Best settings for Affinity Photo?

[jerwin]

I picked up Affinity Photo because I needed some processing capailities beyond the scope of Aperture... (and it was even cheaper as part of cyber monday.
But, it is slow.

What's the best (fastest) setting?

software, openGL, or metal?

I have an m290x with 2GB of VRAM.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I gave the trial version a shot, and I couldn't find a setting that made Affinity not laggy. And I'm running a 2017 iMac 5K. You can try them all and see what's best for you really. Software mode is going to be really slow.

 

[jerwin]

Looks like metal acceleration is available in the 1.7 beta.

Changes Since 1.6 Release
Performance
- The core processing engine in Affinity Photo has been rewritten to take advantage of the powerful discrete AMD GPUs in modern Mac hardware. It will now automatically use any compatible discrete GPU, alongside the Intel GPU support present in 1.6. Typically this improves compositing / editing performance by at least 1000%. Performance when using integrated Intel GPUs has also been massively improved.
- External GPUs (eGPU) are also supported - including hot-plug-and-unplug support.
- Multiple GPUs are supported - if you have more than 1 GPU (ie. Intel + AMD in MacBook Pro, or Intel + eGPU in other Macs) Photo will use them all, at the same time, to improve performance. There is no limit to the number of GPUs which can be used.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/73458-affinity-photo-customer-beta-170103/
(You need a full license to run beta versions). Haven't really tested it. If it works, great. If not, it won't become my main tool.

 

[Reality4711]

No lags on my kit.

Hope that is helpful.

Only slow on Fuji Raf file types. NEF,OLY & CRW all handled very well.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

No lags on my kit.

Hope that is helpful.

Only slow on Fuji Raf file types. NEF,OLY & CRW all handled very well.

Yeah, for me it unusable. Just loading a 16MP RAW would checkerboard load, and develop sliders were way behind. I thought it was odd because I love Affinity for iOS, which I use all the time. My iMac is an i5-7500 with Radeon Pro 570, 16GB RAM, and an SSD. It should be able to hack it!

 

[Reality4711]

Yeah, for me it unusable. Just loading a 16MP RAW would checkerboard load, and develop sliders were way behind. I thought it was odd because I love Affinity for iOS, which I use all the time. My iMac is an i5-7500 with Radeon Pro 570, 16GB RAM, and an SSD. It should be able to hack it!

Cannot comment on you kits compatibility (iMac ignorant me) but the temptation to use metal in the settings despite seeing incompatible GPUs indicated did slow mine down until I used settings just posted.

My camera produces 50MP Raf (raw) files and AP1.6 does not handle them anywhere near how it handles my old 50MP NEF files. The 1.7 beta is about 5or6 times faster with open and develop, so hopeful!

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Cannot comment on you kits compatibility (iMac ignorant me) but the temptation to use metal in the settings despite seeing incompatible GPUs indicated did slow mine down until I used settings just posted.

My camera produces 50MP Raf (raw) files and AP1.6 does not handle them anywhere near how it handles my old 50MP NEF files. The 1.7 beta is about 5or6 times faster with open and develop, so hopeful!

That’s great that they solved it. It certainly seemed like an acceleration issue, as LR does not have these problems, nor the iPad Pro I own. Maybe when that leaves beta I’ll give it another try. I like the program and am very used to the iOS version at this point.