performance problem when using Quicktime Recorder

[tariq]

Hi

 

I've used Affinity Photo and Designer for over 2 years now. I regularly use the Quicktime scene recorder to make videos.

 

Performance of the Wacom Tablet has never been amazing - high latency and low sampling rate - which makes the drawing experience less realistic. But it was tolerable.

 

However - since Affinity went to v 1.7 performance has really dropped. It may have nothing to do with Affinity but I think it does. I've kept the OS updated at all times and no update has really caused a major performance drop elsewhere. I've kept up to date with Wacom drivers too. I get my Affinity from the Apple Store and update whenever it notifies me.

 

Here's a recent video of poor performance and the Wacom diagnostics running:

• https://twitter.com/rzeta0/status/1155854116201095168

Here is a slightly older video taken a few months ago:

• https://twitter.com/rzeta0/status/1152993266519937024

 

Has anyone else had similar problems? I'm using a MacBook Pro 15" 2015 16G RAM and i7 processor .. so not a slow machine. 

The Wacom tablet is the Intuos Pen Small model number CTL-480. We also have a bigger Intuos Pro and that also has the same issues but not with other software.

I have noticed the problem is much worse when scree recording than not - but this was not a problem before.

 

 

[tariq]

I appreciate this is a more complex bug where the cause could be in either one of, or a combination of - Affinity, Wacom, QuickTime screen recording.

I raised it here because I didn't have the issue with pre-1.7 Affinity software - which I agree isn't conclusive proof but a strong indicator.

 

 

[Gabe]

Hi @tariq,

Sorry for the delayed reply. 

I could not replicate this here - I tested in on a Wacom pth-451 as we don't have CTL-480 here. No delay using quicktime of the build-in cmd+shift+5 screen recording. 

Just out of interest. Have you got Hardware acceleration - Metal enabled in Photo's Preferences > Performance? 

Thanks,

Gabe.

[tariq]

hi 

 

yes - Hardware acceleration is enabled - see pic below.

 

 

 

[tariq]

latest information:

• Wacom updated driver is now 6.3.36-2 
• Affinity Photo is now 1.7.2
• MacOS is current with all latest updates installed

 

 

I've observed the problem even without QuickTime screen recording .

I noticed the fan on my 4-core i7 2015 MacBook Pro 15" goes crazy too.

Attached is a simple brush making marks using the tablet - and the CPU consumption by Affinity Photo is huge! There is no quicktime or any other screen recording process running.

 

[Gabe]

What is your canvas size? 

[tariq]

The file I use is attached. The canvas is 3840x 2160.

Separately, the display screen is set to "1920x1080" which is the "default for display" in the Preferences>Displays control panel. I actually set it to this, lower than the usual 4k resolution, when doing screen recordings. When I'm working normally I'm at 4k.

Just to add the before 1.7.2 there were issues, but subjectively they seem to be worse with 1.7.2. 

In case someone is wondering why the image size does't match the 1080p screen resolution - it's an artefact of the way MacOS scaling works as I understand it ... 

 

graph_start.afphoto

[thylaxene]

OK I downloaded your file and ran it in Photo 1.7.1 using a Intuos Pro Medium (driver 6.3.35-2)  in bluetooth mode. Painting with brush is fluid. Max CPU usage Photo reaches is around 63% if I scribble really quick and messy. Will download 1.7.2 soon and test. I'm 2017 rMBP running Mojave. Default res. Photo HW acceleration on.

Cheers.

[Gabe]

I tried your file. Same experience as before. There's nothing special about your file that would make it slow. Can you please try to do the same scenario on a guest account on your mac? I believe it's down to something else (app perhaps) that's interfering with Photo. We've not had any other reports of this so it must be something local on your mac. 

[tariq]

fresh install of OS and minimal apps istalled (see below for versions)

 

new video without external display shows issues persist (but not as bad as external display) - still unusable

 

original video with external display:

 

 

 

details:

• Wacom CTL480/s
• macOS 10.14.6
• wacom driver 6.3.36-2
• affinity 1.7.2
• external display necea244uhd
• local laptop is MBP2015 15" i7

[tariq]

the following observations may provide clues to the cause:

• latest software Affinity 1.7.2 and MacOS Mojave .. the issues are far worse than 2 years ago with High Sierra or whatever it was called and Affinity 1.4/5
• screen recording with Quicktime makes it worse
• external display makes it worse

 

you might say that I'm pushing the 2015 MBP 15" i7 computer too hard - but this was not a big issue on the same hardware, and indeed a weaker 13" 2015 MBP i5 where in buy very early work there was no problem at all!

 

so the evidence points to a software issue not a hardware issue - but the question is where? is it the Wacom driver? affinity app? quicktime recorder?

 

[tariq]

latest experiment without a Wacom tablet .. just using the trackpad on the MacBook Pro

issue is still there - so this strongly suggests the issue is related to Affinity+Quicktime Records .. and not the Wacom tablet 

 

any suggestions?

 

 

 

(my apologies for not having done this sooner)

 

[tariq]

my latest experiment suggests it is not the Wacom tablet as it happens when using the touchpad

 

 

[tariq]

on twitter some have asked whether other apps suffer the issue too

I don't have photoshop / gimp / Krita installed .. so I tried Preview with the painting pen (and 4k external display)

the issue is there but not as bad

this macthes my observation that this issue was not as bad, and jus about tolerable, with earlier combinations of previous Affinity Photo and previous MacOS versions

 

 

[Gabe]

Can you please check the performance with:

• Affinity  + Built-in screen recording instead of QuickTime (CMD + Shift + 5)
• Affinity without any screen recording
• Could you install either Gimp or Krita - Both free - and see their performance with both CMD+ Shift+5 and Quicktime. I don't believe Paint is powerful enough to draw any resources.  

[Patrick Connor]

I have merged your newest thread post into this thread, please do not start new threads when you discover something new about an existing issue we are helping to investigate.

That moved/merged post is here

There is an edit option on each of your posts. You can edit the title of the thread by editing the first post in a thread. I have tweaked it, but feel free to change this one (again) if you want.

[tariq]

14 hours ago, GabrielM said:

Can you please check the performance with:

• Affinity  + Built-in screen recording instead of QuickTime (CMD + Shift + 5)
• Affinity without any screen recording
• Could you install either Gimp or Krita - Both free - and see their performance with both CMD+ Shift+5 and Quicktime. I don't believe Paint is powerful enough to draw any resources.  

Attached are 2 video files recording using a smartphone (not screen recording software) so the recording is not interfering with the scenarios.

 

They show:

• Affinity Photo painting on a 4K external display using DisplayPort - you can see the performance is bad
• Affinity Photo painting with CMD-Sfht-5 recording - you can see the performance is worse
• Krita latest - drawing on a 4K external display using DisplayPort - performance is not ideal, but better than Affinity
• Krita latest painting with CMD-Shift-5 recording - you can see he performance is worse

This time drawing was done using a trackpad and not a Wacom tablet. Previous experiments show that the tracking of the pointer position is not the problem (Wacom disagnosti tool). Here we can see the screen showing the actual pointer keeping up with the the software app catching up to the pointer.

 

My conclusions from this are:

• performance with a 4K display is worse than using the laptop display in all scenarios
• performance with Affinity is worse than Krita - which surprises me as Affinity uses native Apple toolkit vs Krita using 3rd party toolkits like Qt (I think)
• performance with the screen recorder is very poor and makes existing performance worse

 

Before we conclude that this is the way it is .. I need to re-iterate that on previous versions of Affinity and MacOS I was able to have tolerable performance for both drawing and recording so something in the software (sam hardwire) has become worse.

 

Thanks

 

 

[Gabe]

Thanks for the screen recordings. 

All these videos suggest the issue is os/hardware related. Even the Preview with Paint is slow, which just should not be. Photo not being the only software affected by this, and screen recording making it worse led me thinking it might be a hardware issue. We could not replicate this behaviour here. 

I tried it on an Air early 2014  which is less powerful than your Macbook Pro and there was no lag at all, even on a 8000 x 8000 document, using the same brush size as you did. 

 

[tariq]

43 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

Thanks for the screen recordings. 

All these videos suggest the issue is os/hardware related. Even the Preview with Paint is slow, which just should not be. Photo not being the only software affected by this, and screen recording making it worse led me thinking it might be a hardware issue. We could not replicate this behaviour here. 

I tried it on an Air early 2014  which is less powerful than your Macbook Pro and there was no lag at all, even on a 8000 x 8000 document, using the same brush size as you did. 

 

Thanks - this is helpful.

 

I am dreading dealing with Apple - they are a real barrier to fixing issues....