Help! AP is very slow & laggy on my MBP

[DannyBCreative]

Glad to hear AP works on "older" hardware like ours, so there's some hope this can be fixed. As for me, I recently reformatted my MBP, so I have 386/500GB free. For my photo processing in LR/PS, I work with Canon 7D files off an external 1TB G-Drive. I haven't even been able to get to layers in AP. The program bogs down when I attempt to work on a RAW image. I tried sending from Lightroom>AP and it was slow; so then I just opened up a RAW on it's own and the same problem persists. It's maddening.

For what it's worth: I'm using a newer iMac 27" with 8GB RAM.  I'm also using Canon 7D RAW files and the lag is so bad I can't work on them.  I've tried opening up several different RAW files in A-Photo and every time it's the same.  System is bogged down, making work almost impossible.  I hope this is a bug that can be fixed, otherwise I'll have to choose a different app for my photo work flow.

[DonatoF]

Interesting, both have issues with 7D RAWs, and Apple did an update to "Digital Camera RAW Compatibility 6.05" about a week ago - Coincidence?  Does AP rely on Apples RAW conversion tools? Idle speculation, maybe I'll see if I can find a 7D RAW file somewhere..    

 

Update - just downloaded a 7D RAW, everything is still very responsive, no problems.  

[To Affinity & Beyond]

Hi To Affinity & Beyond,

 

I'm sorry you're experiencing problems - I just wanted to affirm to you that we are reading the forums and I noticed your post but as yet haven't had anything to suggest other than what other users are suggesting... I have a 2008 MacBook Pro with SSD (I retrofitted it) running Mavericks and it's genuinely pretty nippy with Affinity - it's not instant, but it's not going to be instant - it is, however, quicker in Affinity than in any other software I can find to run on it... You're using images from a 7D on a 6 year old Mac so it's not going to be instant either, but it shouldn't be a bad experience so it does sound like something's amiss - but as to what, I'd need to see the physical machine and interact with it in order to determine where the problem may be - not something that's trivial to do remotely.

 

One thing I would say is just start up the program with Ctrl held down (hold down Ctrl as soon as you click to launch the program and keep it held) and it will bring up a dialog offering to reset settings - select all options and just reset them. The factory defaults are almost always the best starting point and unless you know what you're doing you can actually make things worse. Also, don't​ worry about what RAM Photo says it will use - it's not actually currently using that RAM - it's just what limit to hit before it starts paging to disk.

 

(@maritan - unless you're doing exactly the same test with exactly the same files, the numbers you see may be very different)

 

After you've reset everything, you can try to debug where your problems are... Start with a 1024x1024 pixel document - now paint on it with the default brush tool - is it still laggy? If so, your machine is just not performing at all as well as my older 2008 MacBook Pro! If all seems well, try again with larger image sizes until you start to see problems.

 

When you talk about the exposure slider - I assume you mean in the Develop Persona? If so, that's dealing with converting your RAW file and applying all your existing settings and your new exposure value each time you move the slider - so it's not going to be particularly swift... there are definitely optimisations we will do in the future that will change this, but for now, if that is how you are measuring performance then you will not be able to make that quick... As a matter of fact, are you always referring to operations done in the Develop Persona? Everything is done from the original RAW file each time you make any change so this Persona will be significantly slower than any other part of the program.

 

I think that ultimately if the experience is generally poor for whatever reason, unless we can stumble across the culprit it's going to be very hard for you to enjoy the program :(

 

Just wanted you to know that you're not being ignored - it's just that without actually seeing the machine there's not a lot we can suggest that hasn't already been suggested...

 

Thanks,

Matt

 

Matt,

 

I don't expect my 6-year old Mac to process my 7D RAW files instantly (for the record, neither do LR or PS), but it shouldn't be as bad as what I've been experiencing (see PiperMedic's reply below). 

 

As for your question regarding the 'Develop Persona' - the answer is NO. That's not how I'm measuring performance nor is it what I'm always referring to. In every facet of the program (during and after hitting Develop) every tool I'm using - from inpainting, healing, brush, dodge, etc, along with layers, HSL,  brush, EVERYTHING  - I'm experiencing massive lag. 

 

 

For what it's worth: I'm using a newer iMac 27" with 8GB RAM.  I'm also using Canon 7D RAW files and the lag is so bad I can't work on them.  I've tried opening up several different RAW files in A-Photo and every time it's the same.  System is bogged down, making work almost impossible.  I hope this is a bug that can be fixed, otherwise I'll have to choose a different app for my photo work flow.

 

 

I know your pain. I've had to go back to Photoshop.

[Framelynx]

@To Affinity and Beyond

 

I'm a HUGE Affinity fan... but I admit I'm experiencing something similar. (I have Macbook Pro 2011 17")

 

I find for big files, AP struggles a bit more than PS. I work with both. I'm suspecting AP struggles because of all the realtime updates, and high FPS (if you could call it that) etc, comes at a cost. I hear my macbook roaring fan inside very loudly from time to time. I rarely hear that with PS.

 

@ AP Developers.

If all the realtime and "smooth operations at small file sizes"  is causing AP to lag at big file sizes. Could there be an option to turn those "funky realtime smooth FPS perks" off, so that it would lag less? When file sizes are small, AP look like it kicks PS butt, but PS is more practical with big files IMHO.

 

I also find this to be the case with Apple-Motion vs Adobe After Effects. I loved Motion's smoothness and real-time, and timeline structure, but AE was just more practical with big complicated files and effects.

 

Here's hoping Affinity will beat Adobe in the end.

[HanabiSonatine]

I'm having a similar issue myself, a significant amount of lag and getting the feared spinning rainbow wheel as well. It's slow enough so that it's practically unusable, and I've ran through the potential list of problems and have come up empty handed. Any help from the Serif staff or fellow members would be immensely appreciated.

 

System Specs:

 

Macbook Pro Late 2011 Model

Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7

16GB RAM 1333 MHz DDR3

 

I've run files off both my internal HD and an external HD as well, both with the same results. The only setting that I've changed in the preferences of AF itself is the RAM usage limit, which I've set to 16GB up from 4GB. The size of the file I'm working with is around 50MB currently.

 

I've opened Activity Monitor, and it shows nearly 10GB in my cache, while AF seems to be only using around 500MB of RAM, despite it running quite sluggishly. It seems as if it's "refusing" to use the RAM that is available to it.

 

Unless I'm missing something, surely these specs are more than enough to handle the program, as it seems other users are experiencing no slowdown issues with much less hardware. Frankly, I'm stumped!

[DonatoF]

I do remember reading in another thread that this may be related to a font problem, have you tried running the Font Book app and validating your fonts?

[william7]

No other program I have is lagging. Not Photoshop nor Lightroom - and LR is known to be a slow, unoptimized PITA. Even the Affinity Designer beta runs flawlessly. Only AP is giving me trouble.

In that case try to reset AP as youll find in the forum linked below

 

It's also possible the Mac App store messed up the download, try deleting the app and re-installing it from the App store.  If you check your "Purchases" tab in the App store, sometimes the cryptic " An error has occurred" message will be next to some of the downloads (it was for me for AP, the first time).  If you delete the app from the Launchpad, then the App store will know you have deleted it and will give you the option to install again, if you delete using the Finder sometimes the App store still thinks it's installed and won't give you the Install option.  I did a more thorough test last night of the develop persona, everything was very fast, no lag at all.   There is another post that has some responses from the Affinity folks you might want to look at: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10492-cant-open-affinity-after-purchase/

[HanabiSonatine]

I just ran Font Book and while there were a few fonts that were singled out (yellow, not red), no improvements after deleting them.

 

Same with removing and reinstalling Affinity :/

[william7]

 

I just ran Font Book and while there were a few fonts that were singled out (yellow, not red), no improvements after deleting them.

 

Same with removing and reinstalling Affinity :/

Have you tried resetting AP?

[HanabiSonatine]

Have you tried resetting AP?

 

I had before, but I decided to do it once again, and it seems to have worked this time...

 

Not sure what caused it to be effective this time around, but I'll take it!