Canvas disappears/invisible (Appears on zoom)

[ladlon]

Hi.  I have Affinity Photo running on two machines.  On one, everything works fine.  On the other, I find that the image (canvas) is invisible until I zoom, and then everything is fine.  I will often have to zoom just to get the canvas back.  Obviously some sort of display/screen update issue.

I seem to have to do it every time I put some other software in focus.  Tabbing back to AP results in the invisible canvas, every time, and is fixed by just zooming in or out.

I also find that sections of the canvas that get covered by various palettes/windows do not get redrawn, so again, a sort of screen refresh issue.

On both machines, I DO have Aero disabled, but am using the -NoWarning command workaround.

The one machine is Win7Pro (where AP works fine), and the other is running Win7Premium (where I have that disappearing issue).

I'm wondering if this is a known issue, and if there is some fix or workaround (other than temporarily zooming to get the image back).

Win7Premium  12gigs RAM  NVidia 1060 3G  Affinity Photo/Designer

[Dan C]

Hi Ladlon

This sounds to certainly be GPU related, could you please make sure you update your display drivers, as well as checking you're running the latest Windows 7 update.

If this does not help please do let me know!

[ladlon]

Hello, Dan C...   The drivers are up to date, but it's still doing it.

Specific to Affinity.  The canvas isn't refreshed when something goes on top of the canvas. I can take (say) a window from some other program (or from Affinity), drag it across AP, and it acts like an eraser on the canvas (and ONLY the canvas... the interface refreshs fine, and is not erased by the drag).  The mouse pointer does not 'erase', though.

The canvas gets refreshed when I zoom or pan.

It's only happening on the Win7Premium (GTX 1060 3G) 12gig RAM machine.  The other machine is a Win7Pro with a 500 series NVidia card and 32gigs RAM, and it doesn't have the issue.

Not sure what other things may be different between the two.

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response. I have been informed by our QA team that this is a report we've had previously and only occurs when using the aero flag. This is due to the fact that the flag forces Affinity to use your CPU graphics chip - not your dedicated GPU - and certain drivers for the CPU graphics chip causes the behaviour you're experiencing, this also explains why it is only happening on one of your Windows systems.

Unfortunately there's no fix that we know of for this, as it's caused by running the Aero flag, my apologies I can't assist further here!

[ladlon]

Hi, Dan C.  No worries.  Certainly a faster/better response than I often get in other forums!

Well, that all makes sense.  Unfortunate, for sure (the whole Aero thing... which previously seemed stupid, but later I came to understand the actual technical reasoning behind it).

So, I guess the video card is the difference here that is determining if the refresh works properly or not?  Unless it's a Pro vs Premium thing (Win7).

Certainly not a game-breaker (just have to always tap or scroll every time you return to the screen).

I'm glad, though, that at least it's a known thing, with an explanation.

I guess (besides aesthetic preference) the reason I insist on Aero being disabled on the systems is the (possibly incorrect) assumption that it (to whatever degree) robs some performance from the system.

Actually, I recently read that if you switch Aero on, but have all the 'effects' turned off, there is no real drain.  Not sure if that's true or not.  If true, it certainly would motivate me to switch it back on.

(Come to think of it, I need to check my Pro machine, where Affinity IS refreshing properly... as I'm starting to think that maybe I DID do just that... Switch Aero on, but with every effect off... which would explain why it is working there!)

[Dan C]

No problem at all

20 hours ago, ladlon said:

So, I guess the video card is the difference here that is determining if the refresh works properly or not?

Under the hood of Windows, without DWM, it will use a different (legacy) driver model. Often there is no suitable legacy driver, so Windows will emulate it's functionality, hence why you can see rendering and performance problems but only on certain systems.

20 hours ago, ladlon said:

I guess (besides aesthetic preference) the reason I insist on Aero being disabled on the systems is the (possibly incorrect) assumption that it (to whatever degree) robs some performance from the system.

I couldn't comment on performance drain when using Aero, I'm aware that this has been reported elsewhere but I haven't researched this enough to compentendly answer, apologies!

20 hours ago, ladlon said:

Actually, I recently read that if you switch Aero on, but have all the 'effects' turned off, there is no real drain.  Not sure if that's true or not.  If true, it certainly would motivate me to switch it back on.

This certainly sounds plausible, disabling the transparency, fade & animations that Aero applies would lighten the GPU load, if only slightly  

[ladlon]

I suppose technically I could create some sort of desktop shortcut to wherever you turn Aero on/off, and switch it on whenever I need to use Affinity on that machine....  Kind of a drag, but certainly a valid solution.

Actually, if it's a GPU strain, rather than a CPU one, it's not as bit an issue.  My GPU is a 1060 3G.  It's my CPU that is the issue (old i7)... and it's only a concern, as this is my gaming rig (so I want to free up the CPU as best as possible).