macOS GUI Performance vs. Windows 10

milesminkin · 10-22-2017, 12:07 PM

Hello all,

I've been trying to convert my entire music production over to Reaper but I'm running into a problem that's holding me back. The GUI performance on macOS is significantly slower than Reaper on Windows. This slower performance applies to lots of components within the DAW from resizing windows, to zooming, and making fine-edits.

I made a YouTube video showing the GUI performance on both macOS (Sierra), and Windows (via Parallels VM). Watch in 60fps to see the difference in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ed...ature=youtu.be

I've seen similar problems happening to other users here on the forums. I've tried switching resolutions, switching display's color to Adobe RGB, opening in "Low Resolution", reinstalled Reaper, and have tried beta releases. Nothing seems to nail this problem down.

What steps can I take to work toward a fix?

Thanks !

macOS Sierra 10.12.6
Reaper v5.52

Futur8me · 10-23-2017, 01:22 AM

Its now obvious the developers need to update/fix the GUI code for the newer macOS.., the GUI of Logic Pro X runs butter smooth now so it can be achieved.

.

.
.

EvilDragon · 10-23-2017, 04:20 AM

Reaper is a Windows first application, so that sort of thing is to be expected.

citizenkeith · 10-23-2017, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Reaper is a Windows first application, so that sort of thing is to be expected.

Then should they charge less for the Mac version?

mschnell · 10-23-2017, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by citizenkeith

Then should they charge less for the Mac version?

As it works the same but just is slower, Mac users might want to delay the licensing for a few days.

-Michael

Justin · 10-23-2017, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Reaper is a Windows first application, so that sort of thing is to be expected.

Actually I would say that in general, getting things to screen can be done more quickly on Windows (without resorting to hackery and/or lots of GPU use). The trade-off is that things get flickier on Windows, whereas macOS does compositing of everything.

BenK-msx · 10-23-2017, 01:28 PM

as a recent switcher, it is noticably more uh say.. languid on Mac, (as are dekstop OS gui things tbh)

if Justin's implication is hackery is required to improve this, thats a 'live with it' but if anything can be done to help, the perception of speed benefits are more than you might initially think.

Futur8me · 10-24-2017, 03:13 AM

They have just made the GUI of Logic Pro X smooth so it can be achieved for Reaper.., I fail to see how this would be a "huge" increase in resources and GPU usage???.., I use Logic Pro X on my 5K iMac and its not a resource hog at all.. it runs smooth and delicious.
..

.
.

cyrano · 10-24-2017, 05:09 AM

Logic runs on OSX only. And it still took Apple a couple of years, I think.

REAPER is cross-platform. Not as straightforward to adapt. Other developers who build cross-platform run into the same kind of problems.

mschnell · 10-26-2017, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PingPongDelay

The GUI performance on macOS is significantly slower than Reaper on Windows.

What PC are you comparing to what Mac ?

I have been told, that for taking advantage of the benefits of the Apple system, and allowing for comparable performance, you need to spend a lot more money.

(Comparing the same hardware is not viable, anyway, as running the software on the other universe's hardware is not supported by the software venders.)

-Michael

Justin · 10-26-2017, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrano

Logic runs on OSX only. And it still took Apple a couple of years, I think.

REAPER is cross-platform. Not as straightforward to adapt. Other developers who build cross-platform run into the same kind of problems.

Being cross-platform is not the issue -- Logic is Apple, they without question have more information on the internals of macOS drawing. Maybe it would be possible for us to achieve similar drawing performance, but we'd be doing it in the dark.

Justin · 10-26-2017, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mschnell

(Comparing the same hardware is not viable, anyway, as running the software on the other universe's hardware is not supported by the software venders.)

You can boot Windows on an iMac and compare. Drawing performance in REAPER and most other applications is a lot better on Windows, no question.

milesminkin · 10-26-2017, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mschnell

What PC are you comparing to what Mac ?

I was running Windows and macOS on the same machine. Windows was through Parallels (a virtual machine).

inarisound · 10-26-2017, 01:10 PM

HAHAHAHAH I never had anything to compare with... now that you pointed that out it is so obvious that mac version is much slower xD

but besides that we have lots of other GUI glitches that I addressed before but it was not brought out to the attention....

Piano roll glitch... (where root note would be changed if the window would be shrinked)

Not displaying full file path/names of the projects at start prompt window and cutting the path out if you try to expand it

and unfortunately many more =(

vanhaze · 10-26-2017, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Being cross-platform is not the issue -- Logic is Apple, they without question have more information on the internals of macOS drawing. Maybe it would be possible for us to achieve similar drawing performance, but we'd be doing it in the dark.

This is so valuable info and comfirms what i was assuming myself the whole time.
It also slams the folks in their face who are too simply thinking that, cause Logic Pro X has great GUI performance, other OSX DAW's, like Reaper OSX, are also capable of reaching that same GUI performance.

Peace and thanks to Justin.

Justin · 10-26-2017, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vanhaze

This is so valuable info and comfirms what i was assuming myself the whole time.
It also slams the folks in their face who are too simply thinking that, cause Logic Pro X has great GUI performance, other OSX DAW's, like Reaper OSX, are also capable of reaching that same GUI performance.

Peace and thanks to Justin.

Also -- I could be totally wrong, there may be some design decisions that we made that are ruining things for us (such as using NSViews -- macOS compositing isn't terribly fast sadly!). At this point though, until we have some revelation, this falls in the "live with it" category. REAPER performs great overall on my RMBP w/ external display + builtin, despite the graphics performance being lower than that of Windows. The 5k imacs have an issue when using 30-bit color mode, but if you disable that the performance gets pretty decent.

milesminkin · 10-26-2017, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Also -- I could be totally wrong, there may be some design decisions that we made that are ruining things for us (such as using NSViews -- macOS compositing isn't terribly fast sadly!). At this point though, until we have some revelation, this falls in the "live with it" category. REAPER performs great overall on my RMBP w/ external display + builtin, despite the graphics performance being lower than that of Windows. The 5k imacs have an issue when using 30-bit color mode, but if you disable that the performance gets pretty decent.

I appreciate you taking the time to consider fixes and talk with us about it. I learned a lot here.

Thanks a lot!

cyrano · 10-26-2017, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Being cross-platform is not the issue -- Logic is Apple, they without question have more information on the internals of macOS drawing. Maybe it would be possible for us to achieve similar drawing performance, but we'd be doing it in the dark.

I understand memory management is faster too, on Windows. Windows always feels snappier, even with other cross platform apps.

But that doesn't mean it's not possible. I mean, Filemaker, OBS, Acon Acoustica 7 and others show similar graphic performance on OSX and Windows. That is, taken into account that Macs usually don't have top-of-the-line gpu's.

But they do have solid font support, fi. The last time I spent some time on Windows, my browsers and FM Pro all had a font problem that made listings hard to read. Only happened from the second page. Spent hours with HP corp support, no fix. And MS kept pointing to HP and vice versa. Kinda sad if it stops rollout of an application 500 technicians depend upon.

Anyhow, I'm using an eight year old core2duo for all this. Speed is obviously not my most important parameter

I would hate to miss core audio. That's all.

esosotericmetal · 10-26-2017, 08:25 PM

Was the drawing performance on macs always like this or is this an issue that has crept up over the last few versions of macOS?

esosotericmetal · 10-26-2017, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

At this point though, until we have some revelation

5 grams of psilocybin might do the trick!

Futur8me · 10-27-2017, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vanhaze

This is so valuable info and comfirms what i was assuming myself the whole time.
It also slams the folks in their face who are too simply thinking that, cause Logic Pro X has great GUI performance, other OSX DAW's, like Reaper OSX, are also capable of reaching that same GUI performance.

Peace and thanks to Justin.

You yourself said that pro tools 12 has fixed its GUI issues..?.

.

.

Futur8me · 10-27-2017, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Being cross-platform is not the issue -- Logic is Apple, they without question have more information on the internals of macOS drawing. Maybe it would be possible for us to achieve similar drawing performance, but we'd be doing it in the dark.

Thank you for the explanation.., but with all due respect i much prefer your idea of 'we'd be doing it in the dark' and actually trying.., rather than doing nothing at all and we just live with it.

.

.

cyrano · 10-27-2017, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by esosotericmetal

Was the drawing performance on macs always like this or is this an issue that has crept up over the last few versions of macOS?

Both.

Hardware wise, Macs had middle-of-the-road GPU's. Some PC's had far more powerful GPU's. Apple's hardware update cycle is slow.

And then there are the latest incarnations of OSX. The cloud rules all. Log reading turned into black magic. Launchd will kick misbehaving driver parts back to life. That's good, unless it starts flipping and eats CPU. Comparable to how systemd operates on Linux. That's why even RME's drivers don't work in rare cases. And the solution for these cases isn't straight forward.

Judders · 10-27-2017, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Also -- I could be totally wrong, there may be some design decisions that we made that are ruining things for us (such as using NSViews -- macOS compositing isn't terribly fast sadly!). At this point though, until we have some revelation, this falls in the "live with it" category. REAPER performs great overall on my RMBP w/ external display + builtin, despite the graphics performance being lower than that of Windows. The 5k imacs have an issue when using 30-bit color mode, but if you disable that the performance gets pretty decent.

Any idea why I notice no difference between colour mode bit depths? It's not too bad even with iMac colour profile, but I don't notice any improvement at all when switching to lower colour bit depth.

This is on late 2015 27" iMac, 2GB VRAM.

Justin · 10-27-2017, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judders

Any idea why I notice no difference between colour mode bit depths? It's not too bad even with iMac colour profile, but I don't notice any improvement at all when switching to lower colour bit depth.

This is on late 2015 27" iMac, 2GB VRAM.

Maybe you're not successfully switching depths? did you look in about this mac / system profile / graphics/displays to see what it reports?

Judders · 10-27-2017, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Maybe you're not successfully switching depths? did you look in about this mac / system profile / graphics/displays to see what it reports?

The screen noticeably changes colour. In system profile it sends me back to system preferences, so that's a self-reporting loop!?

serr · 10-27-2017, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by esosotericmetal

Was the drawing performance on macs always like this or is this an issue that has crept up over the last few versions of macOS?

This. 10.12 has weird little GUI lags that older OSX versions do not have on the same hardware for one thing. I haven't noticed this with 10.10 (my "experimental" system on the studio machine for testing newer plugins and such). 10.6.8 is still my goto stable no bs system where everything is happiness and light (and no GUI lags).

Sadly I don't think this is going to change unless Steve Jobs comes back from the dead.

esosotericmetal · 10-27-2017, 08:19 AM

Maybe it would be a good idea to have all the macos GUI optimizations in a single place like a sticky post in the osx forum?

Justin · 10-27-2017, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judders

The screen noticeably changes colour. In system profile it sends me back to system preferences, so that's a self-reporting loop!?

Sorry I mean "System Information", or you can just run System Information.app

Judders · 10-27-2017, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Sorry I mean "System Information", or you can just run System Information.app

Yeah, but system information doesn't report monitor colour depth.

The screen colour noticeably changes when I change the colour bit depth in system preferences, so I presume it is working.

Justin · 10-27-2017, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judders

Yeah, but system information doesn't report monitor colour depth.

Hmm, if you go to the right tab it should. Here's my MBP:

vs an iMac in 30-bit mode:

(I don't have a 30-bit capable display in front of me so I can't show you the same device)

Quote:

The screen colour noticeably changes when I change the colour bit depth in system preferences, so I presume it is working.

That is not a safe assumption, color profile can have a huge effect without changing the bit depth.

Judders · 10-27-2017, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Hmm, if you go to the right tab it should.

[snip]

That is not a safe assumption, color profile can have a huge effect without changing the bit depth.

Derp. I haven't been in system information since upgrading to High Sierra, so didn't realise you have to press the system report button to get to the proper system information. I'm sure that used to be right there...

Anyway, you're right, it isn't changing the colour bit depth. In fact, I can't work out how to get that to change

Justin · 10-27-2017, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judders

Derp. I haven't been in system information since upgrading to High Sierra, so didn't realise you have to press the system report button to get to the proper system information. I'm sure that used to be right there...

Anyway, you're right, it isn't changing the colour bit depth. In fact, I can't work out how to get that to change

Try some other color profiles maybe? Or maybe that's not the right place to look, it's been a bit since I last tested on a imac5k, maybe I'll stop by an apple store...

...or maybe they changed the way it works in 10.13...

Judders · 10-27-2017, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Try some other color profiles maybe? Or maybe that's not the right place to look, it's been a bit since I last tested on a imac5k, maybe I'll stop by an apple store...

...or maybe they changed the way it works in 10.13...

I've tried a variety of profiles both in system preferences and colour sync utility. The colour space changes but not the bit depth.

I'm thinking it's something that can't be changed. If I check the "Show profiles for this display only" in system prefs then only 2 iMac profiles show up. According to the help button these are the only options I can change my display to.

Justin · 10-27-2017, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judders

I've tried a variety of profiles both in system preferences and colour sync utility. The colour space changes but not the bit depth.

I'm thinking it's something that can't be changed. If I check the "Show profiles for this display only" in system prefs then only 2 iMac profiles show up. According to the help button these are the only options I can change my display to.

Hmm perhaps that stays at 30-bit always now, I'll go test soon.

In the mean time, you've been quitting REAPER and starting it *after* changing the color profile, right?

Judders · 10-27-2017, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Hmm perhaps that stays at 30-bit always now, I'll go test soon.

In the mean time, you've been quitting REAPER and starting it *after* changing the color profile, right?

Yep, I've been changing colour profile without REAPER open and then opening it.

Like I say, it's not at all so bad that it bothers me much, though snappier metering would be nice, but I figured exploring this a bit might be helpful to those Mac users who are tearing their hair out over it

What I don't get is how plugins can be totally cool and snappy within REAPER, but not REAPER itself

Futur8me · 10-28-2017, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin

Try some other color profiles maybe? Or maybe that's not the right place to look, it's been a bit since I last tested on a imac5k, maybe I'll stop by an apple store...

...or maybe they changed the way it works in 10.13...

Since updating to 10.13 the GUI of my 5K iMac is more snappier and smoother.., so things have definitely changed in the macOS system, the release notes of High Sierra 10.13 says that it has better graphics performance for developers.., so you must be able to take advantage of this new graphics architecture Justin.., metal 2..?.., and remember that windows 10 on the exact same hardware runs smoother/better on this 5K 32bit screen.

You will figure this out Justin your a wizard!..hehe, so please investigate and take advantage of these new claims of enhanced graphics software that 10.13 claims to have, and do all the testing on a new 5K iMac.

You can do it!.. hehe.

.
.