Vector brush slow on first stroke only

[TwoKoalas]

Hi, I can consistently reproduce an issue with the Vector Brush. 

On a document with multiple layers, the vector brush drawing is extremely slow as the stroke lengthens.
After drawing the shape it takes a few seconds where I watch Designer draw my stroke in low motion. 

After drawing the first stroke, all sequential strokes are buttery smooth and fast.
If I then delete all the strokes and try again, the first stroke is extremely slow again.

Tested on an RTX 2070 Super with and without OpenCL
 

[Dan C]

Hi @TwoKoalas,

Thanks for your report!

Can you please provide a screenshot of the Affinity app, with the Vector Brush tool selected?

Are you using a default 'basic' brush with this tool, or does the brush selection not change this behaviour for you?

Many thanks in advance

[TwoKoalas]

Hi Dan, thanks for looking into it! 
It's a default brush from what I remember. Changing the brush selection does not change the behavior. First brush stroke is extremely slow. 

CPU: Ryzen 7 3700x 
GPU: RTX 2070 Super  w OpenCL

Here's a video of the behavior:

[Dan C]

No problem at all, many thanks for providing that for me!

I can see we have a known issue logged with our development team for the first stroke with the Vector Brush tool when the Stabiliser is enabled - if you untick this on the Context Toolbar does the first stroke now draw quicker?

As mentioned, this is logged as a bug with our developers, so I'll be sure to 'bump' this with our team now

[TwoKoalas]

Thanks for that. No change with stabilizer on or off. 
I noticed that it is related to the adjustment layer at the top in my video, or other effect layers if I paint down in the stack.
It's like after the first stroke there is some document caching where the app figures out the placement of the new layer and does some optimization (wild guess)

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that for me!

11 minutes ago, TwoKoalas said:

I noticed that it is related to the adjustment layer at the top in my video, or other effect layers if I paint down in the stack.

I agree, from my testing I'm able to replicate this behaviour when using a Vibrance Adjustment, but not with other similar adjustments, such as Levels or HSL - there appears to be a calculation delay in the first stroke drawn above, or any strokes below, when this Vibrance is present, so I'm getting this logged with our devs now as a bug.

In the meantime, temporarily disabling the Adjustment layer whilst drawing your strokes should reduce this issue

[TwoKoalas]

That's interesting, thanks for the explanation and for logging it!

On a related question, I'm experiencing slowdowns by disabling all adjustment layers and painting inside a simple shape down in the stack. The speed is not recovering on the second stroke, like it did in the first example. 

I'm not very familiar with Designer and vector brushes, but Is this expected behavior? 

[Dan C]

No problem at all

1 hour ago, TwoKoalas said:

Is this expected behavior? 

I suspect this may be related to your FX applied to other layers within this curve, as you draw the Vector Stroke the app will have to calculate and draw this new stroke, whilst continuously recalculating and redrawing the 'master' object and FX.

Out of interest, which FX are enabled for the nested curves please?

[TwoKoalas]

The nested sub shapes have gaussian blur applied. Note that no effects are applied above the inserted/drawn shape.

I stripped down the scene and I did the same test as the original post. Having the top shape selected and painting outside of the group, the first stroke is very slow and the second is much faster.

Painting inside the group it behaves slowly with every stroke. 

[Renx-78]

Hello, everybody.

I'm experiencing the same problem myself.

To me the slowdown happens towards the end of the stroke-pencil, a slowdown of even several seconds with fairly long strokes.

Only as I was preparing to record the video, having rebooted Designer I can't replicate the problem!

However it has shown up for me other times (sort of randomly).

I'll post the video when I get a chance.

[Renx-78]

Sorry to reply.
Here is the video

[TwoKoalas]

Hi Renx-78. That looks similar to what I experience on the slow stroke. The longer you draw, the slower it becomes.
This might be a slightly different issue than the first vs second stroke evaluation depending on layer/stack location.

As a wild guess, I believe some optimizations should be possible on the stroke vs stack evaluation/updates code.

[Dan C]

Thanks for the further videos provided @Renx-78 & @TwoKoalas - can you both please attach a copy of your .afdesign file here, so that I can further test this and report to our developers as required?

Many thanks in advance

[TwoKoalas]

Hi Dan C. I've attached the .afdesign file. Hope this helps!

Slow first brush evaluation.afdesign

[Renx-78]

Okay, and here's mine.

Astro 2 v2.afdesign

[Dan C]

Thank you for providing those for me! In my testing I see a very slightly delayed first stroke, but nowhere near as noticeable as in your recordings.

Can you both please:

• Navigate to Edit > Preferences > Performance and provide a screenshot of your settings here.
   
• Update your GPU drivers to the latest versions, directly from the manufacturers website
   
• Confirm if you are using a Drawing Tablet, Mouse, or other device for input?
   
• Before drawing your Vector Brush stroke, create a new Empty Layer from the bottom of the Layers Studio and then try painting.
  
  Does this improve the responsiveness of the first stroke for you?

Many thanks once again

[TwoKoalas]

NVIDIA GPU driver is the latest: 516.94 WHQL
Using a Mouse as input device.

Creating a new layer outside of the group speeds up the first stroke.  It only becomes increasingly slower if I create a VERY long stroke.
Creating a new layer inside the group makes no difference. The stroke is slow as in the video. 

Here are my settings. Didn't spot major differences with OpenCL on or off. Might be slightly slower with OpenCL off.

 

[Renx-78]

I noticed that we both have a similar combination of GPU and CPU, however I report my configuration below.

Having therefore the same video card I can confirm that the version of NVIDIA Studio Driver that I have installed at the moment is the most recent: 516.94.

I usually use a Wacom Intuos Pro, but this also happens with the mouse.

In my case if I create a new layer to paint, the problem seems to go away.

The system I'm having the problem with is a PC that I assembled:
CPU - AMD Ryzen 3900X
RAM - 32GB DDR4 3200MHz CL16
GPU - Nvidia RTX 2070 Super
Imput - Logitech MX Master 2S Mouse; Wacom Intuos Pro (2017) Driver 6.3.46-1
OS: Windows 11 v. 22621.457
Video driver: Nvidia Studio 516.94

Use 27 "monitor at native resolution of 3840x2160 60hz interface resizing to 150%

And here are the Designer settings.

[Dan C]

My sincerest thanks for all of the information provided above - interestingly I could not replicate this easily on my RTX 3060 GPU in the office, however my GTX 1070 at home clearly shows the same issue in your screen recordings and therefore I believe this to be a potential rendering issue on older GPUs - which certainly isn't expected.

Therefore I am logging a new bug report with our developers now, including your screen recordings, documents and system specifications - such that this can hopefully be resolved in a future update

On 9/12/2022 at 4:23 PM, TwoKoalas said:

Creating a new layer outside of the group speeds up the first stroke.  It only becomes increasingly slower if I create a VERY long stroke.

On 9/12/2022 at 4:50 PM, Renx-78 said:

In my case if I create a new layer to paint, the problem seems to go away.

In the meantime, creating this new, empty layer is the only workaround I've found to reduce this issue - so I would recommend using this where possible.

I hope this helps!

[TwoKoalas]

Hi Dan, thanks for the help and thank you very much for looking thoroughly into this.
I hope you guys can track down the issue and get it sorted out in the future version! 

[Renx-78]

Thanks Dan, I hope they fix it soon.