Slow Performance on 6 Core Mac Pro

[MotM]

Also, the Mac page shows 2.4.1 as the latest release on 20 May. Is 2.4.2 now available?

[steve]

Oops sorry, the sun must be getting to me .
I'm using Audacity 2.4.2, but it's a pre-release version just for testing. The release version is 2.4.1, and that is the correct version that you should be using.
Apologies for creating confusion.


A "fix" was implemented around 10th May, so I think that fix should be in Audacity 2.4.1.
The problem appears to be due to a change in the Apple SDK which makes display repaints much slower. The Audacity developers have tried to work around the problem code. I would have expected 2.4.1 to be noticeably less laggy than 1.3.3. Is that not the case?

[MotM]

Ahh, OK! I was afraid I might not have seen it.

I haven't tried 2.4.1 but based on Masterl1nk's comment earlier, it looks like the issue remains in 2.4.1. The performance on my machine is the same as what his video shows.

[MotM]

Installed 2.4.1 and the very laggy performance is still there, consistent with Masterl1nk's observations. Did a clean reboot with Audacity as the first program open, etc. No change.

[JeffW]

yes, the issue remains there. I have IOS Catalina. People posted a lot on this topic, but no clue yet, except for an advice to shrink the browser size to 1/4. It works a bit for my computer.

Ahh, OK! I was afraid I might not have seen it.

I haven't tried 2.4.1 but based on Masterl1nk's comment earlier, it looks like the issue remains in 2.4.1. The performance on my machine is the same as what his video shows.

[seanjs]

Same issue here (Catalina running on a Macbook Pro 16") and, incidentally, it's causing some minor recording skipping as well.

I've found that changing my screen resolution to a lower setting improves the issue, although it's still pretty bad. It's not a great solution, but it beats working in a tiny window.

If I run Audacity in Windows using Parallels there is no issue with editing audio. I haven't tried recording that way.

I had no problems on my 2015 12" MacBook. Strange that an 8-core beefy machine with an awesome graphics card can't handle it. I saw in the documentation about recording skipping it saying something about high resolution monitors and redrawing the screen causing issue, and the solution is to shrink the window.

[kozikowski]

an 8-core beefy machine

I believe most of that beef is loafing. It used to be the case that Audacity is only running on one of the cores.

Koz

[billw58]

To everyone who has reported problems on this thread ...

Please go to Apple menu > About this Mac then click "System Report". In the system report, under Hardware, click on "Graphics/Displays".

What do you see for "Framebuffer Depth"?

-- Bill

[billw58]

There is a workaround that will make Audacity snappy again on 30-bit displays.

Right-click on the Audacity.app icon and choose "Get Info". In the Get Info window, check "Open in low resolution".

The GUI might look a bit fuzzy in places but Audacity will be "snappy" again.

-- Bill

[MotM]

Thanks Bill! My 5K iMac is also 30-Bit as is my second screen. I tried the trick to open in low resolution and while it's not "normal" levels of snappy performance, it looks very usable. I have a multi-hour edit job today and will see how it goes.

Thank you for the work-around!