Affinity Designer V2 getting really slow and laggy after some time

[Cristian Dragos]

I'm sure it's not placebo but the 2.1 version works much better now. I can use the app much longer before lagging and even when it starts lagging is not that bad as it used to be. Also, lowering the Undo limit makes the app work smooth for a longer time. I am now using a 50 Undo limit and I'm happy with the performance so far. Hopefully, v2.2 will get even more performance tweaks.

[Dangerous]

When Ver 1 got to 1.10 I started to have the program go 'not responding' then freeze and not recover. I blamed so on the processor/computer build as it is getting on in years. 

I did much searching the web and came up with a couple of tweaks to Windows 10 and Affinity (MSI install and got rid of the app) which stopped the crashing but not the 'not responding' until I did the 22H2 windows update which at the time was optional.  That almost fixed the 'not responding' and I only had it happen once every 2 or 3 weeks . Don't ask me how the MSI version improved things as theoretically it should not have mad any operational difference whatsoever (but it did seem to)

10 days ago Windows 10 updated and the 'not responding' immediately started again. That suggests to me that Windows is partly to blame. I have just updated to 2.1 today so I don't know what will happen now.

I would just like to add that, for me, the 2.1 update wasn't automatic as it attempted to download and install the MSIX app version.

[nitro912gr]

Me on the other hand so far so good, I worked some projects here and there but not my main jobs, I'm too busy to lose time on back an forth with V1 if it is not working as advertised.

The thing is that it seems like it is fixed for me at least. I will try to move more work on it to see if this is for real.

[Dangerous]

First tests with version 2.1 is looking good. One file that often causes 'not responding' is working without issue, slow but that is because the processor is old in computer years but actually seems as fast if not faster than it ever was. Up to now I am happy.

 

[Dangerous]

3 hours ago, Dangerous said:

First tests with version 2.1 is looking good. One file that often causes 'not responding' is working without issue, slow but that is because the processor is old in computer years but actually seems as fast if not faster than it ever was. Up to now I am happy.

 

After more testing on new photos I am impressed at the performance. Yes it is what I would call slow but that is not Affinity, it is the slow computer. I was able to work faster than with 2.0 without the not responding issue and even with a 12 image pano (total size of the 12 files 300mb) and creating a 650 .afphoto file it was quicker than I expected.

Even a 21photo (total 800mb) pano worked as expected. Bearing in mine a single photo was crashing 2.0 last week after the Windows update this is a fantastic result.

So from me it is a WELL DONE SERIF.

 

[nitro912gr]

ok did some heavy lifting this week, so far so good, everything seems to be working fine again!

Thanks Serif!

[SteveR_UK]

Definitely heading in the right direction

Keep it up

[Michu]

I've been testing version 2.1 for three days now and so far I haven't had any problems. The program does not slow down after a long work. I think the problem - for me - has been solved.
Thanks!

[bayustudio]

I tried it out and performance seems good. The speedy Affinity I knew is back! Thanks for fixing it.

[lb Cake]

Since my purchase on December 18, 2022 I have been forced to migrate back and forth between v1 and v2 due to the lag, hangs and crashes in v2. On 10/6/2023 I updated to 2.2.0 after not working in v2 since July 2023 due to performance and stability issues described in this forum and was immediately forced to return to v1 due to unworkable lag in the pixel persona. Task Manager showed a power usage spike during the lag but nothing else. My v1 and v2 performance metrics are identically dialed down from the default and hardware acceleration is disengaged, and while that worked wonders for Designer v1 it has had no appreciable effect on v2.

Here's hoping this problem can be fixed before this thread reaches double digit pages.

[ExpiredMayo]

I am surprised I managed to get pretty far before I started encountering... this thread. I can confirm I am on an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and AMD RX 6800 XT, and my workaround is to switch Designer 2.2 to the WARP renderer (I am assuming this is a software based renderer). Seems to be okay even with OpenCL still on, and still using the default 1024 undo limit. 16384 MB RAM allocated.

With the card-named renderer, I can open the application without any documents, but the instant something loads (even a new/blank document) causes everything to enter 0.01 fps slideshow mode.

EDIT: WARP is the Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform, a software based Direct3D renderer from DirectX 11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3darticles/directx-warp. Sounds like an official-enough permanent solution, not just a workaround, to me.

Edited October 10, 2023 by ExpiredMayo

[nitro912gr]

Well me on my part I'm fine now on all my machines.

At home with a 5500XT, at Workstation 1 with AMD HD 7790 and now on my laptop with vega 3 6.

Weird how persistent this issue is, you guys have for a long time or maybe some recent driver broke something again?

[lb Cake]

Quote

8 hours ago, ExpiredMayo said:

I am surprised I managed to get pretty far before I started encountering... this thread. I can confirm I am on an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and AMD RX 6800 XT, and my workaround is to switch Designer 2.2 to the WARP renderer (I am assuming this is a software based renderer). Seems to be okay even with OpenCL still on, and still using the default 1024 undo limit. 16384 MB RAM allocated.

With the card-named renderer, I can open the application without any documents, but the instant something loads (even a new/blank document) causes everything to enter 0.01 fps slideshow mode.

EDIT: WARP is the Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform, a software based Direct3D renderer from DirectX 11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3darticles/directx-warp. Sounds like an official-enough permanent solution, not just a workaround, to me.

 

I'm running a pretty similar CPU/GPU combo. I'll have to experiment.

[ExpiredMayo]

On 10/10/2023 at 10:36 AM, nitro912gr said:

Well me on my part I'm fine now on all my machines.

At home with a 5500XT, at Workstation 1 with AMD HD 7790 and now on my laptop with vega 3.

Weird how persistent this issue is, you guys have for a long time or maybe some recent driver broke something again?

I think this one is AMD's fault. I'm primarily a Firefox user, but today I had to open Google Chrome and guess what, exact same symptoms when you open a page with a canvas on it. Maybe it's anything with 2D hardware acceleration? Did a driver rollback from AMD Adrenalin 23.9.3 to 23.9.2 23.9.1 23.8.2 and now Affinity is now fine in WARP and graphics-card-named rendering. Don't know if it affects vega/RDNA/whatever-HD7000 series (your vega 3/RX5500/HD7790) since I'm on RDNA2 with this 6800XT.

Unrelated: it looks like 23.9.x introduced Anti Lag+, and that's getting people VAC Banned in Counter Strike 2 (looks like any game with anti-cheat, really). I guess this post is now here to vindicate Serif. September/October 2023 is not a good time for Team Red graphics. I'll wait it out for next quarter's driver updates.

Edited October 13, 2023 by ExpiredMayo

[nitro912gr]

yeah driver fallbacks are a life saver. They need to get their shit together as their GPUs are good but they seem to focus more in gaming and even there we see things like the antilag+ ...