Sierra made the GUI lag worse for me

[jpellizzi]

So I'm pretty frustrated right now.

I have the Late 2015 27" 5k iMac - 3.2ghz/16GB Ram/1TB Fusion Drive (I know, I know).

I was running El Capitan with 12.6 HD Native Thunderbolt and no real issues at all. It was super stable, just the minor GUI lag issues with meters/scroll/zooming (that 12.5.2 mostly fixed for me).

Now that Sierra is approved, I decided to update and my GUI issues are actually worse. It's like as bad as they were pre 12.5. Pretty much unusable.

I even just did a clean install of Sierra (not an update) and it's exactly the same.

I boot off of my El Capitan recovery drive, and it's back to 'normal' and very usable.

So weird, considering everyone else said that Sierra totally resolved those issues. I'm doubting that it's the fusion drive because it worked pretty well in El Cap after the 12.5 update. Could it just be my particular hardware? This iMac iteration?

Is anyone successfully running 12.6 HD on Sierra with a Late 2015 iMac?

I'm considering rolling back to El Capitan or selling this baby and buying am earlier iMac or trash can.

[jpellizzi]

Okay so I have Pro Tools HD installed on my 2016 Macbook Pro too (13", the one with 2 USB-C ports no touch bar)

It's snappy as hell on this Macbook Pro. Same exact version of PT and Sierra, fresh install with no third party plug-ins. The iMac is incredibly sluggish in comparison.

I've noticed that on the Macbook Pro, when you're trimming a clip there's a shadow/shading that is not present on the iMac. What could be going on here?

Some kind of GPU/graphics issue?

UPDATE: I started messing around with Display settings and resolution, and if I scale down the display in system preferences to the lowest, the lag issues pretty much go away. It must be a GPU issue (Radeon R9 M390) with this iMac model. Also disabling GPU in Pro Tools prefs seems to have an effect. So does unplugging my 2nd display.

Still need a solution because I can't work like this, but hopefully this helps anyone else with a Late 2015 iMac moving to Sierra.

[davemartone]

Hello. I had tried 4 Imac late 2015 builds. My issues were huge. I took them all back and went with a super power mac mini.

Not one issue.

Best of Luck.

Dave

www.davemartone.com

[jpellizzi]

Thanks Dave,

I actually remember closely following your thread. It's just so frustrating to have a powerful machine and it runs worse than a laptop with inferior specs. It has to be some kind of inherent Skylake or AMD GPU related issue.

Out of curiosity, did you try any Late 2014/Mid 2015 Haswell iMacs? I'm considering going for a used i7 4.0 ghz Haswell to see if that runs any better.

Otherwise I guess I'll have to shell out for a Mac Pro or wait until a new iMac launches and hope for the best.

[jpellizzi]

Okay so I found a temporary fix - last self reply I swear.

If you Get Info on Pro stools in finder, select "Open in Low Resolution mode"

The lag and sluggishness disappears, at the cost of some pixelation around text and the interface in general. Video playback seems unaffected thankfully.

Not a true solution, but works for now. Definitely leads me to believe there is an issue with these 2015 Retina Macs, or the AMD GPUs inside them. The other question is why would Sierra make it worse than El Capitan?

[Blues Bird]

Bump.

Any news on this ? Looks like I have the same trouble with a Late 2015 27" 5k 4gHz iMac.

[Eric Lambert]

Sierra doesn't fix this issue, but Low Resolution Mode does.

[ha2dorff]

My guess is that Sierra communicate with the graphic card in another way than previous OS. Some graphic cards don't like that. My suggestion is to contact Apple. I have huge problems with my Mac Pro (latest model), and Apple has confirmed that there are issues reported related to cards not living up to the specs that they should.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jpellizzi]

Originally Posted by Blues Bird

Bump.

Any news on this ? Looks like I have the same trouble with a Late 2015 27" 5k 4gHz iMac.

Interesting to hear you're experiencing that on the i7 machine with the best GPU, because I was wondering if that would make a difference. I'm still experiencing the issue and running in Low Resolution as a temporary fix. I haven't tried 12.6.1 yet but I doubt it will help. Pretty crappy but I barely notice it now.

[Edward Simpson]

Sierra also made the sluggishness worse for me. I updated after reading reports it fixed the issue. I also have a new iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015). Pro Tools is almost unusable.

Anyone have any update? Are Avid aware of this issue? I tried Low Resolution mode and it made no difference for me sadly.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)
Processor 4 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB
512GB Flash Storage

macOS Sierra Version 10.12.2

Universal Audio 'Apollo 8 Quad'
Universal Audio 'Apollo 8P Quad'

Pro Tools 12.7 Native