Slow GUI with high resolution display

[ballandbiscuit]

Hi everyone,

I was recently working at a studio that was running Pro Tools 12.8 on an iMac with an additional high resolution display (don't know the exact resolution - 3000 something). The slow response of the Pro Tools GUI - mouse pointer, meters etc, was quite frustrating.

I then brought my computer (a 2013 Mac Pro) to the studio, thinking that the slow response was something to do with the studio's system. Although there was some improvement, the GUI was still laggy and slow on the high resolution display. At my studio, using an older 1920x1080 diaply, the GUI is super smooth.

Can anyone tell me if this is just normal expected behaviour when using a higher resolution display, or if there was something else amiss in this particular case.

I was thinking of buying a higher resolution display for my studio, but this has made me reconsider.

Many thanks.

[Cacov]

Sadly normal behaviour on high resolution displays.

It took a massive amount of complaints about "GUI lag" (search for threads with many dozens of pages about the topic) for Avid to publicly acknowledge there was an actual problem. Then, they took quick action and optimized the code as far as they could and improved the gfx performance a lot -as it was MUCH MUCH worse- but the problem did not go away. At least now it's quite usable on my Mac Pro late 2013 on a single Apple Thunderbolt Display. Still very laggy on a MacBook Pro Retina 15" at full resolution.

I think the only workaround is to launch Pro Tools in low resolution mode, far from ideal but at least it's workable that way.

[PMF Media]

Yep, I can also confirm this... the GUI is probably worse on the iMac because of the combination of a high res screen and a crappy GPU on the iMac (typically, Apple use smaller/cheaper mobile graphics cards to save space and heat), from what I've read even the new iMac Pro suffers laggy graphics my fix was to run a 2nd 1080 screen from the iMac via TB and use it for the edit window and leave the mixer on the 5k screen (meter performance is fine on the 5k).

II hope this gets sorted at some point soon.

[SigFriedChicken]

Originally Posted by ballandbiscuit

Hi everyone,

I was recently working at a studio that was running Pro Tools 12.8 on an iMac with an additional high resolution display (don't know the exact resolution - 3000 something). The slow response of the Pro Tools GUI - mouse pointer, meters etc, was quite frustrating.

I then brought my computer (a 2013 Mac Pro) to the studio, thinking that the slow response was something to do with the studio's system. Although there was some improvement, the GUI was still laggy and slow on the high resolution display. At my studio, using an older 1920x1080 diaply, the GUI is super smooth.

Can anyone tell me if this is just normal expected behaviour when using a higher resolution display, or if there was something else amiss in this particular case.

I was thinking of buying a higher resolution display for my studio, but this has made me reconsider.

Many thanks.

I have a similar issue where a second display for an iMac has laggy performance. This primarily affects the MIDI window. I compensate by not maximizing the window. It's not ideal, but it works. This has been an issue for at least a couple of years. It probably started when 4K/5K displays revealed underlying inefficiencies in how the GUI draws updates.

I tried using PT in a Bootcamp installation of Windows 10. There was no GUI lag in the Windows version, as far as I could tell. In fact, the Windows version was noticeably more responsive and snappy than the MacOS version.

[teedeecee]

I’ve been running PT12HD Native with huge sessions for film on both my studio system (Mac Pro trashcan - cheapest model) and a well spec’ed MBP. All systems I use a utility to allow for the full resolution of the screen. Usually this is around 4K.

Most projects I am running the main monitor at 4K and often a second 4K as well as a HD 1080p output for the film.

GUI has always been fine and snappy.

I don’t run many VI’s which experience has taught me can cause issues. Though, my CPU is usually running around 80 percent.

[PMF Media]

Care to share the name of the "utility" you refer to?

[teedeecee]

Originally Posted by PMF Media

Care to share the name of the "utility" you refer to?

On the main studio system I use SwitchResX, a very stable and versatile cheap app.

On my laptops, I use the freeware and hard to find, SetResX.

[frabo]

could it be better with a egpu solution with thunderbolt 3 ?
I just think about that for my macbookpro late 13 to use a 4k screen...