Affinity photo 2 slow to display initial image of .afphoto file.

[hoop]

I can open a raw file in affinity photo 2 (version 2.3.0) and it displays the photo after a short delay (~3 seconds).  When I attempt to open the developed and saved .afphoto file (linked) of the same raw file that was developed, a heavily pixelated image appears after about 2 seconds and then it takes about 24 seconds for the unpixelated image to appear.  This is on a windows 10 PC with a GTX 1660 Super GPU.  I have tried enabling hardware acceleration but does not resolve the issue.  What can be done to eliminate this huge delay? If I choose the option of embedding the RAW file when developing the image and then save the .afphoto file, the image opens/appears instantly as I would expect.  Is the process of linking the RAW file that inefficient that it causes this long delay?

Thanks in advance.

Greg

See attached performance settings and the pixelated image i get to stare at for 20 seconds....

[hoop]

By the way, this is not  my photo.  It just happened to be one I was editing today.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, hoop said:

When I attempt to open the developed and saved .afphoto file (linked) of the same raw file that was developed ...

Where is the linked .afphoto  file stored? Somewhere on your startup drive, on a locally attached drive, in the cloud somewhere, or what? Do you use any cloud service syncing like iCloud?

[hoop]

The .nef and .afphoto are in the downloads folder of my C drive (it is a SSD drive).  No I do not use cloud storage for my photos.

Edited December 15, 2023 by hoop

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, hoop said:

Is the process of linking the RAW file that inefficient that it causes this long delay?

Probably, as the link in the APh file has to be resolved and then loaded and processed. In contrast to that, an embedded file is already directly loaded together with the Aph file.

[hoop]

Ok, I need to 'refine' my original conclusions on enabling hardware acceleration.  It does reduce the time required to get a clear image from 24 seconds to 10 seconds. (still too long IMO)  Based on RC-R's questions, I tried locating the files on each of my 3 drives (NVME SSD, SSD and 3.5" Seagate HDD) and the time to get a clear image did not vary by more than a second so it is not apparently drive access time that is causing this issue but more likely as v_kyr said, time to load the raw, process it and display the image.  The linking idea may be a great selling point but not practical to use IMO.  I certainly don't want to embedd the images since it takes 6 times the disk space.  If this is the way it is supposed to be, I guess I will have to keep looking....

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, hoop said:

... so it is not apparently drive access time that is causing this issue but more likely as v_kyr said, time to load the raw, process it and display the image. 

That does not seem likely if the source RAW file has already been processed in the linked .afphoto file. If you open that RAW source file directly in AP, how long does it take? 

Does this happen with other linked RAW files or just this one?

[hoop]

When opening a RAW file, there is a couple of second delay but no pixelated image. (completly acceptable) Once image appears, it is as it should be, not pixelated.  I created another linked edit of a raw file and it showed the pixelated image for about 8 seconds so it is not just the one image.  (good thought thought!!)