Full loaded 2024 M4Pro MacMini speed issues.

[Claude Brie]

I just got an almost full loaded M4 pro Mac Mini (64gb RAM, 20 core GPU) and compared with my Intel based 2018 64gb Ram Intel Mac Mini, even with the metal settings I get the beach ball every time I do a simple action. What am I doing wrong? Or is it that Affinity isn't at the level of my new machine? I don't get it!

[MikeTO]

10 hours ago, Claude Brie said:

I just got an almost full loaded M4 pro Mac Mini (64gb RAM, 20 core GPU) and compared with my Intel based 2018 64gb Ram Intel Mac Mini, even with the metal settings I get the beach ball every time I do a simple action. What am I doing wrong? Or is it that Affinity isn't at the level of my new machine? I don't get it!

Hi @Claude Brie and welcome to the forums. I haven't seen any issues with my M4 Pro or seen similar reports in the forums so there must be something going on with your machine. Is this with all three apps or one in particular?

First, if you just set it up, there could be background activity going on, syncing and indexing - give it another day to settle down so leave it on overnight.

Second, try turning off Metal which is problematic with Affinity on Apple Silicon. Go to Settings > Performance and disable hardware acceleration and set Display to OpenGL. Restart Affinity. Your machine is fast enough without it.

And last but not least, restart macOS. I've been using Apple Silicon for three years and it is really wonderful, but on rare occasions macOS gets itself into a situation where I keep getting the beachball and I have to restart. This is really rare so I doubt this is happening for you already.

Good luck

[Tom Zimberoff]

I, too, have a "fully-loaded" Mac (Mac Studio) and, since the last Mac OS 15.1.1 update, Affinity Photo has been running excruciatingly slowly. Even Opening a file and and then Quiting without making modifications presents me with a spinning beachball. Because I work with very large files ~1- 2GB produced by my 100MB Hasselblad, Affinity is becoming almost impossible to use.

I have made no modifications to the Affinity Preferences that I am aware of since the last time I can remember using the application and experiencing normal operation.

I cannot say with certainty that the fault lies with a compatibility issue between Mac OS 15.1.1 and Affinity Photo, but can someone else shed some light on this serious problem? I am about to head back to Adobe and Photoshop.

 

Hardware Overview:

 

  Model Name: Mac Studio

  Model Identifier: Mac13,2

  Model Number: Z14K000AULL/A

  Chip: Apple M1 Ultra

  Total Number of Cores: 20 (16 performance and 4 efficiency)

  Memory: 128 GB

  System Firmware Version: 11881.41.5

  OS Loader Version: 11881.41.5

  Serial Number (system): LXQNCV9G9C

  Hardware UUID: 600ACD63-B4EA-56F3-B5DA-93DB9979C235

  Provisioning UDID: 00006002-000009443489801E

  Activation Lock Status: Enabled

[Claude Brie]

Thanks @MikeTO, I've tried everything you mentioned and I still get the beach ball... with every Affinity apps. I went to Pixelmator to finish a job and all was good there. Should I re-download the Affinity Suite? I don't remember where I first bought it, App Store or directly from Serif.

[Alfred]

5 hours ago, Claude Brie said:

I don't remember where I first bought it, App Store or directly from Serif.

If you bought it from the Mac App Store you should find it on the ‘Purchased’ tab when you’re logged in using the Apple ID that you used at the time. If you bought it directly from Serif, it should be accessible via the ‘Your account’ dropdown list in the Affinity Store (by choosing either the ‘V2 licences & downloads’ menu entry or the ‘Downloads & product keys’ menu entry, depending on which version(s) you purchased.

[NotMyFault]

On 12/10/2024 at 8:51 PM, Tom Zimberoff said:

I, too, have a "fully-loaded" Mac (Mac Studio) and, since the last Mac OS 15.1.1 update, Affinity Photo has been running excruciatingly slowly. Even Opening a file and and then Quiting without making modifications presents me with a spinning beachball. Because I work with very large files ~1- 2GB produced by my 100MB Hasselblad, Affinity is becoming almost impossible to use.

I have made no modifications to the Affinity Preferences that I am aware of since the last time I can remember using the application and experiencing normal operation.

I cannot say with certainty that the fault lies with a compatibility issue between Mac OS 15.1.1 and Affinity Photo, but can someone else shed some light on this serious problem? I am about to head back to Adobe and Photoshop.

 

Hardware Overview:

 

  Model Name: Mac Studio

  Model Identifier: Mac13,2

  Model Number: Z14K000AULL/A

  Chip: Apple M1 Ultra

  Total Number of Cores: 20 (16 performance and 4 efficiency)

  Memory: 128 GB

  System Firmware Version: 11881.41.5

  OS Loader Version: 11881.41.5

  Serial Number (system): LXQNCV9G9C

  Hardware UUID: 600ACD63-B4EA-56F3-B5DA-93DB9979C235

  Provisioning UDID: 00006002-000009443489801E

  Activation Lock Status: Enabled

Can you share a test file? I have a M1 MacMini and M3 MBP. Both behave good. But 1 GB RAW files are quire demanding.

It is important to let the Mac and Photo "run in" for some time as every MacOS upgrade triggers some clean-up processes which consume lots of resources and slow down the system for a day or more.