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Posted

Hi,
I work on very large documents on affinity photo v2 :
60 x 90 cm at 300 dpi
rather for digital paintings or photo manipulations.

Except for the liquify tool everything is slow pretty fast. My work around was to work with a 25% document size, then enlarge it afterward... its not ideal.

How to make the software faster ? Should I get :
Better CPU ?
Better GPU ?
More Ram ?

what should I look for ?


I have a 3700x (8cores) + 2070 Super and 32 Go of RAM at 3200 Mhz
I am okay with upgrading my computer but don t know what exactly I should get to boost my process ?

(I also have an M3 pro, did not try to work with those files yet).

Posted

"Everything is slow" doesn't tell us much about what kinds of functions you're using. A screenshot showing an image and the contents of your Layers panel would provide more, for example. And information about the color format and bit-depth you're working with.

Or (if possible) a sample .afphoto file that has the problem for you, so we could try something ourselves.

Just guessing, though, I would suggest doubling your RAM as a start.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted

I would suggest updating the graphics driver first as it's free.
I don't have any Affinity results to share but using PhotoLab v7.2.0 to export 42 images 5134x3888 down to 600 high took 2h 1m 20s with the old driver, it now takes 0h 28m 25s

Just created an image in V1 per your numbers 7086 x 10629, 32bit ROMM RGB and the performance is fine using paintbrush, clone stamp, smudge, erase brush 1000px diameter, this is a pretty mediocre spec pc as you can see below

Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe
Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10

Posted

My bad I m working with 16 bits colors. The end result is printed on finewArt paper in a pro photolab. So I try to keep as much info as possible. Even if its  a bit overkill.

I like to start with 3 layers then applying live filters. like 12 live filters on top of each others... so yes I tend to not rasterise in case I change my mind. This workflow work great on 20 MP files but when its 50 MP or more I don t get realtime effects anymore.

I will get a try at photolab for enlargement.

Posted

Live Filters take a lot of processing power, do the combination of working in 16-bit color depth and having so many Live Filters active printing explains your performance issues.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted

Hi @Anstellos,

We don't tend to make specific hardware recommendations as company policy, so the following is my own personal opinion and you should make sure to do your own research before purchasing.

From my experience, Affinity on Windows is most dependant on single core CPU speed, CPU core count (to an extent) and RAM amount/speed.

Single Core CPU speed is arguably the most important, as the faster single core speed available to the app, the more responsive it will feel in everyday actions (the same is usually true across Windows OS and other Windows apps).

CPU core count is important, to a certain point. I would say that a minimum of 4 cores (8 threads) is needed for more complex editing. Increasing the core count can improve the multithreading performance of the Affinity app - but usually comes with a drawback of slower single core clock speeds and therefore I would not recommend a 20+ core CPU, for example (this becomes less-true, the newer the CPU is due to generational speed improvements, so there is a fine line to walk between single core performance and core count). Personally I would say that 6-10 cores is a 'sweet spot' for editing, mixed with everyday PC usage.

Do note however that traditionally all 'cores' were created equally, whereas newer CPUs now will include 'BIGlittle' designs - where some cores are 'BIG' performance cores, and others are 'little' efficiency cores.
Affinity can use both 'types' of cores, but will prefer 'big' performance cores as these typically run at a faster clock speed and more IPC etc.

RAM requirements will be document/workflow dependant. I personally have 32GB of RAM and do not often exceed this limit - but the larger that your document is in Affinity, and the more Pixel layers present, the more RAM will be required by the app.

Equally, RAM speeds can be difficult to quantify in terms of performance improvements - however if you were to upgrade your CPU to a more modern option, these now use GDDR5 memory, which can be clocked significantly higher than GDDR4 than the 3700X uses (though also require a motherboard upgrade in most cases). The faster your RAM is, the faster the pixel data can be fed to the CPU and subsequently processed within Affinity.

On the opposite end of this spectrum, if you do not have enough RAM for your document requirements, the Affinity apps will begin 'overflowing' the memory to your SSD/hard drive, which is significantly slower than RAM and may cause slowdowns when editing. 

Affinity Photo specifically will utilise the GPU more than Designer/Publisher to render Live Adjustments, Filters etc - but I would argue that you would likely not experience a meaningful difference between a 2070 SUPER and a more powerful/newer GPU, therefore I would not recommend focusing this when upgrading (especially considering current GPU pricing!)

I personally run a similar system to yourself, (R7 3700X, 32GB 3200Mhz DDR4 & RTX 3080ti) and although a valiant workhorse, I believe my next upgrade is likely to be my CPU/RAM, as this was first released 5 years ago and I personally feel is beginning to show it's age.

I hope this helps :)

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