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Hi everyone, Just to shine some information here related to the following questions because it does not only apply to Serif product, but basically to anything you want. Concerning VM performance, you must understand that there is multiple type of VM's. If you are planning to start "VirtualBox" and that's it. Then you can expect very poor graphical performance for any application. What you need to get near native performance, yes you can absolutely play AAA games, your CAD app, etc, this way without much performance loss. I am using QEMU with a dedicated video card (Yes I have 2 cards in my system). The process to setup VFIO + KVM is not complicated It is built into linux ! And there is enough video tutorial out there. If you know how to modify one file. install programs on linux and you have the hardware this will likely take you an hour the first time to set up. Then about 5 to 10 minutes the following times. What you need to know : - VFIO allows you to passthrough your gpu to your VM (All of this, depends on your machine - IOMMU) - KVM if you respect architecture (Linux 64 with Windows 64) to get near native performance inside your VM - If you don't have a monitor to spare, you can use SPICE to see what's going on in your VM, but for gaming performance you will want LookingGlass (It literally copies gpu buffer from one gpu to the other, and now it allows full copy/paste between your VM and Linux) - You are running 2 systems, so 8GB RAM... no go... (16 at least for a great experience, and 32 if you want to go all in) - At least 4 cores, but preferably 6 or 8, so you can share 4/4 to each system. Yes, 4 cores and 8 threads each will allow you to play your Appex / Fortnite High settings etc. or whatever else is trending nowadays. - If you can game on it, you can compute & work on it. - More complicated, but you can also do that with MAC OS (Though, it is against their TOS, so it's up to you) How to setup QEMU+KVM (very old video - 3 years ago !): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16dbAUrtMX4 Learn more about QEMU: https://www.qemu.org Learn more about KVM : https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-KVM From the creator of LookingGlass NOV 2018 (The demo starts around 4:30) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a322V4yo3nY Yes you can, it's complicated, it depends on the driver most of the time. I do not recommend it for the majority of users. And you loose the ability to go back and forth between your VM and Linux machin without interupting your Linux Work. Which is exactly why this QEMU+VFIO is nice. Often people forget, but you might already have 2 gpu's. One with your intel / amd processor and your dedicated graphics card Here for example this guy is running it's display from the motherboard output (intel gpu) and shares is main dedicated gpu with the VM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssfvpLXK8po If you are really going into this stuff : https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/ Gaming on Linux( Native & VM) From Linus Tech Tips and Wendel : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsgI1mkx6iw << If you watch only one, then look at this one. 5 minutes of VFIO/IOMMU on Arch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_2dtnU4Awk There is so much resources out there, I can't share everything. But now you have all that you need to run all Serif applications and more, without leaving the comfort of your Linux desktop. EDIT: I didn't mention it, but you can pass through any device that you want of course. I am passing though a wacom tablet and a keyboard. But that's all entirely optional. You can even pass through a sound card (usb headset for example)... etc. EDIT 2: If you have pro card either from AMD or Nvidia. It is likely that you have SR-IOV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Fs0NHgzIY Pro cards allow you to share a single card at the same time against multiple vm's. EDIT 3: To have an amazing sound experience between your VM (Windows ) and HOST (linux) You can use "scream" https://github.com/duncanthrax/scream#using-ivshmem-between-windows-guest-and-linux-host This basically installs a new sound card into windows and you can listen to its sound on Linux either by multicast or just like Lookinglass through a IVSHMEM (A shared memory space). This "scream" in combination with "lookinglass" really gives you a nice Seamless integration. It's like opening a browser to navigate the web basically, you're just navigating your windows vm instead. EDIT4: Qemu 4 has landed and it brings a gazillion updates. Way better than 3.1. https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/4.0 So basically sound issues are mostly gone, so you might not need (EDIT 3) scream at all to get a nice experience. Note on all these edits. There is many changes since I did my last setup. Mine is working fine for me, I don't have time to get up to speed with the new stuff, my clients come always first. Basically everything is getting even better (who could have guessed...). Enjoy !

This starts to deviate a little bit, but, what !? Have you ever heard of a business plan or did you just misunderstood my point ? Of course your build first a MVP, then you go ask for money. I know no single startup that got money based on an "idea".

Hello @Mark Ingram, Thank you for your post and information. I've recently published : And I have a request for you and your team that implies a very small dev effort. Would it be possible to add a simple toggle info to our accounts (serif accounts, not forum) to add our targeted OS ? Example, I would love to have my purchases count as towards Linux platform not Windows. Since you already implicitly do that for Windows / Mac OS, it would be nice to have an explicit button to indicate for Windows purchases that they are used by mainly Linux user. I know how complicated it can be to get real meaningful stats. And with such a topic, you might even end with bots or false positives, people that would never actually buy your product. Have a little chat with your Marketing & Business team, but I think that metric could actually help. And even if you don't do anything with it, I would actually feel pretty great about it I got this idea from Steam itself. When a user on Linux purchase a Windows game, it might or might not work on Linux, but that doesn't matter, Valve is counting it as a Linux purchase, and seriously that is awesome. Because that's a proper metric to have that reflects reality. With that, have an amazing day, keep up the good work ! I can't wait to try publisher, don't get me wrong, I love Scribus, but I was used to indesign, and your tools are simply AWESOME. This is why I vote with my wallet and keep purchasing your products. Note 1: I am absolutely against the crowdfunding, this is not the way to go for a closed source project. If you want to go that route, let us vote with our wallet and purchase a Linux version with no promise of delivery, right on your page next to the other ones. Note 2: People speaking about Akira... That project is a splendid demo on how NOT to do a modern design tool, specially in the Linux eco-system. No cross platform, uses a specific tech that very few devs work on (VALA) and is not desktop agnostic. Just that should be a show stopper for anyone with a little love for all the diversity that exists in the Linux eco-system. In addition to that : No proper feature set, no roadmap, no real activity in their code base (all branches included). https://github.com/akiraux/Akira . TLDR: doing it right is not easy, and asking for money is not enough. Want a good example on how to do it right ? Krita.org and their MANY successful crowdfunding. - 2014: 20k Euros (Accelerate dev) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-source-digital-painting-accelerate-deve - 2015: 30.5k Euros (Let's make it faster) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-free-paint-app-lets-make-it-faster-than-phot - 2016: 38.5k Euros (New text, new vector tools. svg2 support, etc.) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-2016-lets-make-text-and-vector-art-awesome - 2018 : 27k Euros (Squash bugs) https://krita.org/en/fundraising-2018-campaign/ That's 116k Euros in 4 years of crowdfunding (and I most certainly forget some others they did). This doesn't included direct donations or steam purchases. That's how you ask for money, your first build something great, then you lay down a great plan for growing up and then you ask for money.

Just pre-ordered the affinity publisher. (I'm using scribus atm.) I am a proud owner of all your products. Right now I use a VM with VFIO (I share GPU, mouse, keyboard, wacom tablet to a windows vm) to use those products. It's far from ideal, but I am willing to support Serif, because you are actually building amazing products that are very nice to use ! This post is simply to share my support on something happening someday on the linux support front. Whatever it is. Hope all the posts and repeated questions don't get too much on your nerves. I'm a Software Engineer also, and I know how "Support" can be a hard thing to do properly. Concerning your choice of technologies, some are questionable, but I'm sure your CTO knows what he is doing. You are invested in .NET, try having a look at .NET core 3 it also supports WPF and other things that can be installed on all platforms and architectures. https://github.com/dotnet/wpf https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/3.0/preview/3.0.0-preview5.md @Redsandro Thanks for the recap post, it saved me a lot of reading. Additional note, I'm a happy user of Davinci Resolve on Linux, and because of their entreprise support on Linux, I'm now moving my equipment and capture cards to theirs instead. My company is by no means large enough to sponsor such a development on your side. But happy to help if you want more info. Best regards,

@Chris Since I experience a lot of crashes in various situations, with and without "MSI afterburner & Riva tuner stats.", I'll gladly sign any NDA to be able to get a version with debug symbols activated for your dev team. Even if it slows down the affinity software. Let me know if that is of any interest for you. PS: I am also a software engineer, so I know those can ben helpful.

Hello Chris B, Yes, I know they are doing their best :) I really hope the software and the QA will improve with all the feedback you receive because affinity serif products are really nice. Best regards

Thanks Chris B. I really really hope they can come back with another beta with fixes soon. I am considering going back to Adobe :/ because of those crashes. They happen twice per hour now and makes the whole software barely usable for me.

Few crashes later... @Chris I finally found one culprit that it is easy to replicate. - Open the "test" affinity file I attached to the main post All possible ways of crashing AD: - Delete the second artboard (with or without deleting the objects inside) - Try to create a new artboard anywhere - How to fix it: - Open the "header" on the first artboard, (test2->Header) - Go to User (Symbol) -> Image (Elipse) -> Image (Pixel) - Delete the Image (Pixel) - Tadaaaa.... You are now officially able to create any artboard you want and delete anything you want... It won't crash anymore... I have no idea where all those crashes come from, but this is seriously hindering my ability to use Affinity Designer as a professional tool :/

Hello Chris, RivaTuner and Msi Afterburner are only installed on my main machine, not on the other ones But I'll gave a try with/without on my main machine.

Okay, I went through all the folders of affinity and deleted everything and uninstall everything. I am now unable to reproduce on my main machine. I can't fiddle much more at the moment with this. Maybe let the devs know about the dump file, they might figure out something from it. I'll post here again if it happens suddenly during my work. Best regards

Hello Chris. So I have 3 computers and can reproduce on all of them: 1) Surface Book Performance - i7, 16GB of ram, gtx965M - Windows Insider latest 15063 2) Desktop pc - FX8350 - GTX 970 - 16GB of ram - few hard drives - Windows latest normal update (No insider enabled) 3) Desktop PC - Ryzen 1700 - GTX 1070 - 32GB of ram - nvme samsung 960 evo 500GB - few hard drives - Windows Insider latest 15063 True, I forget to mention, I import both assets and swatches as Application imports. PS: Antivirus is the one included with windows. Not any external tool doing any fuzzy stuff. PPS: Ryzen desktop is one week old, so very fresh install etc... Can't do much better than that to exclude any external reason for the crash.

Hello everyone, So even with the latest beta that you just uploaded, I am still able to reproduce the issue and lock me out of affinity designer. Steps to reproduce ( WARNING: This will make your A.D. unusable! ) : WARNING 2: Now even after reinstall, delete of all folder including AppData's affinity one, the software will crash all the time! - Unzip my file & Open AD - Import swatches - Import icons (assets) - Try to open the affinity design file "palette" You will have the crash message, once you restart the app you will have the same message again. Hope you can do something, I have many crashes with affinity designer while using swatches + assets, most of the time it leads to AD being unusable and me having to delete the designer app folder which is a huge pain... Best regards PS: ( This happens on every single version I could get my hands on. ) EDIT: Included the crash report. Material-Design-Colors-Swatches-Icons-Palette.zip f1f6061d-3043-4221-b9a9-e343643b98f3.dmp test.afdesign

Nice 200fixes, thank you for the work ! Still having the same issue of "Unhandled Exception has occured and the application cannot continue. .... Code: 0xC0000005" What I did to reproduce was to import swatches + icons asset and try to open a AD file. Once the error happens, it will happen at every start of AD and will make it unusable. For more information : https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/37644-unhandled-exception-has-occured-code-0xc0000005/

Hello everyone, I would love to see a way to organize open windows by name. When you have quite a few open windows, it is difficult ot keep track of which window / tab is where. I think a solution for this could be either a right click menu on the windows / tabs or a sort option in the window main menu. Best regards

Hello everyone, So after importing swatches that contain a lot of colors (ase), I found that their name were screwed up wish is not a big deal as long as I can edit their name again. But the process of doing so is very long and not user friendly At the moment : - To identify the color -> Edit the fill by double clicking or right click + edit - Then you can rename it by -> Right click rename. What would be really nice, and I doubt it is a huge issue to do so: - Add a name input directly in the "edit fill" popup bellow the drop down menu for example If you still want to have the confirmation of the user because it can't be undone, you could add a lock next to the name input so people have first to unlock before editing. But at least, it doesn't require to leave that popup and right click on the fill to edit the name... It also solves the issue that when you right click -> rename and push enter to save it looses the color fill you had selected on the swatches.