RT is running slow on my new iMac

Hi, I just purchased a new imac 21.5" One of the standard ones with 4k, 8gb, i5 3.0ghz. I went for the cheap HD. I thought this would be plenty good as I prevoiusly had been running RT from an 2012 laptop with a 4gb, i5 processor running Ubuntu.

Now, with the new imac I find that when i use the sliders to adjust just e.g. exposure, contrast, temp, or anything, or manually adjust tone curves, things are lagging and jerking so much that it is hard to operate them with any precission. I find the same problem on all distributions I tried (all 5.x)

What is wrong? I am aware that the machine I bought is not the most powerful machine on the market, but still, its a lot more powerful than the previous machine I had, which ran RT just fine. Is Ubuntu that much better than OS X, is RT not optimized for OSX, or did I just get a monday edition?

And what should I do? Should I return the imac/upgrade it? If so, is RAM, a faster processor or faster HD the way to go?

Did your previous machine also have a 4k display?

No, it did not. It had a HD display. Do you think thats it? I thought there where an independent graphic card to handle the display.

The processing time for the preview area in RT scales roughly linear with the number of pixels of the preview area => larger preview area needs more processing time.

Maybe try (just to verify my statement) to reduce the size of the rt window.

I tried. I can’t say I noticed much difference between a very small window and full screen.

After dragging a bit up and down on the tone curves just to test, i notice that it may work fine for a few seconds (dragging constantly up and down) then it may suddenly start lagging and jerking for a few momenents (as though the machine suddenly found something better to do)

Are there other processes than updating the display which may be hard for the machine to cope with in such a situation?

Can you post the values of the following keys in your options file, please?

AdjusterMinDelay
AdjusterMaxDelay

To find the options file:
http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/File_Paths#Config

I am sorry, but cannot find the file. I can’t even find the RawTherapee-folder in the Application Support folder.

Ok, as I’m not on Mac I’m out of ideas now. Maybe @HIRAM can help?

It isn’t in ~/Library/Application Support/RawTherapee/config/?

No. In /Library/Application Support/ there is no “RawTherapee”-folder

Your user’s Library, not the system Library. /Volumes/Users/YourName/Library is the path

AdjusterMinDelay=100
AdjusterMaxDelay=200

Have you had luck with the latest dev build:

I tested it now. I can’t tell any difference wrt. my problem. I did, however, discover that one needs to install the program by dragging it to the “Application” folder (having no experience with Macs I didn’t know this). It might be my imagination, but it feels a bit smoother after, though still not as smooth as with my old system.

Hi,

After some more testing, I have concluded that there is a clear difference in the level of smoothness when I move sliders at full screen and fit the zoom, and when I zoom out as much as possible. It is still clearly sluggish when it is zoomed out but less so than at maximized view.

@Borge_Rokseth
http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Getting_Started
http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/General_Comments_About_Some_Toolbox_Widgets#The_Preview_Area
http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/The_Image_Editor_Tab#The_Preview_Panel
Make sure you’ve read all three.

Thanks. Interesting reading, though it did not solve my problem.

I upgraded the Mac to a i7 with 16GB RAM and a faster HD. That did not help either. Still, the sliders still seems sluggish, the processing window updates less smoothly than it did for the old linux-machine, and even stuff like the indication/highlighting of buttons when I hoover the mouse over them lags just enough to be irritating. Are there really no-one else who have had similar problems?

We may have experienced similar things, but perhaps haven’t yet classified them as problems. Different things about the interface irritate me. I just updated from i3 to i5 with a 20% gain in freq. it’s a 42 Watt iMac and I’ve maxed out the performance and ram. Sluggish is not a term that pops into mind when using rt. One thing I’m wondering about is if the program still acts slow for you after reinstalling the os.

I could try, though I am not sure why we should expect it to help. After all it is brand new. And when I said that I updated the Mac, I really meant that I replaced it with a new one. As such, I have experienced the same problems on two fresh installations two different pieces of hardware.

It would help if you uploaded a screencast (video) so we can see what you mean.