DP10 is waaay snappier than DP11...when working to picture

[dix]

I've been running DP 10.13 on a Sierra partition, just fresh installed Mojave on another SSD internal drive, and have DP 11.02 on that. Mostly OK, with some EXTREME sluggishness on certain actions. It takes around 40 seconds with a beachball to open a pop up window to rename in the markers window, and other places. If hitting the down button on the markers list when in "pop-up'd" mode it takes around 8 seconds to move to the next marker. Also accessing the waveform magnification button on a track in the SE yields an around 14 second beachball before it works.

Weird because other actions (playback, editing in the SE window) seem to be fine. This is a 48k/24bit file, running a 1024 buffer, no plugins, still in the editing stage, but only a handful of cuts so far. Running a movie window.

Do the delays and beachballs go away if you clear the movie, waynepeet? (see the second movie I posted above) My guess is they do, but please confirm. This sounds like the same issue as mine - like you, other actions like playback and editing are fine for me.

I hadn't noticed it before, but calling up windows, such as Markers, Audio Performance etc. via key commands or the Run Command is much slower when a movie window is present. ...in fact just invoking Run Command is noticeably slower too.

Thanks!

[waynepeet]

Bingo! Clear the movie & it looks like everything's normal.
Thanks-wp

[HCMarkus]

Promise broken. Sorry dix. Calling it a day and I didn't get a chance.

Glad others are being more timely about chiming in. Intentions still exist here...

[dix]

Bingo! Clear the movie & it looks like everything's normal.
Thanks-wp

Goodish news I guess. At least the issue is confirmed and I’m not unique, or insane. I’m wondering if our NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards are what’s causing the conflict. Please let MOTU support know, so maybe they can help figure out how to fix it.

Promise broken. Sorry dix. Calling it a day and I didn't get a chance.

Glad others are being more timely about chiming in. Intentions still exist here...

No worries HC. Once you have time you could clarify things by letting us know if you're seeing this - it might at least shed some light on my graphics card theory, since you're using an AMD card. ...although dowser's trashcan sort of messes that theory up.

[waterstrum]

Hey dix,
Sorry you are experiencing this vexing problem.
I rarely use DP for scoring to picture, but I wanted to check it out on my old system.
2012 5,1 Mojave.
I added a movie.
Fun to see it play in sync with DP.
I'm not seeing the lags that you posted in your videos.
Maybe a slight difference?
That said, I'm remembering that there was a way to add a movie track which would show picture frames on the timeline.
I can't figure out how to add it, but maybe this could be the cause of the lags.
Probably not the solution, but please remind me how to add the movie track so I can test this theory.
Thanks!

[dowser]

I live in Japan and need to make a product registration request for DP11 upgrade to MOTU from my distributor in Japan,
and have already requested it. However, my account is not yet listed for DP11 upgrade,
I will report here once I get a support ticket for DP11 and get a reply.

[dix]

Hey dix,
Sorry you are experiencing this vexing problem.
I rarely use DP for scoring to picture, but I wanted to check it out on my old system.
2012 5,1 Mojave.
I added a movie.
Fun to see it play in sync with DP.
I'm not seeing the lags that you posted in your videos.
Maybe a slight difference?
That said, I'm remembering that there was a way to add a movie track which would show picture frames on the timeline.
I can't figure out how to add it, but maybe this could be the cause of the lags.
Probably not the solution, but please remind me how to add the movie track so I can test this theory.
Thanks!

Thanks so much for checking it out waterstrum! You can see the Movie track, which is shown in the second movie I posted, by selecting it in the SE's Track Selector - it's the top, first track. However whether it is showing has no effect on the issue - I never use it (I only have it showing in my video to easily show how clearing the movie fixes the problem). It's having a Movie Window showing, in the CW or an independent window, that makes the problem happen.

You say "Maybe a slight difference". The problem is much worse for me on heavier projects. Lowering the buffer and adding cpu hungry plugins would make the problem more noticeable if you'd care to investigate further.

Thanks again. As bad as this is for me, wayne peet's seems much worse. He's seeing 40 second delays when a Movie window is active! I'm only seeing a few seconds.

[HCMarkus]

I (finally) checked this issue out using DP10/13 and DP11.0 on my macOS10.14.6 5,1 Mac Pro as per signature below.

Used a startup project file. In DP10.13 response was unchanged with or without Movie Window open.

Restarted on separate partition with same OS and DP11.0. Response was noticeably slower with Movie Window open. Closing the Movie Window (without even clearing the Movie) resulted in normal response time to mouse movements.

I believe I have verified the issue and will report to MOTU.

[dix]

I (finally) checked this issue out using DP10/13 and DP11.0 on my macOS10.14.6 5,1 Mac Pro as per signature below.

Used a startup project file. In DP10.13 response was unchanged with or without Movie Window open.

Restarted on separate partition with same OS and DP11.0. Response was noticeably slower with Movie Window open. Closing the Movie Window (without even clearing the Movie) resulted in normal response time to mouse movements.

I believe I have verified the issue and will report to MOTU.

Thanks HC!

For better or worse, I too believe you have confirmed the issue. And, yes. If the Movie Window is just closed, without clearing the movie, the problem persists on my system too. Unfortunately, since you're running an AMD card, you've also thrown cold water on my theory that the graphics card was causing a conflict.

I'm not sure what can be tried next. Could it be an OS conflict in combination with my cMP? It's not (just) a Mojave issue since I, and others have confirmed that it's not a problem on newer Macs running Mojave. For a number of reasons I need to stay in Mojave, but I'm not sure I have a choice anyway - the internet isn't clear on whether it's even possible to take these 5,1 cMPs beyond 10.14.6.

[HCMarkus]

You can go further if you put Open Core on your 5,1. I'm not sure it would help though. Check MacRumors, the Mac Pro Forum, for more info on Open Core if you are interested.

I will add that I have been noticing significant GUI slowdowns on non-movie projects in DP10.13 with modest numbers of audio track/plugins, less so running VI-heavy projects. Too many back vocal tracks! Pop editing audio tracks slows to a crawl at times; very frustrating, as the overall responsiveness of the transport is snappy. I'm running an all-SSD environment, albeit several on SATA2 buss, and performance of all the drives is in line with expectations. Could it be my 10 year old machine has finally met its match?

I'm itching to try DP11 on my M! MacBook Air; just haven't had time to do so. Excited to see what Apple delivers in a couple of days... a Mac Mini Pro could be the answer to a lot of questions.

[dix]

Yes, the rumored MacMini Pro would make this issue moot, but even in the best case scenario I will need keep working with my ancient cMP for several months.

Hopefully MOTU support, with input from some more users who are experiencing the movie-causes-lags issue, will come up with some suggestions. Or at least a definitive answer as to if it can be overcome with these machines.

[dix]

I live in Japan and need to make a product registration request for DP11 upgrade to MOTU from my distributor in Japan,
and have already requested it. However, my account is not yet listed for DP11 upgrade,
I will report here once I get a support ticket for DP11 and get a reply.

System info from your 6,1 cylinder MP could be useful to them, once your registration is in order.

MOTU support has acknowledged hearing from two other 5,1 users with this problem, HC and wayne presumably. So some progress.

[HCMarkus]

A Mac Mini Pro could be the answer to a lot of questions.

These questions will remain, for the time being, unanswered, at least directly. That said, the 10-Core M1 Pro in the new laptops looks like a killer CPU!

Nothing on geek bench as yet. Who's first?

Edit: Found this for the M1 max;

The chip features a single-core score of 1749 and a multi-core score of 11542, which offers double the multi-core performance of the ‌M1‌ chip that's in the 13-inch MacBook Pro machine.

Based on these numbers, the ‌M1‌ Max outperforms all Mac chips with the exception of the Mac Pro and iMac models equipped with Intel's high-end 16 to 24-core Xeon chips. The 11542 multi-core score is on par with the late 2019 ‌Mac Pro‌ that is equipped with a 12-core Intel Xeon W-3235.

Methinks that would serve the studio quite well!

[mikehalloran]

…

Edit: Found this for the M1 max;

The chip features a single-core score of 1749 and a multi-core score of 11542, which offers double the multi-core performance of the ‌M1‌ chip that's in the 13-inch MacBook Pro machine.

Based on these numbers, the ‌M1‌ Max outperforms all Mac chips with the exception of the Mac Pro and iMac models equipped with Intel's high-end 16 to 24-core Xeon chips. The 11542 multi-core score is on par with the late 2019 ‌Mac Pro‌ that is equipped with a 12-core Intel Xeon W-3235.

Methinks that would serve the studio quite well!

Oh yes, I agree. If you need AV performance, either the M1 Pro or M1 Max should blow away everything except the highest end AV cards in the Mac Pro 7.1. The efficiency of unified memory makes the 64GB option ($400 upgrade on the 16" MBP) more than enough for anyone. With 8TB storage onboard runs $6,099 before AppleCare and taxes. I like the new cooling system inspired by the iMac Pro.

If/when this becomes available in an iMac, I will be extremely interested. If there's a minor GB hit between the M1 Max and my iMP's 18 Core Xeon, I'm not likely to notice it since AV performance will be so much better.

[dix]

Hey! Focus ppl ...Back to my OP.

MOTU support (which has been exemplary btw. sometimes sending 2 or 3 messages a day trying to help me) is starting to suspect that the issue may be an unresolvable conflict with my 5,1 cMP due to DP11-specific updates related to Metal that were made on their end. At this point it's hard not to agree with them.

About the only thing that might make me think this was resolvable is a 5,1 user that does not experience the lag when a Movie window is open. Unfortunately, if they do exist they're not too likely to check out this thread.

Any suggestions are still very welcome. Even if I do go for M1Max MBP I won't be able to switch today. The transition will take some time and I'd like to be able to use DP11 in the mean time.