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Affinity Creative Apps 1.10.3 Update Brings macOS Monterey Support and 'Stunning' Performance Optimizations on New MacBook Pros

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Serif today announced updates for its popular suite of Affinity creative apps that bring official support for macOS Monterey and optimizations for the new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips powering Apple's latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.

Affinity-apps-on-M1-Max-and-M1-Pro-devices.jpg

According to Ashley Hewson, managing director of Affinity developer Serif, buyers of the latest MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips will enjoy "stunning speed improvements" when using all three apps:
"The new GPU represents an industry reflection point—we now have compute performance surpassing nearly all discrete GPU hardware, but retain the key benefits of unified memory. This required us to step back and think again about where performance bottlenecks might be, as it's clear the 'old rules' no longer apply.

"The results of this work yield a benchmark score of around 30,000 for the M1 Max 32core GPU, absolutely obliterating any other single GPU score we have ever measured. Our changes have also improved performance on the previous M1 chip, which is now roughly 10% faster in our benchmark in version 1.10.3."
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The new MacBook Pro also features a Liquid Retina XDR display, which completely changes the way photographers can edit images in Affinity Photo, according to Hewson.
"The new XDR display is also a game-changer for photographers. We spent most of our time trying to work around the fact that our cameras shoot a few stops more light than can be displayed properly on a standard screen. Displays like the new Liquid Retina XDR can easily display the entire dynamic range captured by dSLRs, so the way you develop RAW changes completely, not just for bracketed merge shots, but for single images. Gone are the days of compressing highlights to recover detail—fundamentally changing the way we use computers to process photographs."
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Lastly, the Affinity apps have also been optimized to deliver smooth rendering at 120fps on the new MacBook Pros, similar to the equivalent Affinity apps on iPad.

The 1.10.3 update is available across all Affinity apps on macOS today and is free to existing users. All Affinity apps are currently available to purchase individually for $60 each on the Affinity website, no subscriptions required.

Article Link: Affinity Creative Apps 1.10.3 Update Brings macOS Monterey Support and 'Stunning' Performance Optimizations on New MacBook Pros
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/26/serif-affinity-update-monterey-m1-pro-m1-max/
Last edited:
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Reactions: Russell L, johnmarki, amartinez1660 and 2 others
So glad to hear this as an Affinity user experiencing beach balls and lag on a 2017 MacBook Pro 15” Intel Quad Core i7.
 
I’ve never used the Affinity apps but I’m planning to give them a try today as it happens.

I already know that it doesn’t have a Digital Asset Manager so can’t replace Lightroom but, boy, would I jump on board if it did. Could finally cancel my Creative Cloud subscription.
 
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triton100 said:
From all accounts it seems as if intel have already hit back with their new chip
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By using roughly 10 times the power and then, they online provide the same CPU speed (in geekbench). Not mentioning the graphics power of the M1 Pro/Max, that eats a desktop class RTX 3xxx for lunch (if only half of the benchmarks i‘ve seen these days are true).
 
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Reactions: Taz Mangus, amartinez1660, Funky_Alphonzo and 2 others
Unfortunately Affinity is still nowhere near as good as Adobe when it comes to typography. The optical kerning in adobe software is absolutely essential for anyone working with type. If Affinity would have well proportioned type I would switch in a heartbeat.
 
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triton100 said:
From all accounts it seems as if intel have already hit back with their new chip
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Unreleased, untested, overhyped.

Don't buy into their marketing or you'll be seriously disappointed. Alder lake will offer an IPC improvement of 10-20% at best over Rocket Lake. That's not even enough to beat Ryzen Zen3 in MT, nevermind Apple Silicon.

Intel doesn't have the tech to compete with Apple.
 
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urgs said:
By using roughly 10 times the power and then, they online provide the same CPU speed (in geekbench). Not mentioning the graphics power of the M1 Pro/Max, that eats a desktop class RTX 3xxx for lunch (if only half of the benchmarks i‘ve seen these days are true).
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The power consumption is "only" 2-3 times better. CPU wise Intel is not that far and AMD sill have a faster CPU.
On GPU side the new M1 chip while looking super impressive does not seens to surpass the RTX 3xxx, even not the RTX 2xxx.

And Intel still have to "carry" x86 instructions set as well as an "obsolete" 10mm process. With the new Alder lake and fner process, Intel may come back in the game.
 
I've updated Affinity Photo to 1.10.3 via the Apple App Store and its blank, I have no tools or anything... If I start a new project I get the artboard window and that's it.

I've updated Designer and Publisher via the App itself as I got those through Affinity and they work perfectly.
 

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Saturnine said:
I already know that it doesn’t have a Digital Asset Manager so can’t replace Lightroom but, boy, would I jump on board if it did. Could finally cancel my Creative Cloud subscription.
Click to expand...
It’s probably still a way out, but they have said they’re working on one.
 
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