Huge performance issues with isometric grid on Windows 10 - 1909

[techtone]

Hi,

I have a PC with these specs: Core i9 CPU + 32 GB RAM + RX580 8 GB GPU + Dell 4K Display.

Latest version of Affinity Designer. Every driver is up to date.

I'm getting huge performance issues whenever I enable isometric grid layout.

Just dragging around a single rectangle is super lagging.

It's a fresh install of Affinity and just a blank Desktop artboard.

I tried to record my screen but couldn't find anything that can record properly 60 fps. (open for suggestions how to record my screen. tried build in game bar but it's terrible.)

Any suggestions? Thanks.

[techtone]

I think I managed to record somehow and attached it here.

It really lags when zoomed in.

2020-05-03_12-32-27.mkv

[GarryP]

It looks like you may be snapping to the grid which could be why the movement looks ‘laggy’.
Try turning “Snap to Grid” OFF in your Snapping pop-up if you don’t want it to snap, or change the Screen Tolerance to a lower value in the same pop-up. (You also have Force Pixel Alignment switched ON which could be 'fighting against the grid' a bit. )

P.S. In your video we can’t see what’s happening in menus, dialogs or pop-ups. This happens when using the Windows 10 ‘game recorder’ functionality. You might want to try using OBS Studio https://obsproject.com/ to do your recordings instead.

[techtone]

Thanks but I think it has nothing to do with those settings.

Here is a second recording including everything.

2020-05-03_16-47-25.mkv

[GarryP]

I tried your document set-up and can confirm that there does seem to be a bit of a ‘stutter’ when the grid is on.
Even if the grid is transparent – on, but Opacity of 0% - the ‘stutter’ is still evident, so it’s probably not a ‘persistence of vision artefact’.
It’s not enough to make the software unusable but, considering that nothing much else is happening, it’s certainly not ideal in my eyes.
I wonder if anyone in the team can explain or comment on this. Could it be considered a bug?

[techtone]

I think it should be considered as bug though. Because what happens when the file size gets bigger with lot of elements? Actually gonna try that out now with demo files.

[GarryP]

I’ve just tried a similar thing in Photo with one of the sample files ‘Rabbit’ and there’s the same ‘lag/stutter’ when the grid is ON but none when the grid is OFF. I would agree that this was a bug of some kind. Not a massive one but a strange one.
I get the same problem in Publisher too with a blank one-page document so I’d say it was a ‘core Affinity’ issue rather than just in a particular application.

[techtone]

Great! Hope this will provide enough info for the devs and we get an update. Thanks.

[Sean P]

Hi techtone,

Thank you for the information - this is something we're aware of. I will get your comments passed onto development and get the issue bumped with them.

Thanks

[boomskats]

Hi,

I'm still seeing this issue in 1.9.2.1035 on Windows and it's literally the thing holding me back from buying the product. Designer is everything I've ever wanted otherwise, but it all revolves around the isometric stuff you've introduced recently, which obviously means the isometric grid.

Any comments from development on possibility of a fix, and if so the expected timelines?

Thanks a lot

Nik

[GarryP]

Serif generally don’t give us timescales for fixes or future features.
There are probably various reasons for this but one reason could be that it allows them to concentrate more on getting it done right.
As you can see from Sean’s post above, they are aware of this issue, but they are also aware of lots of other issues, and there are only a limited number of developers available to work on things at any time.