Performance?

[Sharkey]

Hello all.

 

Recently I have been working on a new pano from raw files created in 2008. In doing so I was surprised by the first combination coming directly from the raw file - brilliant! The final result was very pleasing - so good good so far.

 

Right my question comes from this piece of work. 

 

Once the file size edged over 500mb the revolving umbrella appeared; expected really BUT from my PS years I know that my preferences can/do affect performance.

 

What are the preference settings that bring the best out of Affinity on my machine?  Screen Shot Attached.

 

I mucked about with them when first installing but have no real idea what the best 0?) settings are. Assuming there are some ;)  :wacko: .

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Regards    Sharkey

 

 

[Fixx]

Excellent question. I started seeing spinning umbrellas when file sizes exceeded 10 GB. (I know, that is a lot, but I am doing exhibition pieces at the moment.) I lowered undo states number a lot, but what other parameters might profit of tweaking?

 

I think AP adjusts parameters according system specs as memory usage settings seem to be inline with physical RAM memory (16 GB). Also, I run out of disk space (I have smallish SSD). Might be better if AP could use also other available disks for cache.

 

MBP i5/16GB/256SSD.

[Sharkey]

My Internal SSD has plenty of room (>300GB) and 24GB of RAM to play with so I imagine I should be running better; from your mention of 10GB images being when the brolly appears.

 

The GPU situation is of interest also as there are settings for them but once again my knowledge is meagre in this respect. 

 

Perhaps there is an AP. tech who can put his/her 'two pence' worth for all of us??

 

Thank you , so far.

 

Regards    Sharkey 

[Petar Petrenko]

Excellent question. I started seeing spinning umbrellas when file sizes exceeded 10 GB. (I know, that is a lot, but I am doing exhibition pieces at the moment.) I lowered undo states number a lot, but what other parameters might profit of tweaking?

 

I think AP adjusts parameters according system specs as memory usage settings seem to be inline with physical RAM memory (16 GB). Also, I run out of disk space (I have smallish SSD). Might be better if AP could use also other available disks for cache.

 

MBP i5/16GB/256SSD.

 

This is not the answer of your questions, but if you use 300 dpi, then lower it to 225. You will absolutelly not lose in quality, but you will get extra disk/RAM space. Also, save (and work with) your photos in RGB mode, until you are ready to (eventually) print on paper when you have to convert them to CMYK.

[Fixx]

Why 300>225 dpi conversion? Surely you do not mean downsampling...

Images stay RGB all the way, Epson will convert to whatever colorscheme it uses.

[Petar Petrenko]

Why 300>225 dpi conversion? Surely you do not mean downsampling...

Images stay RGB all the way, Epson will convert to whatever colorscheme it uses.

 

I've already answered the question. And, "d" in "dpi" doesn't stands for "downsampling". The resolution of the photo is the width and hight of the photo and dpi means just how much pixels you are going to squize in one inch (it will still have the same width and hight). Downsampling means that you are going to change the picture from, let's say, 5000x3000 px to 500x300 px.

[Sharkey]

It is not so much technique or methods that concern me; more the setup to achieve the target result as efficiently as possible with the equipment at my disposal.

 

Image size, be it pixel density or canvas size are at your pleasure but how the computer handles that size/bulk is really the subject of my inquiry.

 

Regards    Sharkey

[Petar Petrenko]

My opinion is that you don't have to "blame" your hardware, but to find out how to optimize, in your mind, the job you have to do.

Lets say, you have to design a bilboard which is 6000x2000 mm. If it has to be bitmap, it is insane to do it in 300 (or 225) dpi. The solution is to divide width and height by 10 and that bitmap to be at 300 dpi. It will be printed, at the end, at 30 dpi when it will be sent to ploter at it's proper dimension.

[Sharkey]

My opinion is that you don't have to "blame" your hardware, but to find out how to optimize, in your mind, the job you have to do.

Lets say, you have to design a bilboard which is 6000x2000 mm. If it has to be bitmap, it is insane to do it in 300 (or 225) dpi. The solution is to divide width and height by 10 and that bitmap to be at 300 dpi. It will be printed, at the end, at 30 dpi when it will be sent to ploter at it's proper dimension.

I appreciate your point of view and recognise your experience in your field. The views you express make absolute sense if I was asking about how to handle large publishing/printing files for commercial use.

 

I am not blaming my hardware; indeed I am extremely happy with it. My question is one of optimisation. 

 

Again, in PS I would open my raw files at 600ppi/16bit and edit that image with ease on this machine. Whatever the workflow, user input or output required it is the setup of my computer that was and is the root of my question; it is after all a tool that I am using in a way that may seem wrong to others but it is my way and I want my tool(s) to be as appropriate to the task in hand as possible.

 

What are the appropriate preference settings to allow my machine to work as efficiently as possible? My inadequacies can be sorted another time :D

 

Regards      Sharkey

[Petar Petrenko]

Without seeing a list of your hardware components and setings of yours software's preferences nobody can help you. Every combination of hardware is a story of itself and so are setings of the software. You must know what every option in your "preferences" dialog box means. Drivers are important, too. some of them can make a lot of trouble.

[Sharkey]

My computer details are the attached image on my first post.

 

As for knowing what all the preference settings mean. I am sorry to say that I am smiling. If I knew what all of that meant would I be asking the question. NB: Using a MAC for the last million years or so the thought of drivers etc. do not enter the equation or my head I am pleased to say. I plug anything I want to use into my machine and it works! The only things  that fails in this respect are the odd bit of third party software that fails to update itself..

 

I am retired and do not need to know the ins and outs of all my kit anymore; I simply capture an image I like, work on it and print into please my eye and my wife of course.

 

Really am just looking for a bit of guidance from experienced AP users as to how best to use the preference settings take advantage of my hardwares capabilities.

 

Regards    Sharkey

[gdenby]

A minor observation. My very hazy recollection from years ago was that PS made a fast display update, a preview, and continued to process all the data in the background. Because humans were relatively so slow, usually the calculations were done by the time the user decided to proceed, or undo. The process didn't have much to do w. the size of the scratch disk/swap file in most cases.

 

I'm not using AP, but in AD, it seems that there is an emphasis on updating the display to high resolution. The past few days, I've been working w. some files w. over 1500 layers, but the file size was only about 1.5 M. Nothing I would expect to impact the memory or storage. There would be noticeable delays as the display was 1st updated somewhat pixelized, then finally finished. This, after a progress bar showing hundreds of objects being divided into thousands was complete. 

 

Again, not something that was causing the app to hit the HD to swap data. Maybe a GPU deficiency, but I can not say.

[R C-R]

You might find it helpful to open Activity Monitor (it is in the Utilities folder) & watch the graph at the bottom with the CPU or Memory tab selected when you are trying out various tweaks to AP's preferences when you are working with these very large files. Your Mac Pro & its 24 GB of fast memory should be more than enough to keep the CPU load low & the "Memory pressure" out of the yellow or red zones.

 

If not, check for some other processes using an unusually large amount of CPU % or memory in the line item display above the graph. If possible (& these processes are just ordinary apps you recognize from their icons) try quitting them when running AP.

[Sharkey]

OK. I have received a number of responses for which I am grateful.

 

I have some idea what 'dithering gradients' and 'precise clipping' are but as to the performance affects of 'Undo Limit', 'Use hardware Open GL' or 'File Recovery Interval' I am in the dark.

 

Having already mucked about with these settings. Is there a way of returning to the default setup?

 

Many apologies for going on about this. I have no other Apps running other than FRV for browsing my images when I work. My machine is in good condition. So only performance settings (unless there are other settings that can affect this) are my concern.

 

Any clarity would be appreciated.

 

Regards    Sharkey

[R C-R]

Undo limit affects how much memory the app uses, so it should not be a factor unless Activity Monitor shows "Memory Pressure" is in the red or yellow zone. File recovery interval just sets how often the app makes a recovery file you can use to recover (most of) the work you have done on a file if the app crashes. It has no other use & the file is deleted automatically if the file is closed normally, so it should have no significant effect on performance unless maybe you set it to the shortest interval.

 

The settings affecting the GPU (for View Quality, Open GL, & dithering) should have little if any appreciable effect on a Mac as powerful as yours.

[Sharkey]

Thank you.

 

My only other question then is  should Open GL be ticked on my machine? Two GPUs.

 

Regards    Sharkey

[R C-R]

Generally speaking, "Use hardware OpenGL" should be ticked on a Mac with GPU's as powerful as yours, but you can try it both ways to see if that makes any difference. It probably will perform more poorly without it ticked, but testing while editing one of your typical, very large files open is the only way to be certain.

[Sharkey]

Definitive answer. Thank you.

 

Perhaps if I had put a definitive question??

 

Regards    Sharkey

[Petar Petrenko]

OK. I have received a number of responses for which I am grateful.

 

I have some idea what 'dithering gradients' and 'precise clipping' are but as to the performance affects of 'Undo Limit', 'Use hardware Open GL' or 'File Recovery Interval' I am in the dark.

 

Having already mucked about with these settings. Is there a way of returning to the default setup?

 

Many apologies for going on about this. I have no other Apps running other than FRV for browsing my images when I work. My machine is in good condition. So only performance settings (unless there are other settings that can affect this) are my concern.

 

Any clarity would be appreciated.

 

Regards    Sharkey

 

Clarity and simplicity are always appreciated, expecialiy when asking for help. You must understend that there are lots of people who would like to help and their mother tongue is not English so they can't understand complicated questions and explanations.  :)

[Sharkey]

Understood.

 

Clarity and simplicity are always appreciated, expecialiy when asking for help. You must understend that there are lots of people who would like to help and their mother tongue is not English so they can't understand complicated questions and explanations.  :)

 

 

It is not unusual for me to be wordy and I have been criticised for it before. Suppose I try to be accurate and in doing so become more confusing to the reader.  My apologies.

 

Will try harder next time :D

 

Regards    Sharkey