Designer Performance on Intel CPU/AMD GPU Macs

[deeds]

Has the performance been improved since 1.8? 

 

Due to the arbitrary rules on licensing, I'll have to buy a new license to "upgrade".

 

Wondering if it's worth it.

[walt.farrell]

What OS?

[Dan C]

There have been numerous performance improvements since 1.8, without any specifics it's hard to answer your question, however this post may be of interest.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by having to buy a new license to upgrade. If you previously owned Designer on your Mac, you can reinstall it without paying to upgrade.

Lee

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, deeds said:

Due to the arbitrary rules on licensing, I'll have to buy a new license to "upgrade".

Why? As long as you are still using the same platform (Windows or Mac) all updates are free.

There is as yet no upgrade, which would be to a 2 point-something version & will almost certainly require purchasing a new licence, as is standard practice in the software industry.

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Why? As long as you are still using the same platform (Windows or Mac) all updates are free.

From their other posts, they purchased from the Mac App Store, then moved to a new country and lost access to their old Apple account somehow, and Apple won't help.

[deeds]

Just now, LeeThorpe said:

There have been numerous performance improvements since 1.8, without any specifics it's hard to answer your question, however this post may be of interest.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by having to buy a new license to upgrade. If you previously owned Designer on your Mac, you can reinstall it without paying to upgrade.

Lee

OSX 10.13.6 

Have twiddled with every performance option. 6 core 12 thread, last of the MacBook Pros with the 560X. Have previously complained about AD using power in the background, and being a hog and heat creator. A long time ago. Nothing changed up to 1.8.1

Want FX to be faster. They're mind numbingly slow when doing things like the attached, for small edits, zoom, pan etc. redraws take seconds to dozens of seconds.

 

[Dan C]

Would you be willing to share your file so we can look into what might be causing the issues for you?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/HJKo0n75qzYdccBoZjXf

[deeds]

Just now, LeeThorpe said:

Would you be willing to share your file so we can look into what might be causing the issues for you?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/HJKo0n75qzYdccBoZjXf

Done!

 

It's 62KB in Finder

[deeds]

Have also added the text of a crash report. I get quite a few of these when using Affinity.

 

Not as many as when using Unity

 

But nothing crashes as consistently as Unity...

[Dan C]

I've had a look at the project, there are around 350 layers on this with almost all of the layers containing all of the FX enabled.

I would have to say that this is more of an efficiency issue rather than an application issue because at the moment I feel you are pushing your GPU's ram to it's limits and most likely over them. It's especially important to be efficient with slightly older hardware.

The crash file doesn't really give us a clear indication of where the problem lies other than it was unable to draw a shape.

I would advise rasterising and flattening layers you have committed,  Splitting the second artboard to a separate file will help a lot too.

Remember that file size of a vector document is no real indication of complexity or the system load required.

On an additional note, I would advise updating as you are running Designer 1.8.4.

Lee

[deeds]

Just now, LeeThorpe said:

I've had a look at the project, there are around 350 layers on this with almost all of the layers containing all of the FX enabled.

I would have to say that this is more of an efficiency issue rather than an application issue because at the moment I feel you are pushing your GPU's ram to it's limits and most likely over them. It's especially important to be efficient with slightly older hardware.

The crash file doesn't really give us a clear indication of where the problem lies other than it was unable to draw a shape.

I would advise rasterising and flattening layers you have committed,  Splitting the second artboard to a separate file will help a lot too.

Remember that file size of a vector document is no real indication of complexity or the system load required.

On an additional note, I would advise updating as you are running Designer 1.8.4.

Lee

Did you miss the point of this thread?

 

I've gotta pay to upgrade. And am not sure it's worth it.

You wanted THIS file. This is by no means the only file I work on... that has these problems... I work on a single button in a single file, single art board so as to not stress memory. etc.

 

Even then, in that streamlined environment (without the layers of text, etc... just the button shape and its FX) the redraw slowness is still an issue.

 

Is this improved in later versions?

 

 

[deeds]

Any suggestions on performance...

[Dan C]

Other than what has already been suggested I'm afraid not. You are running an old version of Affinity Designer on hardware that isn't quite up to the task you are assigning it.

We can't assist with the Apple's App Store licensing issue you are having, but If you wish to test it on the latest version, a trial is available from our store.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/  

(bottom of the page)

Lee

[deeds]

Just now, LeeThorpe said:

Other than what has already been suggested I'm afraid not. You are running an old version of Affinity Designer on hardware that isn't quite up to the task you are assigning it.

We can't assist with the Apple's App Store licensing issue you are having, but If you wish to test it on the latest version, a trial is available from our store.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/  

(bottom of the page)

Lee

Please tell devs to take a look into SDF (signed distance fields) for effects generation and rendering. It's totally animatable and runs with ease on almost anything.