Page 1 of 1
Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 11:27 am
by richhickey
I had very laggy UI performance (changing tabs, moving splitbars) on my shiny new iMac Pro, on both DP 9.5.2 and 10.01. Both worked better on my old quad core iMac retina.
The easy way to tell if you have this problem is to grab a splitbar and move it around while looking at activity monitor CPU - when you have the problem, doing this can use (way) more than 1 core (100% cpu). On this 18-core machine dragging a splitbar could consume 600-900% or more.
Go to System Preferences -> Display -> Color and choose a different display profile. For me, pretty much any profile other than the default cleared up the problem. Now switching tabs is snappy and dragging splitbars and other UI moves never use more than 1 core (100%)
Thanks to Robert Randolph for the tipoff!
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 12:05 pm
by cuttime
Very interesting. I've always used a calibrated profile and never had a lag problem.
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 4:44 pm
by mikehalloran
Can't duplicate it on my 14 core iMP. Does changing it back make it misbehave?
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 6:05 pm
by jlaudon
This is good to know... unfortunately I just sold my 4k display because it had such UI lag with my MacBook Pro 2018... this might've been a fix..
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Fri May 31, 2019 7:50 am
by richhickey
mikehalloran wrote:Can't duplicate it on my 14 core iMP. Does changing it back make it misbehave?
It does for me. Although apparently if you edit a profile, calibrate etc it removes the 10-bit-ness which is supposedly the root of the problem.
It also might be OS-version specific (I'm on Mojave, 10.14)
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Fri May 31, 2019 8:35 am
by HCMarkus
Interesting info... I'm on Sierra, but will see what I can see in this regard, as I would love to speed up the UI on my 4k 40" monitor.
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 8:33 am
by HCMarkus
The solution proposed has worked well for several MOTUNation members now. Kudos, and Thank You Mr. Hickey!
In my case, moving from Sierra to Mojave and dumping the previously required DisplayPort to HDMI active adaptor brought responsiveness to my 4k display... excellent performance on my 5,1 with RX460 GPU. Not sure if it was losing the adaptor or the updated AMD GPU driver in Mojave that did the trick.
What, me worry?
R.I.P Alfred E.
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 7:53 pm
by bayswater
Helped here too. I didn't have a problem with sluggish refreshes, but I was reacquainted with the display preferences and calibration and was able to make big improvements in the visibility of the DP GUI with the calibration process, and by backing off from the default contrast setting. With built in Apple displays, none of this makes a difference, but it was worth spending a few minutes with the Mac using other displays.
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:18 pm
by cuttime
richhickey wrote:
Thanks to Robert Randolph for the tipoff!
Who, sadly, does not feel welcome at this site anymore.
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 12:46 am
by James Steele
cuttime wrote:richhickey wrote:
Thanks to Robert Randolph for the tipoff!
Who, sadly, does not feel welcome at this site anymore.
Says who? I certainly don't remember anything about that.
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 10:17 am
by cuttime
James Steele wrote:cuttime wrote:richhickey wrote:
Thanks to Robert Randolph for the tipoff!
Who, sadly, does not feel welcome at this site anymore.
Says who? I certainly don't remember anything about that.
I didn't mean to speak for Robert. I apologize if I was being too presumptuous. I was echoing sentiments he shared on his own website.
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 3:57 pm
by MIDI Life Crisis
I'm not surprised. He called MN a "horrible place." Whatever... but let him speak for himself...
And this was waaaaay back in 2010...
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... ation.html
Robert Randolph;5615796]Yeah, it's a pretty horrible place. Is this really new info? confoosed
And this:
Robert Randolph;5615866]
This is an excellent place to invoke godwin's law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 3:12 pm
by Michael Canavan
The four music forums I visit the most all have terrible reputations, at the other music forums!
To be fair I think all of us as humans change our opinions about places, things and people depending on whether or not everyone agrees with us or not! I think all of you are fantastic when you back up my opinions, and annoying sycophants when you do not!
I'm also willing to cut anyone slack for what they said almost two years ago, who does a good job of pointing out how great DP is on his DAW comparison website.
[edit] spelling..
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 3:55 pm
by MIDI Life Crisis

spot on
Re: Having UI performance problems? Try this
Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:58 pm
by Mina
Hi! Switching DP to low resolution mode was helped me ( 27-inch iMac, Retina 5K )