How does Apple M4 work with Affinity?

[Ldina]

I'm looking at buying a MacBook Pro with Apple M4 chip to replace my aging 2017 MBP (running Ventura) and would like some feedback on how MBP M4 works with the Affinity Suite (I'm currently using v2.5.5 on all three Affinity Apps). I assume the new computer will come with the latest Mac OS (Sequoia?) installed. 

I'm particularly interested in any "showstoppers" major bugs that are specific to M4, things like that.

Also, how much difference will I likely see between a base M4 MBP model compared to their top of the line M4 Max. 

Any comments on graphic card compatibility or related problems?

Thanks, I appreciate any feedback.

[MikeTO]

17 minutes ago, Ldina said:

I'm looking at buying a MacBook Pro with Apple M4 chip to replace my aging 2017 MBP (running Ventura) and would like some feedback on how MBP M4 works with the Affinity Suite (I'm currently using v2.5.5 on all three Affinity Apps). I assume the new computer will come with the latest Mac OS (Sequoia?) installed. 

I'm particularly interested in any "showstoppers" major bugs that are specific to M4, things like that.

Also, how much difference will I likely see between a base M4 MBP model compared to their top of the line M4 Max. 

Any comments on graphic card compatibility or related problems?

Thanks, I appreciate any feedback.

I have a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and love it. You can find benchmark data in the thread below. We have data for the MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max, but not for the base M4. However, there is an iPad M4 in the table which should have roughly comparable performance to the MacBook Pro with M4, although the iPad has 9 CPU cores instead of the 10 found in the MBP.

You'll likely find the base M4 is comparable to the Pro and Max on single CPU tasks (the basic stuff) but slower on multithreaded and raster tasks (compared the multi CPU and raster scores). There is a big difference in the GPU scores but a lot of us have turned off Metal in Affinity due to some stability issues, and in that case the GPU scores aren't meaningful because they're run with Metal on.

All Macs now come with Sequoia  installed. The only compatibility issues you'll find with Sequoia are Finder thumbnails and Quicklook are missing (unless you install the 2.6 beta which fixes the issue even for 2.5.5), and Affinity fonts won't load in 2.5.5. Few people have those fonts but if you have documents that use Affinity fonts be warned they won't load.

 

[Ldina]

Thanks, @MikeTO, for the fabulous feedback! Just the kind of stuff I'm looking for. 

I assume that performance is still excellent for raster operations, live filters, etc, with Metal Acceleration turned OFF? I notice a big difference in performance on my old 2017 MBP (Ventura) with Metal turned off. 

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Ldina said:

Thanks, @MikeTO, for the fabulous feedback! Just the kind of stuff I'm looking for. 

I assume that performance is still excellent for raster operations, live filters, etc, with Metal Acceleration turned OFF? I notice a big difference in performance on my old 2017 MBP (Ventura) with Metal turned off. 

Yes, it's good. I can notice the difference but it's completely acceptable even for long books with lots of photos. It was fine on my M1 Pro, too. You will notice a huge difference between your current computer and an M4. I upgraded to speed up other apps, less so for Affinity.

[Ldina]

2 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

You will notice a huge difference between your current computer and an M4.

Thanks again. I'll be upgrading soon and your feedback was very helpful!

[Ldina]

One more question, if you don't mind (more Apple than Affinity related).

I've had my 2017 MBP for 7 years, and I have a ton of settings, programs, utilities, iCloud, Dropbox, etc on it, all set up the way I like it. I know a "clean install" is supposed to be the best way to go, but the idea of attempting to install all of these programs and settings from scratch makes me shudder. 

What's the best and most painless way to transfer everything to a new MBP? Thoughts, suggestions? It's been a long time since I did this.

Thanks! 😀

[jmwellborn]

@Ldina  For what it is worth, I very successfully used the Apple Migration Assistant utility to transfer everything from my desktop Mac to a new Macbook Pro.  From the Apple support website:  "Use Migration Assistant to copy all of your documents, apps, user accounts, and settings to a new Mac from another computer."  The link should be https://support.apple.com>en-us.102613.

[Ldina]

3 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

For what it is worth, I very successfully used the Apple Migration Assistant utility to transfer everything from my desktop Mac to a new Macbook Pro.

Thank you, @jmwellborn, good to hear...and it's worth a lot! 😁

I'll try Migration Assistant too. If I have any issues or problems, I can always wipe the new computer clean and start from scratch with a clean install (ugghhh). I have multiple backups of all my data and software, so I should be safe to proceed. I'll report back on how it goes.

Thank you for your feedback. 👍

[GazzaDownUnder]

@Ldina re the new M4 Mac ... I'd recommend a "clean" install. It ensures you don't bring over any "crud" from the old intel computer. Makes it easier to troubleshoot (if needed), and you'll be good for the next 7 years! And manually copy your user data over. That way you have control.  If you store all (or if not most) of your files in iCloud, then everything will be easier. There is no problem in downloading the latest versions of apps, and if you need to copy any deprecated ones (like an old InDesign program etc) then you can do that manually. Enjoy! 

[MikeTO]

I did a clean install this time - I used Migration Assistant last time to move from Intel to M1 Pro and brought over a lot of unneeded junk. For the upgrade to M4 Pro, I relied only on iCloud to bring things over automatically (and I force downloaded all my documents which is a good idea for Affinity). I installed Affinity and all of my non-App Store apps manually. Remember that iCloud will bring over your Safari bookmarks, saved passwords, photos, email, notes, and much more, so it's really just non-iCloud documents and non-App Store apps you have to worry about.

That being said, it was a pain to set up both macOS and Affinity. My custom spelling dictionary did not come over and I had to copy it manually. (Tip: Reboot after doing this.) You'll have to manually reinstall your fonts. There were several macOS settings that took a while to fix even though I thought I'd gone through all of the major settings panes manually.

Setting up all three Affinity apps was a pain, too - you can save your shortcuts from your old computer and load them on your new one, but it's more work than just setting up your studios and tools and going through all of the many, many settings to ensure your two machines are identically configured. You'll need to recreate all of your presets for preflight, cross-references, snapping, etc. You'll think you're done and then you'll discover that something isn't working right and it's because there's another thing you've overlooked.

But I think the two or three days of pain was worth it and I'm glad I have no unneeded junk on my new computer.

[R C-R]

Everybody has their own ideas about this but personally, I think Migration Assistant plus maybe a bit of manual 'crud pruning' afterwards saves a lot of time ... & is more likely to get everything one wants migrated over vs. manually looking for everything & manually copying it over, because it is easy to overlook something if done piecemeal.

Plus, as has been mentioned, if it doesn't seem to work as expected, the drive can always be wiped & the tedious 'clean' install thing can be done.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

But I think the two or three days of pain was worth it and I'm glad I have no unneeded junk on my new computer.

If you know what the unneeded junk is & where it is located why not just delete only that manually after using MA?

[MikeTO]

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If you know what the unneeded junk is & where it is located why not just delete only that manually after using MA?

I don't know what or where it is. I'd find it months later in a buried system folder for an app I hadn't used in over a decade. If you spend hours going through macOS, you'll be amazed at how much junk you've accumulated.

It was also nice because it gave macOS a chance to organize things like music the new way, instead of the way iTunes organized it circa 2001 or what not.

But be warned if you start clean, you won't know what you missed until you need it. It's a good idea to hang onto the old computer for a month just in case.

[Ldina]

Thank you ALL for the valuable input. There is a lot to think about.

1. First, I do NOT have my MacBook backed up using iCloud. I do sync some Apple stuff to iCloud (Apple Photos taken with my iPhone or iPad, Notes, Calendar, Contacts, etc). I keep all my Apps, utilities, settings and the normal Apple stuff on my internal MacHD. I use an external SSD hardwired to my Mac for most of my non-Apple Data: music library, most of my 70,000 images, videos, and some other important data. The external SSD has two partitions, one for all that data, and a second partition used to backup my MacHD using Time Machine.

I back up the Data from my external SSD Data partition using SuperDuper to second external drive, so I always have at least two copies of my data. I also use SuperDuper to backup my MacHD directly, so I have Time Machine backups on my external SSD, and a SuperDuper backup of my MacHD on that 2nd backup drive. (I have a 3rd drive that I backup every 6 months or so in case total catastrophe strikes, so I can recover most of my important data files). 

I also use my MacBook to make complete backups of two iPhones and two iPads, so there is a lot of backup info on my MacBook.

2. If I do use Migration Assistant, I wouldn't know what is junk that should be discarded, and what I'd need to keep. I guess that's a vote for a clean install, but the task sounds rather daunting. Whatever I do, I will be keeping my old MBP around to bail me out if needed. I backed up everything today, so all my backup drives are up to date. 

I guess I can use Migration Assistant and if I'm not happy, I can wipe the new computer clean and start from the ground up. Hmmmm, decisions, decisions! 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

If you spend hours going through macOS, you'll be amazed at how much junk you've accumulated.

Actually, even though I have used Migration Assistant for about two decades on at least half a dozen Macs (so I still have some files that are 15 or more years old on my current one) it has taken me no more than a few hours total to get rid of all the stuff I no longer have any use for after each migration to the next Mac. I don't do that all at once, just as I discover something I no longer want to keep after the initial removal of the obvious stuff; like apps that won't run on the newer Mac, their app support files & documents that I can't open with any of the apps I keep.

That first pass takes about one hour, give or take, & it gives me a chance to think about if or when I need to buy some new app & a sort of trip down memory lane, so to speak, that I enjoy doing.

Moreover, I never have found any evidence that some left over migrated cruft actually has caused an issue on the newer machine. I know that happens to some users but perhaps because I studiously avoid adding 3rd party 'helpers' to Macs it has never been a problem for me.

But like I said, YMMV.

[LionelD]

@Ldina I have an M3 that’s quite loaded, and find it a huge improvement over my old MBP from 2014.

Like you I wanted to do a clean install for various reasons. After a number of false starts involving Migration Tool which was new to me, I ended up getting my data back from a Time Machine drive.  Because I keep historic app downloads in my Downloads folder, I got them back from Time Machine too.

I have 3 collections of image-like stuff that needs to be cleaned up, especially keywords.

I fixed one collection that started with about 10,600 files by creating a LR Catalog, all on the M3 internal storage.  I ended up deleting around 4,000 files and making major changes to keywords.  The M3 pushed all the metadata back into the files in about 2 hours.  I’m now thinking about how to deal with a much bigger collection that will not fit on the M3, and has some complications that are not a good fit for LR.

The biggest performance improvements are due to the internal storage.  I doubt I’ll ever challenge the M3 silicon, even with very large panoramas that weigh more than 10GB each (stitched with a very specialized app, finished in Photoshop CC).  I’ve reprocessed a few panoramas to see what performance is like, and I’m impressed.

I have one Affinity file that takes a long time to Export, and that is now down below a minute.  Very happy, thanks.

If you really need speed, fast storage will likely be a game changer.

The most irritating complaint I have relates to a new feature in Sequoia called “Move and Resize”, because Designer keeps forgetting what the workspace layout is supposed to look like.  This feature is in all the Apple apps I’ve checked, but I haven’t figured out who should get the bug report - might be Apple, Serif, the bug at the keyboard or a combination.  My first call will be to Apple.

I also found that after my false starts, some of Apple’s standard Apps did not get installed.  Of course, that’s an easy fix, especially if you know what the problem is.

Finally, something has changed with the mouse “right-click”.  Some apps respond correctly. Some Apple apps insist on control-click instead (that’s you, Finder); just something to be aware of.  Probably a knot in my setup rather than a bug.

I found your butterfly - magical!  Wish I could do that.

Regards

Lionel

[MikeTO]

17 minutes ago, LionelD said:

 

The most irritating complaint I have relates to a new feature in Sequoia called “Move and Resize”, because Designer keeps forgetting what the workspace layout is supposed to look like.

...

Finally, something has changed with the mouse “right-click”.  Some apps respond correctly. Some Apple apps insist on control-click instead (that’s you, Finder); just something to be aware of.  Probably a knot in my setup rather than a bug.

Agreed re: Move and Resize, I turned that off immediately.

I haven't experienced any changes with right-clicking in Finder or any other app so it may be a macOS setting that you had configured differently on your old computer. For me it was the drag lock setting - I'd click and drag with the trackpad but kept drag selecting instead of dragging the selected item. It drove me nuts for days and at first I thought Apple must have changed something but then I found the setting.

[LionelD]

I find that “Move and Resize” is much worse when I use the M3 with an external display, which is a real pity because I really need that display when I’m working with files with large dimensions.

Simply switching between Designer and Export Personas is enough to cause loss of memory that deteriorates till you can’t find the icons you know are in that panel.  Then I have to re-apply the Studio Preset again.

Perhaps today is the day I call Apple; I find their support folk very good and very patient.  I’ve advised several of my neighbors to do that too, and they’re all very happy with the service.

Regards

Lionel

[Ldina]

Reporting back...

I took the easy way out and used Migration Assistant to move all the data from my 2017 15" MBP (Ventura) to my new M4 Max MBP (Sequoia). It took about 2-½ hours total and seems to have done a very good job, from what I can tell so far. My Affinity Apps (v2.5.5) seem to be working fine, at least what I've tried so far. Most of my BIG DATA (over 1 TB of music, videos, Images and other data) is on an external SSD, so that didn't need to be transferred. That would have been an all-nighter.

I know some old programs and junk came over, but as long as they don't cause any issues, I'm happy. I'll gradually go thru my new machine and delete crap that no longer works or is needed. My only issues so far has been the inability to get my old Wacom Intuos 4 Pro (PTK-640) graphics tablet working. From internet searches, a lot of Apple silicon users on the later Mac OS's are having the same problem, so it's probably a lack of support and updated drivers by Wacom. The newer Wacom drivers don't support this model tablet, and the older ones haven't worked (so far).

Anyway, I wanted to report back. The idea of doing a clean install was more than I wanted to attempt, and I figured I could always do that afterwards if MA came up short. 

Thanks to all who offered suggestions and support. I appreciate it.

------------------

EDIT: I was able to get my old WACOM Tablet working. The problem was outdated Wacom drivers for my old tablet. I posted my solution in a separate thread for anyone have problems getting an old WACOM tablet working on an Apple Silicon Mac. 

The only other problem I had was getting my Delkin CF memory card reader (DDREADER-44) working. My M4 did not see or mount this reader. An older CF card reader worked fine, so apparently the Delkin reader is incompatible with my M4. (I figured pretty much any USB device should work, but I guess not!)

Neither of these issues had anything to do with using Migration Assistant, so far as I can tell.

[Ldina]

On 11/23/2024 at 10:28 AM, Ldina said:

The only other problem I had was getting my Delkin CF memory card reader (DDREADER-44) working. My M4 did not see or mount this reader. An older CF card reader worked fine, so apparently the Delkin reader is incompatible with my M4.

I wanted to report back on this issue in case anyone else has a similar problem.

Delkin sent me a new replacement CF memory card reader (model DDREADER-44), identical to the one I originally bought. My MacBook Pro M4 does not see or mount either DDREADER-44 card reader when plugged into the USB-C port.

Delkin was kind enough to send me another model card reader to try (DDREADER-42) and it works perfectly. My M4 saw it as soon as it was plugged in and files transferred quickly to my Mac from the CF card. 

So, Delkin's DDREADER-44 Card Reader is incompatible with the M4 chip, Sequoia, or both (but worked fine on my 2017 Intel MBP). The DDREADER-42 works great on the M4. 

BTW, Delkin's customer support was fabulous and quick.