, that I have to remain professional with my reactions. Thank you for your valuable input which I will be sure to pass on. I do not claim to know more about your (or anyone else’s) profession, working methods or practices than you and I would suggest that you should not profess to know (with or without many links to things have worked for other people) how we work or why we actually take time to implement features. You feel we need help. With respect, I am quite capable of writing the features you specifically mention - unless of course you know my skill set better than me? There are many other things I could say, but I obviously won’t as there is no need. You are the customer, but that does not make me (as the employee) inept or in need of your insight into my profession. You are able to make a choice with which software you use - and surely you have decided this software is not for you from your comments?