Performance Issues: Brush lag and Anti-Aliasing in AP and AD

[garf-zsolt]

Hi there good folks in the Affinity forums,

first of all, I want to say, that I do like the software very much and I really try to find a solution for my problem here. I've seen variations of this issue in other threads before, but but it seemed, that there is no solution to this.

Here are my problems:

• In Affinity Photo and Designer (Pixel and Designer Persona) I experience serious brush lag and all in all performance issues. This happens with brushes in all sizes and complexities, even with the standard default pixel brush.
• When I rotate my canvas, raster based areas are victim to very terrible anti aliasing problems.

Here you can see an example of the anti-alias problem, you can see it in my red and green sketches especially, but also in the photo reference on the canvas. This happens with all kinds of brushes:

Here is a video from AP (happens in AD in the same manner), where the brush lag is visible very clearly. I realize, that in this instance the lag is connected to fast and short brush strokes, but this happens no matter what brush type or size I use:

My specifics:

I am using a Wacom Intuos Pro M on Win10

CPU:Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz   2.59 GHz

GPU: GeForce RTX2070

32GB RAM

I also permitted the software to use more RAM and set the Geforce GPU as default.

I really wonder, what the issue is here, since the PC should be more than able to run AP+AD without any performance issues. But when using the software I can clearly detect spikes in CPU and GPU usage in my Task Manager.

I'd really love to use Photo and Designer as my dedicated painting software. But as it is right now, I'm having trouble to perform very simple tasks with it.

Thanks in advance for your support, I really hope there is a solution to this:)

Best, Garf

[Subclavius]

Hello @garf-zsolt,

Affinity is still ironing out problems with hardware acceleration via OpenCL, even though your graphics card is compatible with the requirements for HA.

You  may like to try the following:

• disable hardware acceleration via Edit > Preferences > Performance and unchecking the box. This will require a restart of APhoto.
• make sure your NVIDIA drivers are right up to date.  If this fails to produce the desired result you may need to uninstall them completely and then reinstall the latest version.

Remember that if it works without HA, then you haven't actually 'lost' anything, only that you are unable to gain.

[garf-zsolt]

Hi @Subclavius,

thanks for your quick response.

I've tried both your suggestions. Unfortunatelly both without effect. Do you have any idea what I can do about the aliasing when I flip the canvas?

[Subclavius]

Did disabling HA remove the brush lag in your example? I have the same problem with simple painting with brushes and experience the delay when the brush moves too fast or too much in one go.  It takes a while for APhoto (with OpenCL enabled) to catch up.  The only solution for me at the moment is to disable HA. 

As for the aliasing, I'm not sure what's going on here.  I can repeat the problem you have with the jagged edges when the canvas is rotated in 15 degree steps.  This does look like a bug. My only suggestion at this stage is to select all layers and use the move tool to rotate or, for precise rotations, use the transform panel.  However, it's not the same and rather clunky.  I hope that one of the mods can comment on this problem.

[garf-zsolt]

Sorry I didn't go into very much detail there, did I

Yes I've tried disabling HA, which didn't do too much on my PC. The lag was still there, even worse with textured brushes than before. I suspected, that maybe the second screen or the fact, that I had Youtube running while painting may be the source for this issue. But I've unplugged the HDMI cable and tried running AD without any distractions, but still: Brush lag.

However, I tried one other thing. I opened a new file with the same settings and copied my layers over there. Now it works just fine. But since I ran into this problem with brush lag multiple times in the past, I suspect, this may be only a shorthand workaround and the file can build up to lag again. Let's hope one of the mods sees this and maybe knows a solution, since I've seen this problem pop up here and there over the last few years.

Regarding the aliasing, you were right! When using the move tool to flip an element/a layer, the jagged edges simply do not occur. It's still unfortunate from a workflow aspect, since I am able to map keys and hotkeys on my graphics-tablet to flipping the canvas, but not single layers.

Anyways, thanks so much for taking the time and answering my question! I really appreciate it.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I am having the exact same issues as you but on lower hardware (own a 980). My own solution to the problem was to go back to using CPU only by disabling Hardware Acceleration (also disabling brush preview seemed to help a tiny bit with performance). The feature is still pretty buggy and fast strokes always start with a massive delay before they speed up very fast if you hold down the pen long enough. If your CPU is good enough you should be able to draw at a reasonable speed without the feature, but massive brushes will suffer in speed when compared to Hardware Acceleration.

As for aliasing, there is no fix for that I know of until the devs change how it works when rotating the canvas. I am however positive that both issues will be solved eventually. 

[Subclavius]

@garf-zsolt, you're welcome 🙂  Fingers crossed for at least a bug report/number from Affinity.  Then we know it's sitting in that huge to-do pile!

[Chris B]

Hey garf-zsolt,

Do you get laggy brushes if you use a mouse instead of a tablet? 

Your video is clearly showing terrble lag and if this is building up over time I'd like to get my hands on one of your documents to see if we can reproduce it.