1.10.0 Affinity Photo much slower than 1.9.2

[jorismak]

Hi,

 

I installed 1.10 (after reading about it on some other site?!) and I noticed that just opening a RAW file and trying to zoom and move around in it, the display is really slow in updating (I also really notice it's updating in 'tiles', you see pieces of the photo being updated as you drag the exposure slider around for example).

 

Just zooming in by using the '200%' shortcut makes the pixels very... well, pixelated. And I have to wait _a couple of seconds_ for the real file detail to come.

 

So at first I'm looking at the file with 'fit to window'. When I then zoom in, it seems like those pixels on my screen get zoomed in (so I'm looking at a +/- 1900x1000 image zoomed in immensely) and then after a couple of seconds the rest of the pixels from the RAW file load, and I'm looking at the full detail the raw file has.

 

Now, here is the thing: This also happens with a regular TIFF file, although it _is_ faster. But something is clearly slower in updating the display. Also, when I'm zooming in and out real fast, it seems like it suddenly freezes for a few seconds and then catches up again. A YouTube video that is playing on another monitor is then also freezing for a bit.

The moment I turn _off_ OpenCL, everything is much faster! Zooming and moving around is fluent and instant. But I guess filters run slower?

 

I don't remember having to turn that option off in 1.9.

I know it's just a little integrated Intel CPU on an ultrabook, but from the benchmark it seems things should be quicker and more importantly: If the GPU would be slower, it shouldn't try to use it, but I also didn't have this on previous Affinity Photo versions.

 

[jorismak]

Just tested again with Affinity 1.9.2, with OpenCL enabled. Much better / much faster.

[Chris B]

Can you provide a Benchmark from 1.9.2 please?  

[jorismak]

 

And after a few more runs (thermal limits kicking in):

[Chris B]

Hey jorismak,

The differences are negligable (on paper) but if you're noticing a different in-app then that suggests something else. Normally we'd suggest to disable OpenCL but I can't see why 1.10 is running slower than 1.9.2 from those screenshots. There's also a plethora of fixes in 1.10 over 1.9.2 as well so I'm at a bit of a loss.

Did you run any of the betas? 

[jorismak]

Unfortunately, no, not this time.

 

If I can still download them, I'm more than happy to try one by one until I found the one where the regression occurs :).

 

Even loading a RAW file or a 16bit TIFF file is noticeably slower, and you now notice the window being 'redrawn in squares' (as in, you notice the window being updates in chunks).

 

It's not just 'noticeably slower', it's pretty much unworkable. Just opening a RAW file in develop and then zooming in to 200% takes a couple of _seconds_ for the window to update to full resolution, while without OpenCL and on Photo 1.9 it's pretty much instant.

[Chris B]

Thanks for the kind offer but I've just checked the links to the old beta's and they appear broken. I should be able to source them and put them in a location. 

[Arceom]

I'd like to know why is the performance better in Photo Beta than in the release version, its been like this since 1.8.x; I've been forced to work with the beta version of Photo since the release version is always slower and crashes constantly.

[RogerKn]

I'm also experiencing a significant slowdown in 1.10 compared to the previous version. Closing images, cropping, opening tools - all the basic operations are much less performant than before.

Roger

[wheeleran]

Same for me. i came to the forum to research if it was an issue specifically with the UWP app, which i have and now somewhat regret, given Microsoft backing slowly out of that room. is there any way to move my licence over to the exe? i've disabled OpenCL, and i suppose it's better, but Affinity used to FLY and now it crawls along doing basically anything, and this is why i left Photoshop.

[Komatös]

58 minutes ago, wheeleran said:

Same for me. i came to the forum to research if it was an issue specifically with the UWP app, which i have and now somewhat regret, given Microsoft backing slowly out of that room. is there any way to move my licence over to the exe? i've disabled OpenCL, and i suppose it's better, but Affinity used to FLY and now it crawls along doing basically anything, and this is why i left Photoshop.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to transfer the licence purchased from Microsoft to Serif. 

You have to purchase another licence from Serif. Write an email to Serif (affinity@serif.com), maybe they offer you a discounted licence.

[Chris B]

On 8/13/2021 at 9:34 PM, Arceom said:

I'd like to know why is the performance better in Photo Beta than in the release version

It shouldn't be—at all... Do you install both apps to the same HDD?

[Chris B]

On 8/14/2021 at 8:04 AM, RogerKn said:

I'm also experiencing a significant slowdown in 1.10 compared to the previous version. Closing images, cropping, opening tools - all the basic operations are much less performant than before.

Roger

Do you have OpenCL enabled?

[Arceom]

4 hours ago, Chris B said:

Do you have OpenCL enabled?

Yes; and it doesn't seem to be much faster than just relying on my cpu. I've read something about doing a clean uninstall/install of the nvidia drivers using DDU that appears to fix it. I'm gonna try that after I finish my current project. One thing to note is that I don't have crash report because when Photo crashes (release version), it restarts the whole computer immediately. I've been using the Beta version for work for almost a year because somehow it crashes a little bit less, is a little bit faster; and when it crashes, it doesn't restarts my computer.

[Komatös]

2 minutes ago, Arceom said:

Yes; and it doesn't seem to be much faster than just relying on my cpu. I've read something about doing a clean uninstall/install of the nvidia drivers using DDU that appears to fix it. I'm gonna try that after I finish my current project. One thing to note is that I don't have crash report because when Photo crashes (release version), it restarts the whole computer immediately. I've been using the Beta version for work for almost a year because somehow it crashes a little bit less, is a little bit faster; and when it crashes, it doesn't restarts my computer.

If the computer restarts, it is a problem with a driver or a Windows system component.

If your project allows it, you should run a system file check with the Windows tool sfc.

Right-click on the Windows Start menu button, select CMD (Administrator), type sfc /scannow and press Enter.

[Arceom]

3 minutes ago, Komatös said:

If your project allows it, you should run a system file check with the Windows tool sfc.

 

Thanks for the response. I could but I'm honestly scared of messing up my computer when having a deadline. Gonna try that later this week. What I find curious is that there is a noticeable difference in performance between release and beta versions; and its been like that since 1.8.x. Also, my computer works smooth with other graphically/computing intensive tasks like video editing (davinci resolve), managing large amounts of assets (Capture One), 3D (zbrush/blender) and some AAA games.
Another thing I've noticed is that lowering the ram usage from (16gb to >14gb) slows both versions but makes huge improvements at preventing crashes. Maybe I just need to to upgrade from 16gb to 32gb.🤔

[Komatös]

@Arceom 

Since version 1.9 there is hardware acceleration in the Affinity programmes. Unfortunately, this does not work with every hardware combination. 
This can lead to higher demands on the working memory or to the UI becoming slow.
Another reason is outdated drivers and/or faulty OS system components.
All this makes troubleshooting quite difficult.

[Chris B]

39 minutes ago, Arceom said:

One thing to note is that I don't have crash report because when Photo crashes (release version), it restarts the whole computer immediately.

I would have a look at the Event Viewer in Windows and pass some of those to us. The entire system restarting is somewhat worrying - have you ever had a BSoD? 

The beta essentially becomes the retail - we test the betas and then they get uploaded to the server. There should be no difference other than the beta might take longer to start up as we have a few extra diagnostics running (I believe). 

[Arceom]

19 minutes ago, Chris B said:

have you ever had a BSoD?

Not in years.

[Joris Mak 2]

2 hours ago, Komatös said:

@Arceom 

Since version 1.9 there is hardware acceleration in the Affinity programmes. Unfortunately, this does not work with every hardware combination. 
This can lead to higher demands on the working memory or to the UI becoming slow.
Another reason is outdated drivers and/or faulty OS system components.
All this makes troubleshooting quite difficult.

Small reminder that my problem - as OP of this topic - is NOT present on 1.9, both with opencl enabled. So it's a regression from 1.9 to 1.10 for me. 

 

So the same system, same driver, works fine with 1.9 to is unusable slow with 1.10.

[Komatös]

3 hours ago, Joris Mak 2 said:

Small reminder that my problem - as OP of this topic - is NOT present on 1.9, both with opencl enabled. So it's a regression from 1.9 to 1.10 for me. 

 

So the same system, same driver, works fine with 1.9 to is unusable slow with 1.10.

Have you ever installed the graphics card drivers clean? In other words, completely uninstalled the drivers, preferably with a tool like DDU, so that all driver files are removed.
Then install the latest version of the GPU drivers.

Download DDU here direct from Waggnardsoft: https://www.wagnardsoft.com/DDU/download/DDU v18.0.4.2.exe

[jorismak]

Why would it work fine with Photo 1.9 then?

[Komatös]

7 minutes ago, jorismak said:

Why would it work fine with Photo 1.9 then?

We have to start troubleshooting somewhere. Because if it were a general error, it would occur with all users.
There are so many different hardware combinations that we cannot offer a blanket solution.

If reinstalling the drivers does not bring about a change, then perhaps a Windows system component is faulty. You can find out if this is the case with the Windows tool sfc.
To do this, right-click on the Windows Start icon. Select CMD (Administrator), type sfc /scannow and confirm with Enter.

[ATP]

13 hours ago, jorismak said:

Why would it work fine with Photo 1.9 then?

I don't have an answer but just want to point out that the 1.10 update was a big overhaul of the codebase, so this has changed things that probably has ended up making regressions.

[jorismak]

Ok, so my Intel driver was still on v27 because that's the latest supplied by my device manufacturer.

Did the DDU thing (did it before, I know how it works... downloading the latest driver and then killing the network is required, because otherwise Windows will install a new one automatically if you're not fast enough :P).

Installed the latest official Intel v30 drivers.

 

Performance on Affinity 1.9.2 seems worse now with OpenCL enabled, although still miles better than 1.10.0.

Opening files is faster without OpenCL enabled on both versions. The display updates quicker without OpenCL enabled on both versions.

But on 1.9.2 the difference between OpenCL enabled and disabled isn't that pronounced. On 1.10.0 the speed of updating the display / preview is _sooo_ much slower it's unworkable with OpenCL enabled.

 

But... doing the 'motion blur > 800px' test, Affinity Photo 1.9.2 is actually quicker to update _with_ OpenCL enabled compared to OpenCL disabled.

But 1.10.0 the same thing is _very_ sluggish and just as slow as doing the 800px motion-blur filter on the CPU alone.

 

Opening a file (a .NEF or a .tif) also seems to 'freeze' the application for a bit, where the display window gets a bit corrupted and then updates again. This isn't happening on 1.9.2.

Opening the NEF with 1.10.0 with OpenCL enabled also makes it very obvious how the file is loaded: You see the Develop persona without any tone curve applied, then the display corruption happens, then you see the image again, then the base-curve gets applied. If I then press 'ctrl+3' to zoom in a lot, you really see the tiles of the preview window being redraw.

This all isn't happening with OpenCL disabled, but it's also not happening on 1.9.2 (OpenCL enabled or disabled).

 

Trying to dial in the 'defringe' parameters is just plain impossible on 1.10.0 with OpenCL enabled. Sometimes it takes _seconds_ for the screen to redraw. You don't know if a change you made had no effect or you are just not seeing the updated preview yet. On 1.9.2 with OpenCL enabled the changes are _instant_ (if the defringe radius isn't crazy high) and moving the sliders is smooth and gives instant preview while you are dragging the sliders.

 

@ATP Source? You don't have a marking of being Affinity staff, and from looking around not that much changed on the Windows side (but I can't look at the inside of course).

 

I'll be back on 1.9.2 for the time being...