iMac 5k mid 2015

[Konkoeni]

Hi,

I have an iMac 5k mid 2015. After developing Raw file photos and work on them in photo persona after some working steps AP becomes incredibly slow leading to lags, which does not allow to work properly eg. even only clicking on the drop down menu for the blend modes needs loading time only to show the menu. Further, changing the blend mode takes 20 seconds instead of "realtime". I have already went through everything with apple support but only working with AP boosts CPU usage to 350%. Therefore a hardware issue can be excluded.

 

Is anybody facing the same problems, respectively more important has a solution for me ;)

 

Thanks!

 

[MEB]

Hi Konkoeni

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Are you using several live filters, FX effects etc in a high resolution file? Does it lags with any file or it's happening with just a specific one?

[Konkoeni]

Hi, thanks for the fast reply. I am only using 1 live filter (Gaußsch). It's starting after some layers and getting worse and worse. It's with all files I am working with and converted from Raw. Photos have been done with Eos6d (5202x3465px). eg 1 Background layer (=photo), 1 live filter, 1 HSL, 1 black&white layer, 1 graduation curve, and two selections painted. Therefore not really an exhausting one.... 

 

The strange thing is, performance on my weaker macbook air is much better (with the same photo)

[MEB]

Hi Konkoeni,

Can you please reset Affinity Photo and check if the issue persist? Press and hold ⌃(ctrl) while launching the app from Launchpad, then select Clear from the dialog that will open.

If it still gives you issues with the file, create a new user account and check if the runs properly with the same file.

[R C-R]

The strange thing is, performance on my weaker macbook air is much better (with the same photo)

Assuming this occurs with a lot of different photos, that suggests something is not right about the more powerful iMac. I assume Apple Support already had you try the following, but just in case they did not, here is a list of time-honored troubleshooting steps:

 

• Run Disk Utility's First Aid on the startup drive.

• Restart in safe mode, then restart normally. (This clean out some system & user caches that might have been corrupted.)

• Reinstall Affinity Photo. (To do this, move the app to the trash & open the Mac App Store to the Purchased tab. Locate AP in the list & click the Download button.)

• Create a new, temporary user account & log into it at startup time. If the lags & stalls do not occur with that user, you know something in your normal user account is the culprit. Otherwise, it is a system level issue.

• Download & run EtreCheck, a free diagnostic utility that gathers & reports tons of information about the software on your Mac. Look for anything suspicious in its report, & investigate further anything that does.

[Konkoeni]

Hi,

Many thanks for the extensive answer, unfortunately I have done already yours and MEB's advices before and nothing worked. I will download EtreCheck, let's see what it says. Otherwise I believe last chance is an reset to factory settings....

[R C-R]

Can we assume the lags did not go away when you created the new, temporary user account, & they are present when working with different photos?

[Konkoeni]

 I have tested it with another already existing account, lags were stille there. not sure if this could make a diffierence but i will try to create a totally new user?

[R C-R]

It might. There are a few problems that can affect all existing user accounts, at least if you log into those accounts & do whatever it is that triggers the problem.

[Konkoeni]

I have set the iMac to factory settings (i.e. formatting whole iMac), only installed AP and unfortunately nothing changed...Now I don''t know what I could still try. Anyhow, many thanks for your help!

[Konkoeni]

does anyone have further ideas?

Is anybody working with AP on imac Retina 5k 27'' without problems? Lightroom 6 is slow too....

Do you believe it could be a software issue too?

 

Thanks

[R C-R]

Did you try running EtreCheck to see if it showed anything unusual?

 

Also, when you said you set the iMac to factory settings, what exactly did you do? Even if you reformatted the drive & reinstalled the OS via recovery mode, if you then migrated anything from a backup back onto it, you may have reintroduced some software issue that is causing the lags.

[Ben]

Wait - you say Lightroom 6 is slow too?  How can you rule out a hardware issue if other software is also struggling?  Did you upgrade the memory on it yourself (as most sensible people would have)?

 

I have a late 2015 5K iMac, and I've not seen any problems like this.

 

We could also have a look at some of your example files to see if there is a specific issue connected with your document.

[Konkoeni]

ad RCR: I haven't migrated  anything afterwards, only formatted everything, reinstalled OS and installed AP from AppStore. Yes, Etre check was fine, only AP was marked red (CPU usuage)

 

ad Ben: I have upgraded the RAM on my own, but issue exist already before that.Further, the problem starts with all files after adding some layers & (live) filters

In the meanwhile imo all the signs lead to the hardware because everybody i am talking with, doesn't report any issues on imac with AP. I have already called yesterday an apple shop to bring my imac to them because for me it's simply odd, that a computer , somehow tailormade for photography, is struggling here (although imac is only 5months old!). In addition, i am not the "hardcore" AP user but mainly using it to enhance photos.... 

Hope they find the problem

 

Anyhow, AP is really a fantastic program and I hope that I can use it at 100% performance soon ;) (thumbs crossed the guys will find the problem)

 

keep you posted and again thanks for your fast replies/help!

Br

[anon1]

If we had something like badge processing or scripting we could do a cross test and see how the performance for a complex file compares among iMacs like you've seen in some apple keynote where they compared Mac VS Pc using PS.

 

If scripting is not coming in the near future the team might also consider to add a "performance test" which has some extensive filtering and adjusting in it so that one could run this procedure on a certain file among different machines.

- pretending this is pretty quick to implement

[Konkoeni]

Hi

tomorrow the imac goes to the appleshop. in the meanwhile i wanted to ask if someone is using AP on an imac Retina 2015 without any problems?

 

many thanks

[LoBu]

I'm using AP on an iMac 27" Retina late 2015 without any problems.

[Konkoeni]

@Lobu - do you use high resolution RAW photos too? (ie mine coming from EOS 6D- 5472x3648)

 

Anyhow, I have my imac back from apple service center - all hardware tests ok. They even installed AP on two of their working imacs and 1 macpro retina, and they have the same issue as me: extremely high processor usage and lags..

 

I will now try to use lower RAW resolution, maybe this is the porblem....

[MattP]

I'm running a MacPro (new shape dustbin) with a 4K screen, a 27" iMac 5K and 2 retina MacBook Pros (2013 and 2015 models - one with integrated GPU, the other with discrete AMD) and I don't have any issues that are anything even remotely like what you're seeing? :S 

 

What processor has your iMac got? Mine is an i7. I think this might be an important point that hasn't been mentioned... You're manipulating a basically 20MP image and displaying it to a 15MP screen, so there's a lot of data processing but it still should be pretty quick - certainly nothing like 20 seconds to change a blend mode! :S  A 5K screen, i5 processor and Live filters will certainly mean that things won't be utterly instant, but you shouldn't really expect anything so bad as you're describing :(

 

As Ben mentioned, it might be worth sharing one of your images (you can send it to support@seriflabs.com and it will remain confidential and only used for testing to discuss with you) and we can at least see if there is something odd or unexpected happening. I also personally doubt a hardware problem (as confirmed by Apple) but I am guessing that it's something that might make more sense if we can try the same test with the same image and same machine for ourselves first :)

 

Thanks in advance,

Matt

[Konkoeni]

Hi Matt, i will send it to support and let's discuss afterwards.

Many thanks for the fast reply and help.

Br

[anon1]

You could also try this document, open a 24MP image and paste these layers on top.

I used them to achieve a stylized look, I´m not saying that this is a great solution or a one klick solution yet but while I was experimenting my MBPr 13 2012 got slowed down tremendously. To view the image without the performance issues I wanted to export it but even the most recent AP beta would not export it, just huge fan activity and 380% CPU.

 

I´ll try it on my iMac later but this is just the kind of file I´m having trouble with (also in the past on the 5k iMac with i7)

takes little less than 10min on my iMac to render the adjustments/ filters and create a merged pixel layer.

Most of the time I do a merge visible to view the result of the adjustments but I feel like Ap continues lagging until I turn off the underlying layers which I find strange cause the merged Pixel layer has all the information and AP does not seem to recognize that. 

- just double checked that and it´s definitely the case

 

The thing that bugs me the most (except the export failure) is that the UI locks up quickly (also on my iMac). My whole MB was still usable very well but say I want to add a curves adjustment in LAB mode and go to the L channel, although I´m not making any adjustments, AP just still lags significantly in the most recent beta. 

I think there might be potential for better background processing/ UI processing power allocation.

 

I also had an issue when doing Dodge and Burn with curves adjustments where I used the Luminosity LAB channel to create the dodge/ burn layers. There seemed to be less optimization compared to doing the same with two curves using their RGB master curves and I experienced significant brush lag.

 

[anon1]

Any news on that?

Especially the unresponsive UI is really annoying (File > Export as well as these adjustments which lock up the whole program.

If I make a change, AP should recognize it and recalculate and not lock on into one setting and calculate it completely before it allows new input....