Affinity Designer V2 getting really slow and laggy after some time

[APW-Design]

On 1/12/2023 at 9:06 AM, GenewalDesign said:

I think I can create a topic everyday for each freeze I get. Everytime when I'm zooming in/out.

More I use this software, more I'm telling me "You bought it too soon, it's not properly debugged"

Yes I just had a crash when zooming in for the first time today. Luckily the recovery file had saved only a short while before. Is there any official update for if a fix is being worked on?

[Zackariasa]

Hi Affinity Team,

i have the same problem,
for the last 2 months it has really disturbed my design activities regarding lag and suddenly not responding.
when will this be fixed? This really interferes with my creative process in working and meeting deadlines from my clients

[AutumnPioneer]

I've come back again to post here because it's once again crashed because of the gradual slow down!

We need a response from the team as this is severely affecting my day to day work!!

[klam]

Bought the whole V2 suit few days ago, was using V1 few years, everything was running smooth and now I'm unsatisfied with the performace of Designer 2 - even while selecting objects and playing with nodes, adding and subtracting objects, moving them etc. it's sooo laggy and even crashes. That is horrible for my workflow, hope it will be fixed soon. Hope Affinity Team knows about this issue since I've tried everything in this thread to make it run faster and it doesn't.

[Wil JF]

This problem also happens to me and since the complaints started in November nothing concrete has been done so far. The answers have been the same: reinstall, disable cl, change drivers etc etc. This doesn't happen with any other software installed on my computer, and I have several others installed. It's definitely not a hardware issue. And the silence of the responsible team so far is disappointing.

[LSG501]

You can throw me into the designer v2 is lagging group....

I've reduced the undo, I've maxed the file recovery interval, increased the disk usage warning to 3/4 of the ram usage limit (64Gigs), opencl is active.

I have noticed text lagging when typing or it just doesn't appear.  If I've gone from split screen where affinity was half the screen and say edge/firefox was the other half, the second side has blurred text when I put affinity back to full screen, only fixing after a scroll/refresh to go back to 'in focus'.  This would maybe point me towards direct-x/open-cl as being a possible cause... but I'm not an expert.

Task manager isn't showing anything to worry over, no excessive cpu usage, no excessive ram usage, no excessive drive usage and even the gpu isn't being stressed hard.

The thing that makes it worse is that I shouldn't really be getting any sort of lag with my system.... Ryzen 5950x (16c/32t), 128GB ram (twice the 'max ram' in affinity), 2x2TB NVME (one for os/programs, the other is a scratch disk and has a secondary page file on it), another 6 sata ssd's for storing stuff and a gtx1060 6gb.... so I can basically rule out 'slow hard drives' being the issue because I don't have any.... 

Yes my gpu is a little older (4000 series coming soon) but if my pc can cope with things like 3ds max/blender without issue then I shouldn't really be getting lag in a a dtp program...

Edited January 30, 2023 by LSG501

[SrPx]

10 hours ago, LSG501 said:

opencl is active

Have you tried disabling it? My performance issues (brush lag) went away for ever by disabling it. I can paint in Photo and Designer's Pixel Persona as fast as in any non Affinity app. Indeed, this is so for both 1.x and 2.x (I have both suites installed).

The other thing that was giving me problems (while I had been recommending it before, as it did seem to work smoothly at first) was setting "Windows Ink" both in the Wacom panel and Affinity preferences (tools/input method). Setting High Precision, instead,  (I advice not to set Low Precision) works best for me in terms of lag and avoiding other issues.

Also, yes that card (1060) is now highly unbalanced in features and capability with your great system: it is perhaps being a bottleneck. My 3060 works very fast with the 3900X in Affinity apps -can't complain, certainly- , with very large canvases and huge brushes (probably the GPU does little there, though, but it was definitely slower with my 1650. But because my card upgrade has been almost at the same time than me getting back to using more Affinity, during the time when v1 updated to 1.10.6, and v2 was released, not sure about how much of it can be attributed to a newer card. But even with the 3060, it was lagging before disabling Open CL). It is surely  the problems that Open CL causes in some systems. I have not noticed anything slowing down in any of the 6 Affinity apps after disabling Open CL. But maybe it is that I don't use very heavy filters, content-aware tools or etc. I just paint and edit images (but huge ones, for print). I still notice slowing down/lag if I work with live layers while I paint. I tend to rasterize them for that (I work mainly in Photo, also Designer for vectors, but surely the core issues are common).

[LSG501]

16 minutes ago, SrPx said:

opencl snip

Yeah I've tried both ways, in my case it feels a little better with it turned on so I've left it on.

Haven't even got my wacom drivers installed, haven't been using it much of late...

I have a feeling that when I get the 4000 series card (eventually, just got a feeling that sods law would see a price drop just after buying....) it will likely cure the major issues but at the same time it still doesn't explain why even the most basic things are causing it to lag on a 1060 6GB (the fan doesn't even spin up, it has 0rpm mode....), which to be fair is more than enough for dtp work and something that I never noticed on v1 with the same hardware (well only 64GB ram at that time). 

Mind you it would be far better if Affinity actually implemented support for cuda as well rather than just opencl, it's far more 'robust' as a gpu processing language.  Like you say opencl isn't exactly great and in most of the software I've used with gpu encoding/rendering they've usually dropped opencl due to poor feature stack etc. 

edit: should also say I'm using the new msi installers rather than msix (hate the idea of no control over install locations)

Edited January 31, 2023 by LSG501

[SrPx]

In the past, I had issues with type/text lagging (in 1.x, surely would have them in v2 with that font) which I solved by discovering a particular very heavy font (sometimes it's some other odd factor of  that font) which had issues with Affinity (just one font). I didn't really used it, so I eliminated that one from Windows/fonts (I also set Windows/fonts on a SSD, as in my HDD would make things go slower in Affinity (I believe even the app start became faster); I still use HDDs for work files and caching ...), and it started to work well and snappy. One thing I'd try is to install v2.0.4 in a laptop or other computer, which would have only basic system fonts, see if then the type tool lags there or if it doesn't.     

[LSG501]

1 minute ago, SrPx said:

In the past, I had issues with Type/text lagging (in 1.x, surely would have them in v2 with  that font) which I solved by discovering a particular very heavy font (sometimes it's some other odd factor of  that font) which had issues with Affinity (just one font). I didn't really used it, so I eliminated that one from Windows/fonts (I also set Windows/fonts on a SSD, as in my HDD would make things go slower in Affinity (I believe even the app start became faster); I still use HDDs for work files and caching ...), and it started to work well and snappy. One thing I'd try is to install v2.0.4 in a laptop or other computer, which would have only basic system fonts, see if then the type tool lags there or if it doesn't.     

My fonts are on a 2TB firecuda 530 (gen4 nvme) where I only keep a limited amount installed and like I said I don't even have a hard drive in this rig lol.  The primary font I'm using isn't a fancy font with all the flourishes etc, it's just plain old source sans pro. 

I remembered I could do the benchmark in photo and it came in at over 10,700 for raster and nearly 5,900 for combined.... so it can't be 'that bad' lol

 

I have got to get round to installing on my laptop but to be fair it wouldn't be like for like, windows 11 vs windows 10, less ram, the ssd is definitely slower, intel 12700h and a mobile 3060 (60w iirc).  No harm in checking it when I get a chance though.

[SrPx]

10 hours ago, LSG501 said:

the second side has blurred text when I put affinity back to full screen, only fixing after a scroll/refresh to go back to 'in focus'. 

This is a different problem (different cause, I suppose, too). Super random idea, but have you tried setting "retina rendering" as "High Quality", instead of "Auto" (auto is default, if I am not wrong).  The auto thing might be doing its optimization.

I mean, in Affinity's Preferences -> Performance. And of course, having in View Quality, "Bilinear (Best quality)", and in "Display", your graphic card (nVidia 1060). (and, yep, I disable Open CL, as it works best for me) .

[SrPx]

26 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

I have got to get round to installing on my laptop but to be fair it wouldn't be like for like, windows 11 vs windows 10, less ram, the ssd is definitely slower, intel 12700h and a mobile 3060 (60w iirc).  No harm in checking it when I get a chance though.

I have a laptop with those specs (the one in my signature), and Affinity seems to work very fast in it. 

In the matter of disk, any SSD will be fast in a DTP app (Indeed, I work fast saving in HDDs yet, no problems). Yep, I never thought your case would be due to hardware (a 5950X (the most efficient (frame per watt, not render speed) PC CPU for rendering, including the new 7000s) with 128GB RAM should find barriers in nothing), there's a lot of people around working (with Affinity) with even laptops with APUs and iGPUs, no discrete cards, 16GB RAM, even being low consume "U" CPUs, yet they don't have the typing issue. There's something going on there, but it's surely software/config or the like. That yep, it happens more with Affinity than other apps. I don't have any issues now, but I have needed to heavily cure (not meaning that I should have...) my system to reach this point. I know some fonts give problems (did happen to other ppl too, in the forum and they also solved it so), not necessarily being a complex/fancy font. But it can also be issues with the .NET libraries (.NET version installed on the system), or some other system files, etc. That is only a part of the reasons why I recommended trying it on another system, be it a laptop or a more vanilla PC. As it is a way to determine that there's something in that system that is not playing well with Affinity (even if every other app on earth gives no problems at all).

[SrPx]

Some people having graphic glitches have solved the problems by fully uninstalling the nvidia drivers using a free tool (the link is in some forum post here) as in some cases the simple uninstall is not clean, and the installing the newest drivers (I use the nVidia "Studio" version), as sometimes is an issue with the graphic driver.

[SrPx]

I have made now a test setting the two windows (chrome web browser and Affinity Designer) in mosaic mode, side to side, with a text frame with a bunch of text.  Even losing the focus by clicking on the browser, no blur happens on the Affinity Designer's text. Indeed, it works great also with Retina rendering: Auto. I have tested that the other two modes work as well without producing text blur. Still, in your case I'd do the test setting "high quality", just in case.

I am using 2.0.3 yet, haven't done the update to 2.0.4. But for this matter it's surely the same.

Also, I don't notice any slowing down/lag in typing in a text frame in Designer, even with a bunch of text in it (and I have gazillions of fonts in my system).

My guess/bet would be the card's graphic driver. You are using a 1060... This is very old.. Are you forced to use a very old driver version for some other stuff to work well ? An old driver could be the culprit... (again, even if everything else on the planet works well in your machine; Affinity is kindda picky...But this aspect made me discover some stuff that wasn't as correct as I thought, in my system. So, there's that, too).

[LSG501]

8 hours ago, SrPx said:

 Yep, I never thought your case would be due to hardware (a 5950X (the most efficient (frame per watt, not render speed) PC CPU for rendering, including the new 7000s) with 128GB RAM should find barriers in nothing),

Take it you've missed the specs for forspoken lol

Pretty sure I'm running latest studio, that's what I normally pick but windows could have overwritten it with windows being windows.... I'll get the work done and then look at playing around some more.

 

[GenewalDesign]

On 1/5/2023 at 10:14 AM, GenewalDesign said:

Besides the freezes, my AD is painfully slow on some big projects. I have one with LOTS of layers (I cannot count manually, and I put them in a group so the context menu doesn't help), and duplicate/move layers is getting very painful.

It's almost 2 SECONDS between the time I use the duplicate shortcut and the duplicate layers appears.

I'll quote myself, can a mod log that issue?

[kaek]

I think the problem is with Win and graphic drivers. I have been having this problem with Photoshop CS6 the last 4+ years and lately also Affinity Designer, where the programs gets more and more slow and laggy. 

I have installed and reainstalled programs, drivers and even windows from scratch and nothing working.

As I recall, the problem startet 4+ years ago with a win10 upgrade.

Hardware: 2xGTX1080 (tried with and without SLI) + 3900X + 128 GB RAM. It is not the RAM, MB,  SSD or CPU as It also was a problem with my older Intel system.

[JPBERUTTI910]

did anyone try the version 2.0.4 ? is the problem fixed?

[MikeTO]

56 minutes ago, JPBERUTTI910 said:

did anyone try the version 2.0.4 ? is the problem fixed?

Yes, there were major improvements for this issue in 2.0.4. I'm unsure if it's totally fixed on Windows, there might still be some scattered reports, but the major issue was fixed. You should give it a try.

Cheers

[AutumnPioneer]

1 hour ago, JPBERUTTI910 said:

did anyone try the version 2.0.4 ? is the problem fixed?

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Yes, there were major improvements for this issue in 2.0.4. I'm unsure if it's totally fixed on Windows, there might still be some scattered reports, but the major issue was fixed. You should give it a try.

Cheers

Definitely not, mine has just crashed again because of the same gradual slow down, came back here to post again and just noticed this question. What a joke... 😭

[Dangerous]

4 hours ago, JPBERUTTI910 said:

did anyone try the version 2.0.4 ? is the problem fixed?

If on Windows system have you got the Windows 22H2 update installed?

 

 

[JPBERUTTI910]

1 hour ago, Dangerous said:

If on Windows system have you got the Windows 22H2 update installed?

 

 

Yes, i have windows 11 22H2

[AutumnPioneer]

Would love if an actual developer responded to this thread since its clearly a huge problem for many people. Mine has just crashed once again 👍

[PD1234]

I went back to Dell as I was still within a couple of months of warrenty etc and banging my head at the wall. I discovered one of the windows updates hadn't updated correctly and effected more than Affinity Designer and Photo. My Windows 11 search bar glitched and other silly things were not quite right that I hadn't noticed before. So I did a new install of Windows 10 and still couldn't get pass the Windows update causing the issue. 6 more attempts and it worked, got pass the update and reinstalled all my other programs including Affinity and now it works fine for what I need. I haven't updated to Window 11 this time, just incase! 

Hope this helps.

[KarinC]

I found this thread because I am having this lagging issue with Designer, mainly with selecting and deselecting which can take up to 10 or 15 seconds to respond. It seems like if I add a simple gradient it is much worse. I am using the 30 day trial which should be the latest version shouldn't it? I worried that I would have to buy a better computer but it appears that it will not help.  I doubt I will buy it at this point. It gets too frustrating, waiting and waiting to select a single node. Also worrisome that Serif is not responding to the issue. I had hoped to find a substitute for Illustrator which I refuse to use anymore. I guess I'll have to look elsewhere.