Performance comparing with Mac version?

[kirk23]

For some weird reason I have better Affinity Photo performance with big hi-res files  on my  toy Mac i5 8gb ram  than on my i7 32gb ram 6gb Nvidia980  windows 8.1 monster.      Have constant weird small freezes on pc.  Is it normall?    I expected pretty opposite actually since every other modern programm works better on pc.

[Gerome]

I have the same sensations on my late 2012 iMac using Windows 10 (i7-3770 / 16GB / 2GB GTX 680MX).

 

Only Windows is installed on my machine. It's a native EFI install, I don't use Bootcamp nor Apple's drivers.

 

I purchased Affinity Photo for Windows to support Affinity (and to prepare my switch back) and I was, just like you, expecting far better performances than the OS X macOS version.

 

I really hope the coming updates will significantly improve Affinity Photo for Windows smoothness.

 

It would be interesting to have a script to test machines and compare both OS versions.

[anon1]

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[rubs]

For some weird reason I have better Affinity Photo performance with big hi-res files  on my  toy Mac i5 8gb ram  than on my i7 32gb ram 6gb Nvidia980  windows 8.1 monster.      Have constant weird small freezes on pc.  Is it normall?    I expected pretty opposite actually since every other modern programm works better on pc.

 

This topic seems to be about the same subject, I think.

[Frank Jonen]

When you compare this to Photoshop on Windows / Mac, keep in mind that Photoshop hasn't been a native Mac app for years. Open the bundle files and you'll see a bunch of .EXE files and .DLLs and runtime tools, on the Mac version. This suggests, when you first have to run translation code as a basis for your app, it slows things down. That's why Photoshop is faster on Windows. It's the origin platform it is developed for.

 

For Affinity apps, macOS offers developers a bunch of native hooks that go way deep into the system and hardware accelerations are based on OpenCL for the most part. This explains why it's currently faster on macOS (the origin platform here).

 

If I got that right, Affinity's foundation seems to work like The Foundry's NEXUS platform, which is native to each operating system they support, Modo then runs on NEXUS with a few modifications for platform differences.

 

Hopefully someone from Serif can weigh in on the issue.

[anon1]

-i

[techtone]

Don't know about AP but AD is painfully becomes unresponsive sometimes especially with high res vector textures with Swatches tab visible. Could be my PC but I believe it will improve with upcoming updates. Still I love every bit of this software, it improved my workflow and I find it very suitable the way I create my designs.

[anon1]

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[Mark Ingram]

When you compare this to Photoshop on Windows / Mac, keep in mind that Photoshop hasn't been a native Mac app for years. Open the bundle files and you'll see a bunch of .EXE files and .DLLs and runtime tools, on the Mac version. This suggests, when you first have to run translation code as a basis for your app, it slows things down. That's why Photoshop is faster on Windows. It's the origin platform it is developed for.

 

For Affinity apps, macOS offers developers a bunch of native hooks that go way deep into the system and hardware accelerations are based on OpenCL for the most part. This explains why it's currently faster on macOS (the origin platform here).

 

If I got that right, Affinity's foundation seems to work like The Foundry's NEXUS platform, which is native to each operating system they support, Modo then runs on NEXUS with a few modifications for platform differences.

 

Hopefully someone from Serif can weigh in on the issue.

 

Hi, nice idea, but unfortunately it's not accurate at all :)

[anon1]

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[Frank Jonen]

Hi, nice idea, but unfortunately it's not accurate at all :)

 

What would be accurate then? You stopped your reply too soon.

[SrPx]

That's why Photoshop is faster on Windows. It's the origin platform it is developed for.

 

I believe... this is not the case:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_version_history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop#Early_history

 

"Photoshop was developed in 1987 by the American brothers Thomas and John Knoll, who sold the distribution license to Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1988. Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display."

 

"2.5 .....First version for Microsoft Windows, one of the earliest examples of cross platform software."

 

I worked as a graphic designer for a company back in 1995, they had Photoshop 2.0. To my knowledge back then, it was a Mac only application, indeed all we had there (edit: Well, not really, they had arcane XTs for administration,  an IBM old AS400 server, and an old Videotex , I was in charge of giving support to those except the AS400) were super old Macs and a better thing, the Quadra. BTW, it was already a joy (even if now is outstandingly more powerful and better) to work with Photoshop back then (I remember learning back then from a seasoned professional, watching him create a mask using vectors. I thought it was magic, coming from my Deluxe Paint and stuff like that) . (tells you about the history PS has when people expect same or better certain things from a much younger appplication..)  It seems it needed to hit 2.5 version to see a Windows version. I believe you also suggest that at some point (or I am suspecting that) it became more developed in Windows, as a first thing, a priority. I frankly don't know that, to be sincere. It'd surprise me, though, as through half of my career, the Mac has been considered by everyone and their dog as the only serious platform for graphic design for print media, for example. Stuff has changed a lot, lately, and younger people might think now is all about PCs (maybe it is if Apple would not focus much on desktops, is kind of a current debate, now), but besides I strongly doubt that, the facts just some very few years ago were pretty clear.  Plus, I learned while working in game companies that in that (what and how is the original code of something, which priority they assign, some "secret" ways...), and Affinity's internals...only the coders really know... :D

 

Edit: Also.. comparing performance between a Mac and a Pc seems a complex task, to me.  Platforms are too different, and a real test should use, IMO, exact same pieces in every component. A simple card can make a world of difference, depending on the code. In the negative side, a bad component can be a bottle neck. Or a certain cache. Some cpu instructions. Whatever. And even so, I believe systems interact differently with its components, and have remarkable software related differences. Of course, you can do the super simplistic price comparison (machines that cost same bucks) but wouldn't  be fair neither serve for much...

[Frank Jonen]

A lot of things changed since then. It think it was around the time of CS 3 when the transition to Windows first, translate later began. Today Thomas Knoll merely works on the Camera Raw segment of the app. Now you can open up the bundle of any major Adobe app and see Windows files all over the place along with runtime converters. I don't think that helps with performance on the macOS side of things. 

 

 

 

 

 
I believe... this is not the case:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_version_history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop#Early_history
 

"Photoshop was developed in 1987 by the American brothers Thomas and John Knoll, who sold the distribution license to Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1988. Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display."

 

"2.5 .....First version for Microsoft Windows, one of the earliest examples of cross platform software."

 

I worked as a graphic designer for a company back in 1995, they had Photoshop 2.0. To my knowledge back then, it was a Mac only application, indeed all we had there (edit: Well, not really, they had arcane XTs for administration,  an IBM old AS400 server, and an old Videotex , I was in charge of giving support to those except the AS400) were super old Macs and a better thing, the Quadra. BTW, it was already a joy (even if now is outstandingly more powerful and better) to work with Photoshop back then (I remember learning back then from a seasoned professional, watching him create a mask using vectors. I thought it was magic, coming from my Deluxe Paint and stuff like that) . (tells you about the history PS has when people expect same or better certain things from a much younger appplication..)  It seems it needed to hit 2.5 version to see a Windows version. I believe you also suggest that at some point (or I am suspecting that) it became more developed in Windows, as a first thing, a priority. I frankly don't know that, to be sincere. It'd surprise me, though, as through half of my career, the Mac has been considered by everyone and their dog as the only serious platform for graphic design for print media, for example. Stuff has changed a lot, lately, and younger people might think now is all about PCs (maybe it is if Apple would not focus much on desktops, is kind of a current debate, now), but besides I strongly doubt that, the facts just some very few years ago were pretty clear.  Plus, I learned while working in game companies that in that (what and how is the original code of something, which priority they assign, some "secret" ways...), and Affinity's internals...only the coders really know... :D

 

Edit: Also.. comparing performance between a Mac and a Pc seems a complex task, to me.  Platforms are too different, and a real test should use, IMO, exact same pieces in every component. A simple card can make a world of difference, depending on the code. In the negative side, a bad component can be a bottle neck. Or a certain cache. Some cpu instructions. Whatever. And even so, I believe systems interact differently with its components, and have remarkable software related differences. Of course, you can do the super simplistic price comparison (machines that cost same bucks) but wouldn't  be fair neither serve for much...

[Chris_K]

This is starting the teeter on the edge of getting off topic

[SrPx]

No fears ! I wasn't going to post more  ;) ;)

[AshTeriyaki]

When you compare this to Photoshop on Windows / Mac, keep in mind that Photoshop hasn't been a native Mac app for years. Open the bundle files and you'll see a bunch of .EXE files and .DLLs and runtime tools, on the Mac version. This suggests, when you first have to run translation code as a basis for your app, it slows things down. That's why Photoshop is faster on Windows. It's the origin platform it is developed for.

 

For Affinity apps, macOS offers developers a bunch of native hooks that go way deep into the system and hardware accelerations are based on OpenCL for the most part. This explains why it's currently faster on macOS (the origin platform here).

 

If I got that right, Affinity's foundation seems to work like The Foundry's NEXUS platform, which is native to each operating system they support, Modo then runs on NEXUS with a few modifications for platform differences.

 

Hopefully someone from Serif can weigh in on the issue.

 

That's not how Nexus works either ;)*

 

Most applications at The Foundry are written in QT,  (Modo is not, apart from the Linux version, so they may have changed for the win and mac OS versions) which does a lot of the platform agnosticism magic, though you never get past particular case-by-case issues and limitations by platform. It's just not that simple I'm afraid. 

 

 

*Ex-Foundry employee

[Frank Jonen]

That's not how Nexus works either ;)*

 

Most applications at The Foundry are written in QT,  (Modo is not, apart from the Linux version, so they may have changed for the win and mac OS versions) which does a lot of the platform agnosticism magic, though you never get past particular case-by-case issues and limitations by platform. It's just not that simple I'm afraid. 

 

 

*Ex-Foundry employee

 

It's how Brad explained Nexus.

[Pixelplucker]

Way back in the day I believe most the Adobe programs except what they took over where developed on the Mac platform and ported to the PC. Back in the day I ran both platforms and found the Adobe programs to be a little better on the Mac. I think I first used Photoslop as version 1.01 or something like that and actually like Aldus Photo Styler on the PC far better. In those days Aldus and Corel were better companies to deal with if you had a PC and if you were Mac only your options were rather limited.

[Asser82]

If I should tell, where small freezes are coming from, I would they that they are caused by garbage collection. Affinity's frontend is written in .NET/WPF. In .NET memory is managed by a subsystem, which periodically scanns all object instances to detect the ones, which are no longer referenced by the application, so that the memory for them can be freed. While this "garbage collection" runs, the UI thread execution can be affected, which results in a non responsive UI.

 

Another problem occures when the underlying data structures are not designed as thread save. This introduces requirements that the data structures must be modified by a single thread at a time which is often enough the UI thread. While the Ui thread is busy => no UI feedback.

 

The third point is that the backend libraries with all the algorithmic stuff will be written in a language which is common for Mac and Windows which will be something like C/C++, so that the same code can be compiled for the different target systems. I think that there might also be a minor performance penalty on the border between the managed and the native world.

 

Now to the mac side of life:

 

Because there is no full .NET framework or WPF for Mac, the frontend will be written in a native language like C++/QT. C++ produces more lightweight unmanaged code and the developer has much more control when and how memory is allocated and freed. In addition there should be no performance lost in the communication between front and backend, because both are native.