OpenCL Activation Slows AP 1.9 for Windows with AMD RX 5700 GPU

[Vasto7]

First, thank you to the developers for all their hard work in bring us 1.9.

I've reported this issue several times on the 1.9 Beta, going back to November.  Running AMD driver 20.12.1 on a RX 5700

Loading documents into both the Develop  and Edit personas is slower.  For example, loading the same 24 MB tif file took about 0.2 sec. for AP 1.8 and about 5 seconds for AP 1.9 (when accelerated). 

Moving between the Tabs (Layers, Adjustment, Effects, Styles) caused the program to not respond for about the 30 seconds.  These issue do not occur when hardware acceleration is disabled.

I'd like to know if there is any effort underway to resolve this.  

 

[Mark Ingram]

Hi @Vasto7 can you show me a screenshot of your benchmark results (Help | Benchmark) please?

[Subclavius]

As @Vasto7 says, thank you to the team for getting 1.9 released.

Following the upgrade to 1.9 I noticed a decreased performance when drawing (painting) with a (externally purchased) brush. I am using APhoto to trace an underlying image and the brush performance is jerky and not smooth. I have switched out OpenCL and perfomance has reverted to its usual smooth behaviour under 1.8.5.  I don't know what this implies - whether there is a problem with OpenCL performance-wise, or whether the increased demands of the software simply mean that my graphics card isn't up to the job and the CPU can handle it better.

Windows 10 pro/64 GB/AMD Ryzen 7 3700X/AMD RX550 graphics card (running latest driver)

[Vasto7]

@Mark Ingram 2 Benchmark screen shots are attached.  The first is with OpenCL ticked and the second is with it unticked.

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Regards.

[Vasto7]

Also, interestingly, like @Subclavius,I am also running a Ryzen 3700X CPU.

[Mark Ingram]

@Vasto7, thanks for the screenshot - it's showing that your GPU is ~20X faster than your CPU in the benchmark. For general editing work, I imagine it will be very beneficial to have OpenCL enabled. But looking at your issues with file loading, it seems we may need to investigate further. Thanks again. Hopefully have more news in the future.

Could you attach the .tif file you were using, so that we can try the same here?

[Vasto7]

@Mark Ingram, I certainly agree it would be great to be able to utilize my GPU.  The issues occur regardless of what type of what file or what type of file is being loaded.  The load time is at least an order of magnitude slower when OpenCL is activated.  Attached is an example file.  One is a tif and one is an raw NEF.  Here is a description of the behavior I see.

Start AP, attempt to load a raw file for the first time.  Loading of the raw file happens in stages.  The first stage takes about 20 seconds.  At the end of 20 sec. I see a rather grey representation of the final raw image.  After 30 additional seconds (50 seconds total) I see a proper representation of the raw image.  After the raw image is loaded and while in the develop persona, if I attempt to use any slider, e.g., exposure, the firs time, it does not move.  But upon a second click and drag, it will move properly.  This happens with each slider.  Sometimes clicking between different tabs in the develop persona, causes the system to freeze.  Sometimes closing the undeveloped file causes the system to freeze.

In the same session as above, (without having closed down AP) if I load the same NEF file, it will only take 2-3 seconds to load fully and the sliders seem to respond properly.

The first time I attempt to load any tif file (as the one attached), it will take 10 seconds to fully load.  Again, when attempting any adjustments for the first time, the slider movement is delayed by a second or two.  After that, they seem to "loosen up."  

During the same AP session, after loading one raw and one tif file, loading of any subsequent raw or tiff  seems to be normal (about 3 seconds for a raw file and 1 second for a tif).  If however, I  close down AP and open it up fresh, the same slow behavior occurs the first time files are loaded. 

Of course, if I turn off OpenCL, all files seem to load quickly (about 3 seconds for a raw file and 1 second for a tif). 

Hope this is helpful in tracking down this issue.  Thank you again for your attention to this.  Let me know what else I can try to assist.

Have a great day.

_7105251.NEF _7105251.tif

[Artisan9]

I posted the same issue yesterday on a different thread.  Loading a DNG or RAW file into v1.9.0 is extremely slow (unusable) when hardware acceleration is enable.  I have a Ryzen 2600X CPU and Radeon RX 5600 XT GPU.

[Mark Ingram]

1 minute ago, Artisan9 said:

I posted the same issue yesterday on a different thread.  Loading a DNG or RAW file into v1.9.0 is extremely slow (unusable) when hardware acceleration is enable.  I have a Ryzen 2600X CPU and Radeon RX 5600 XT GPU.

Can you confirm that after you've loaded a DNG or RAW the first time, subsequent loads are fast?

[Subclavius]

Although my graphics card is not a 5600, it is AMD (RX550, single GPU).  APhoto 1.9 is definitely significantly slower than 1.8.5.

Have tried to do a little analysis to get see if there is some sort of handle to be obtained.  The first pic is views of the Windows Task Manager for the GPU while running the AP benchmark.  Left is OpenCL off, right is OpenCL on.  The second pic is my psuedo real-world test with a picture - consisting of high speed painting with the pen/tablet.  When OpenCL was off, the drawing kept perfect pace with the pen movements, while when OpenCL was on, there was a signficant lag - of the order of 10 seconds.  The underlying document is large and this may well account for it, but with OpenCL switched out AP has no problem.

Clearly the GPU is being used in a significantly different way.

• Open CL off - GPU engine only in use, GPU  dedicated memory usage low
• Open CL on - GPU engine usage less, copy engine usage increased, but significantly a huge increase in the GPU dedicated memory use

As can be seen from CPU performance in the real world test, it is not at all stressed.

A repeat of the real-world test with a small  (A4) picture with OpenCL on, AP behaves normally with no lag.

[phil_k]

My configuration is similar to some of the users who have performance issues.  I have a Ryzen 3700X, Radeon RX 5500 XT, latest recommended driver 20.11.2  Other than the issues with square artifacts I have not noticed any significant lag issues.  I do notice that the first time you load a file their is a lag of 2-3 seconds and after photos load much faster. I have tried this on CR2 and tiff files about 32MB-36MB each and jpg files around 10MB-15MB each.  I have also noticed that the response/screen update to live filters  appears sluggish. Sometimes the icon for a live filter with a mask does not update until you save the image or maybe it is just taking a long time.

[Artisan9]

Mark Ingram    Can you confirm that after you've loaded a DNG or RAW the first time, subsequent loads are fast?

Yes, the subsequent loads are fast.

[Mark Ingram]

53 minutes ago, Artisan9 said:

Mark Ingram    Can you confirm that after you've loaded a DNG or RAW the first time, subsequent loads are fast?

Yes, the subsequent loads are fast.

OK, so from a fresh start of Photo, start a timer, open a DNG/RAW, record the time. Then close the document, and time again. What are the times?

[Duskstalker]

i was working on a 16 bit aRGB from the nikon D850 today with opencl enabled and i had to wait several seconds for the program to become responsive again after transforming some pixel layers or just doing mask brushing and clone brushing, and clone brushing is especially bad. i know photo can usually handle this workload ok, not great, but ok.

i ended up disabling opencl because i couldnt finish the job like that. photo just hung for several seconds when doing normal retouching workflows.

those D850 files really eat up alot of resources in general, but this was noticably worse than without opencl. to be able to use the hardware acceleration i updated my win10 from 1903 to the 20h2 version and this generally screwed the system in some ways, but i cant just wipe my workstation and casually reinstall windows10. thanks microsoft for the great update experience 🤢

edit: just reenabled openCL and let photo recompile the openCL cache and the massive several seconds long hangs went away, but its still somewhat laggy and cloning brush still wrecks performance. again - the d850 files are really demanding to work on with any software. i just wished having opencl acceleration would speed things up as massively as capture one for me. from what i can tell openCL in photo doesnt give me any extra performance at best and is significantly slower at worst on this system.

system:
threadripper 2920X / 32gb 3600CL16 ram
vega 56 flashed with vega 64 bios, overclocked and undervolted to 1600mhz core clock, 1150 memory clock, driver 21.2.1.
cpu & gpu watercooled with 3x360mm radiators
2x adata SX8200 pro 1TB as system and workdrive

 

i also feel like the system should score higher in multi cpu and gpu performance, especially the gpu. the 5700 in the post above scores 50% higher, although actually vega should be faster than a 5700XT in most compute tasks.

[Vasto7]

Now with the 1.9.1 update I get the following message indicating my configuration is not compatible with hardware acceleration.  Is this because I have Windows 10 Pro and not Windows 10.  If so, will this be addressed.

 

Thanks.

 

[Vasto7]

Ok.  I see the note in the Release

• Disabled hardware acceleration for AMD Radeon RX 5000 series and later cards (awaiting response to bug filed with AMD)

I hope the contact with AMD is fruitful.  Please keep us updated on progress.

[Subclavius]

Hi @Vasto7, I think we've all got our fingers crossed for that

[Vasto7]

@Subclavius, I was trying to stay optimistic.  But you wonder if AMD even knows Affinity Photo exists.  

[qwz]

So, 1.9.2 is out. 5000x series is still missed from OpenCL.

[walt.farrell]

28 minutes ago, qwz said:

So, 1.9.2 is out. 5000x series is still missed from OpenCL.

It is waiting for a fix from AMD for a bug in their drivers.

[Subclavius]

@qwz, I agree. It's very frustrating. I'm not holding my breath though.