ProTools continuous scrolling with 144Hz monitor

[smurfyou]

For me it's always been jittery since they introduced Continuous Scrolling. Every version, Mac, PC, doesn't matter.

Other systems (Fairlight) were smooth as silk even while zooming and changing track height. I assumed it was inferior graphics routines Digi/Avid wrote.

I'd be delighted if it is smooth on M1.

[tom_lowe]

Originally Posted by br22

Hey there,

I have experienced the same thing, hoping a faster monitor would offer some benefit. Over the winter, I bought a BenQ EX2710Q gaming monitor (1440p, 144Hz, 1ms motion response, 110 PPI) and the continuous scroll is still a bit choppy.

This is seen while running dialogue edit sessions on a 2018 6-core 3.2GHz Intel i7 Mac Mini, 32GB ram. During playback, both CPU and GPU usage is very light. Adding an eGPU here would just be wasted money.

Avid has been good about trying to collect data from my system, and even getting the support ticket higher up the ladder, but no fix so far. I would definitely suggest contacting them since your higher specs may offer a different look for them.

Does anyone experience lag on an M1 during playback? If not, what display are you using?

Does that Mac even support higher than 60Hz on external displays?

[Goombot]

Just to follow up on this post. I have updated my computer to an M2 Studio Ultra and I have new 144Hz LG 38GN950. I have the monitor working at 144Hz as my main display and the ProTools play bar still does some stuttering. So unfortunately if you get the best possible system with a high refresh rate it still doesn't seem to matter with ProTools. Which basically sucks.

[br22]

Thanks for the latest update. Bummer to hear about your experience, but thank you for confirming my suspicions regarding the lack of GPU utilization inside Pro Tools on the silicon chips. I still have not found anything online, anywhere, remotely indicating that Pro Tools utilizes any GPU resources to draw the UI.

Unfortunately, this currently voids any hope that a long-rumored Apple Studio Display "Pro" (5k Retina display with 120Hz ProMotion) would offer the smoothness and sharpness that could make PT really shine. Until Avid updates its code, it seems we're all basically stuck with 1920x1080 at 60Hz.

Just to confirm, you were running PT natively, and not via Rosetta?

[DJEJPRO]

Originally Posted by Goombot

Just to follow up on this post. I have updated my computer to an M2 Studio Ultra and I have new 144Hz LG 38GN950. I have the monitor working at 144Hz as my main display and the ProTools play bar still does some stuttering. So unfortunately if you get the best possible system with a high refresh rate it still doesn't seem to matter with ProTools. Which basically sucks.

That certainly gives no room for system bottlenecks with that kind of setup..definitely pro tools at that point, which does suck. @smurfyou, I worked on a Fairlight mfx 3 plus for many years and don't recall any stuttering ever. IIRC, the only playback mechanism was constant scrolling for the playhead (I never tried to change it, cause it worked so flawlessly). I know users want that functionality (constant scrolling), or Avid wouldn't have tried to include it in the first place.....

I'm about to get a Dell G3223Q (4k 144hz) to go with a new mini Pro M2. I know this sounds weird, but have you noticed maybe at least the meters being ultra smooth, as well as motion oriented gui's on plugins?

I'll know soon enough, just not sure when I'm actually purchasing the monitor yet. I definitely want a 120/144hz display for other reasons, but curious to see how PT looks for sure.

[Goombot]

Yeah fully native. No Rosetta. I could be missing something but the monitor is set to 144Hz and the M2 see's the 144Hz. I have the latest version of PT so I don't know what it could be. It really should be something that PT already has built in but I guess not.

[br22]

That Dell G3223Q looks promising, and it would be interesting to see how the M2 Pro handles drawing PT via the new HDMI 2.1 spec (4k @ 144hz).

While that monitor has a great response time of 1 ms, the main thing to watch for would be how sharp things look with the pixel density being 138 ppi -- especially text when showing the PT clip metadata.

Since mac OS is native at 110 ppi, any other density requires some form of graphical scaling. As a result, some people report a 4k Mac scaling as a looking somewhat fuzzy. In that respect, it's no wonder why Apple built their 5k retina screens with a 220 ppi (technically 218).

My 2018 Mac mini didn't have the chops to keep up with a 4k monitor. Working in Rx was an outright horrendous experience -- so I dumbed down to a 1440p / 1ms BenQ with 110 ppi @ 144hz. This has provided the smoothest and clearest PT experience I've assembled so far. The pesky stutter (glitch?) still exists during continuous scroll playback, but it's infinitely better than 60Hz.

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by Goombot

Yeah fully native. No Rosetta. I could be missing something but the monitor is set to 144Hz and the M2 see's the 144Hz. I have the latest version of PT so I don't know what it could be. It really should be something that PT already has built in but I guess not.

Really interesting thread..

Considering upgrading my older monitor to a newer one ... to see if scrolling is smoother...

[br22]

Circling back on this thread, any updated experiences via HDMI 2.1 or an M3.