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iMacRetina - C1 is unusable

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96 comments

  • Peter Sidell
    I am using a similar machine. Sony A7R M2 with 40+ megabyte files. Catalog stored on SSD, but all images on a thunderbolt spinning ram- perhaps that helps. Also 32 gb of Ram in the iMac. The preview size is set at 2048 px.
    I am using a c1 catalog and keep references to images in user collections. Sometimes when I first begin looking t images from a particular catalog they start off displaying slowly (the image comes up pixelated and takes a moment to fill in) but once I have run through the images the problem goes away.
    I have the same graphics processor as you are using.
    I am not sure where you are processing open cl support. I know that can be done with photoshop, but I don't know where C1 has a switch for that. El capitan has largely abandoned open cl anyway I believe - they are using something called metal which is supposed to be faster. I don't know if C1 takes advantage of that or not.
    I do use a thunderbolt monitor as well as the iMac display - I keep the thumbs on the thunderbolt display and the bigger viewer images on the iMac display.
    Perhaps I am just more patient, but speed hasn't been a big problem from my perspective.
    I do feel there are problems with DAM still. For instance I periodically change hard drives using a mirrored copy and it is difficult to get that back in such.

    Perhaps the smaller preview would help. It doesn't seem to produce image quality problems when editing or assessing. The loop will show fine detail when that is needed.
    Good luck. I hope you get to the bottom of your problem.
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  • NNN635500786818257093
    I switched to C1 a year ago and always found it choppy and very slow. However 9.0 and even the recent update that was supposed to fix the memory hog issues still continue. Before the patch only my CR2 files from my canon were affected but now my Sony camera files eat the memory up too.

    I also have the same iMac with 32 gigs ram.

    It's such a mess.
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  • Steve Babb
    Huge memory use here too. Late 2012 imac with 16gb ram. I've seen c1 use 23gb today. Something is wrong as when first open it flies, just bogs down as memory increases until it stops responding. I hope they fix it soon.
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  • Rhuairidh
    I have exactly the same problem with associated crashes, similar iMac, Thunderbolt connection to referenced images on 7200rpm EHD, latest update to COP9, preview size 1680px.

    Even previewing an image in browser, whilst watching the CPU usage in the activity monitor and waiting until it falls to single figures from the previous image, can raise the usage to 500% and cause a system crash.

    I raised the issue with support on 18th Dec - still waiting for a solution, meantime C1 is unusable.
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  • jlarocco
    The browser is really slow for me too. I have my RAW files on an external hard drive and the catalog and previews on an internal SSD.

    Unplugging the external drive with the RAWs seems to speed things up, but isn't a great workaround.
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  • Bodo Renzenbrink
    I am having a similar problem, but during the editing process. On my old computer (Windows 10, i7 32GB) I was able to adjust any setting and the response was instantaneous, or occasionally barely over 1 second.

    On my 2015 December iMac i5 3.3GHz with 32GB, say if I change exposure, it takes the machine maybe 5,6 seconds to complete. My style of editing was (on the Win10) to slowly, incrementally, change a setting and use the immediate visual feedback to know when to stop or to backtrack. Now I simply make leaps (maybe 10-15% of the entire range of adjustment) and wait for the machine to settle down. But this makes it hard to compare my changes visually. Note also, using the Option-Undo to compare before/after is nearly useless as I still have the same 5 second lag.

    Other issue is toggling the edit masks (using the M key). Sometimes, but not all the time, I experience a 5 second plus delay before the mask appears/disappears, depending on which way I am toggling.

    Otherwise, I have no issues with browsing speed, although the viewer refresh (when going to a new image) is noticeably slow, but not a great hindrance.

    Does Capture One have a history of poor memory management on OS X? I am at the place of going back to my Win10 machine, and trying to figure out a suitable monitor/graphics card combination. Would rather not have to do that.

    Or is the iMac i5 simply that underpowered???
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  • Benoit Malphettes
    Like wise here. Beach balling for every tif file that has layers...Besides processing raw files, this software is totally unusable and I am baffled that Phase One markets Capture One as a complete DAM/processing software. Let's not even talk about tif files with alpha channels, tifs over 2GB ...
    Please note everything is very fast in LR or PM
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  • Rhuairidh
    [quote="Bodo Renzenbrink" wrote:
    I am having a similar problem, but during the editing process. On my old computer (Windows 10, i7 32GB) I was able to adjust any setting and the response was instantaneous, or occasionally barely over 1 second.

    On my 2015 December iMac i5 3.3GHz with 32GB, say if I change exposure, it takes the machine maybe 5,6 seconds to complete. My style of editing was (on the Win10) to slowly, incrementally, change a setting and use the immediate visual feedback to know when to stop or to backtrack. Now I simply make leaps (maybe 10-15% of the entire range of adjustment) and wait for the machine to settle down. But this makes it hard to compare my changes visually. Note also, using the Option-Undo to compare before/after is nearly useless as I still have the same 5 second lag.

    Other issue is toggling the edit masks (using the M key). Sometimes, but not all the time, I experience a 5 second plus delay before the mask appears/disappears, depending on which way I am toggling.

    Otherwise, I have no issues with browsing speed, although the viewer refresh (when going to a new image) is noticeably slow, but not a great hindrance.

    Does Capture One have a history of poor memory management on OS X? I am at the place of going back to my Win10 machine, and trying to figure out a suitable monitor/graphics card combination. Would rather not have to do that.

    Or is the iMac i5 simply that underpowered???


    I found this with COP8 with managed files on the iMac but when I upgraded to 9 - and took the opportunity to change to referenced files on EHD - it became worse, much worse.

    My observations suggest to me that the iMac is not underpowered but PO has messed up their use of multi threading and COP9 is grabbing CPU and, in too many cases not letting go until it crashes the iMac. I am finding CO unusable within a business and the lack of support exacerbates that.
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  • BobRockefeller
    Does this problem appear to be "limited" to retina display iMacs?

    Is it mostly about memory use? Or is it CPU/GPU bottlenecked?

    For my 30" Cinema display and late 2013 Mac PRO (3.5 GHz 6-core and dual FirePro D500), I get smooth performance out of CO 9.0.1 on 32 GB RAM.

    But CO can easily gobble up 10 or 12 GB of RAM after using it for a short while.

    For many, many tasks the new iMacs are as fast, or faster, than my Mac PRO and it can hold 32 MB RAM. Could it just be the difference in GPU?

    Does anyone have a support request in to PO? Any response?
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  • NN230222UL
    I have a similar machine,(5 mos old) but it only has 16 gig of ram. I use a Nikon D810 taking the pix in RAW. Doing adjustments seems to be ok, but waiting for the thumbnails to render is painfully slow and hunting up by keyword is even slower. I'd love to use it as my DAM and RAW adjustment, but the DAM part is way to slow. Wish it would work as fast as LR does when hunting up a photo by keyword.

    Sue
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  • Rhuairidh
    [quote="BobRockefeller" wrote:
    Does this problem appear to be "limited" to retina display iMacs?

    Is it mostly about memory use? Or is it CPU/GPU bottlenecked?

    For my 30" Cinema display and late 2013 Mac PRO (3.5 GHz 6-core and dual FirePro D500), I get smooth performance out of CO 9.0.1 on 32 GB RAM.

    But CO can easily gobble up 10 or 12 GB of RAM after using it for a short while.

    For many, many tasks the new iMacs are as fast, or faster, than my Mac PRO and it can hold 32 MB RAM. Could it just be the difference in GPU?

    Does anyone have a support request in to PO? Any response?


    If you look across the different sections in the forum, as you have been doing Bob, have you not found several groups have been getting excited because in their situation they are experiencing great difficulty in using CO - the Canon guys were suggesting it was unusable a while ago.

    Coming from Aperture I found CO8 much better. I therefore find it difficult to believe CO9 suddenly has a load of different problems. If there is a common thread, from my reading across the forums and with my own parochial problem I suggest it is a performance issue. It is then no surprise that it appears to involve memory and/or CPU. My own problem here appears to involve the grabbing and retention of excessive amounts of CPU until the system crashes. Unfortunately I experienced this once before in an entirely unrelated field and the cause was inappropriate handling of multithreading. I am not saying that is the issue here, I have no evidence.

    I am frustrated because it happens sufficiently regularly it is preventing me using CO9 at a time when I have a desperate need. Furthermore I like CO but the product is not getting the support it deserves, either documented or from technical support to allow us either to find a workaround or to be given a solution. And to answer your last question I reported it to support on the 18th Dec and am still waiting for either an explanation or a solution!
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  • Eric Nepean
    I have decided not to buy this upgrade at this time. I would have to first upgrade my OS from 10.9, and then I would still be faced with the same very slow performance of the browser that I experienced in CO8.

    There are some very capable photo browsers available, and they can use tools like CO and DXOprime as an editor.

    Perhps when C09 has had a couple of major revisions I'll have another look at it.
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  • Alan Mermelstein
    Just an fyi that I am having similar "beach ball" and lagging slider problems with CO9.

    I recently purchased a Retina 27 with 16gb. It's been a real roller coaster upgrading from CO8. In order to run CO9 I had to upgrade my 2009 16gb MacPro tower to El Capitan. Unfortunately although my old 17" MacBook 2008 upgraded fine, the tower refused to reboot. I eventually had to wipe the drive but went ahead and ordered the 27" inch Retina.

    CO9 performance on the Retina is much worse than CO8 on the old Mac Pro, so I just ordered another 16gb of memory from OWC for the Retina. I noticed that loading a 500 image wedding and editing raw D750 and EM1 files in CO9 I was using 10gb + 4gb of compressed memory. Then add in PS plus some plugins like Nik filters and Portrait Pro and uh oh! I've also downsized the previews from 5k to 4k.

    A very expensive upgrade... $99 plus $2800 computer + additional memory. Oh and not to mention firewire drives need adapters for lightening.

    Alan
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  • Daniel Wisniewski
    [quote="NN635619321529627977UL" wrote:
    From just slowly scrolling through the filmstrip in Activity-Monitor CPU Percentage for C1 jumps to 300%-400%, Memory-Usage ist at 11.2GB.

    My catalog is on the internal SSD, the pictures on an external thunderbolt SSD. My pictures are from a NIKON D810, the previews are set to 5120 Px.


    .. as a curious user ( and one that has deleted large catalogs because of speed issues (with only 33K images on a standard hard drive)) - How many images are you trying to manage?

    If you cache a smaller preview image size ( http://blog.phaseone.com/preview-sizes- ... one-pro-7/ - ( see the catalog size comparisons ) - does it make much difference?

    cheers!
    dan
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  • Bodo Renzenbrink
    Based on other posters' comments, I tried using C1 along with Activity Monitor again. Simply by scrolling from one image to another in the browser bar, my CPU can reach 350%. On a single image, changing the exposure setting constantly and randomly with the mouse, I get to 365%. Granted, not a very refined test, but seems to be an indication of how C1 strains system resources on the iMac, and this confirms my user experience. Is the iMac or C1 is at fault?

    However, since these problems allegedly do not occur under Photoshop or Lightroom, I guess the finger gets pointed at C1.

    A bad situation for me, I just bought this iMac in order to have the finer detail resulting from the Retina display. Do I dump C1 for Lightroom? Or dump the iMac and return to Windows 10?

    Nor does it please me that other posters report that tech support so far is unresponsive.
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  • SFA
    [quote="Bodo Renzenbrink" wrote:

    Nor does it please me that other posters report that tech support so far is unresponsive.


    Have you raised a Support Case yourself so that you can form your own opinion?

    I have been impressed with the response and responsiveness I have found over the holiday period for a Case I created. (Nothing to do with this iMac challenge I might add - mine was probably much easier to assess.)


    I would add that by creating a case you may just be helping to analyse the apparent problem more deeply.

    Grant
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  • Bodo Renzenbrink
    part of a reply from tech support:
    ======
    RECOMMENDED SYSTEMS
    New Mac Pro
    • Incredibly fast hard drives
    • Plenty of RAM - easily changed
    • D700 Graphics are the fastest and make amazing use of OpenCL (all cards work well)
    • Strong I/O ports and logic board
    MacBook Pro
    • Get fastest processor available
    • Ports are of reasonable quality
    iMac?
    • Fast and portable (to a point)
    • Lower power supply from the bus, problematic for long cables and connection reliability.
    • NOT well suited to professional tethered workflow - use repeaters! Thunderbolt connectors have shown some performance issues
    =========
    So iMac is a marginal machine according to C1 tech support.

    Read here about problems in Adobe land:

    This photographer says yes to iMac Is he using an i5 iMac (like me) or the rather more expensive i7??

    I myself have tried scaling to the lowest setting and working with C1 reduced to 1/3 of the screen. This gives some improvement, but also obviates my reason for spending $2300 on the iMac (spending for 32GB RAM).

    Think I will return the iMac to Best Buy. I will receive a full refund.
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  • Daniel Wisniewski
    All -

    Don't forget that if you are seeing over 100% in your Activity Monitor, you are seeing the aggregate of all cores. You can configure your desktop icon to show the levels ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202060 ).


    Just because someone might have a 'Intel Xeon E5-1650 v2 3500 MHz (6 cores)' - doesn't mean its any better than a
    'Intel Core i7-4771 3500 MHz (4 cores)'

    Guess you could check your benchmarks using something like 'Geekbench'.
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  • BobRockefeller
    [quote="zoemax" wrote:

    Just because someone might have a 'Intel Xeon E5-1650 v2 3500 MHz (6 cores)' - doesn't mean its any better than a
    'Intel Core i7-4771 3500 MHz (4 cores)'


    What I'm reading here suggests that it's more of a GPU combined with the density of a retina screen problem than a CPU problem.

    Can anyone confirm that CO9 is usable, maybe even quick, on a recent non-retina iMac with sufficient RAM?
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  • Daniel Wisniewski
    [quote="BobRockefeller" wrote:


    What I'm reading here suggests that it's more of a GPU combined with the density of a retina screen problem than a CPU problem.

    Can anyone confirm that CO9 is usable, maybe even quick, on a recent non-retina iMac with sufficient RAM?


    Mine runs fine. Has been running fine from CO 8.0...

    Biggest issue was size of catalog & previews. Am breaking up items into more logical, smaller catalogs after migrating from Aperture. ( Now, ... Back to all the Bowl Games! )

    27" iMac (mid-2011)
    Model Identifier: iMac12,2
    Processor Name: Intel Core i5
    Processor Speed: 3.1 GHz
    Number of Processors: 1
    Total Number of Cores: 4
    L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
    L3 Cache: 6 MB
    Memory: 32 GB
    AMD Radeon HD 6970M:

    Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 6970M
    Type: GPU
    VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

    hard drive: WDC WD1001FALS-403AA0 ( 1TB )
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  • FL
    Mac (27-inch, Late 2012)
    4 GHz Intel Core i7
    24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB

    OSX 10.11.2
    C1P 9.01, Preview set to full monitor resolution (2560)
    openCL disabled as there is a serious bug using openCL with my graphics card

    Runs ok as long as I do not work in full screen mode and gets even worse with browser and tools in auto mode. Moving to the next images (36 MP RAW) can take up to 2 s before it is sharp, sometimes I have to move back and forth as it does not update properly.

    Using something like 1/3 of my monitor area for the main window performance is ok but not close to what I am used from Aperture or Lightroom.

    Performance does get slightly better with openCL enabled but due to the bugs this mode is unusable.

    C1P 8.3.4
    same openCL bug

    Performance is certainly better than C1P 9 but still not close to LR or Aperture. Same issue when using full mode or large image size.
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  • Peter Felsenthal
    27 inch Imac
    OS X 10.11.2
    late 2009
    2.66 GHz intel core i5
    16 gig ram
    preview 1680 Cap1 pro 9.0.0

    Just upgraded from 8 to 16 ram. Very satisfied with speed- raw files 16meg
    can easily see changes on screen when messing with sliders- using an external 7200 mirror hd for pictures

    Hope this helps-
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  • meanwhile
    A bad situation for me, I just bought this iMac in order to have the finer detail resulting from the Retina display. Do I dump C1 for Lightroom? Or dump the iMac and return to Windows 10?


    Do you have OpenCL On or Off? If On, turn it off in the preferences and see if that helps.
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  • Brian Eaves
    What display resolution is your Mac set at? I'm just curious if capture one has a problem with the fuzzy math of retina displays.
    Do you have open CL on or off?

    Brian
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  • nigel turley
    I have to admit to be disappointed to read about the issues with the Retina iMacs. I recently made the decision to use C1 instead of Lightroom and invested in a 5k iMac aroind the same time. Although I'm not seeing too many problems I have to admit that I've not pushed the software very hard up to now. although adding painted masks in local adjutments is pretty laggy...

    I just find it hard to believe that image processing software for the Mac platform isn't able to maximise one of the most powerful desktops available.

    iMac Retina 5k, 27" Late 2014
    3.5GHz i5
    32Gb RAM
    Fusion drive
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  • BobRockefeller
    I hope that all with retina iMac problems have filed support cases. If this problem is truly widespread and a function of the display density, then PO needs to know. As many photographers are probably planning to update to retina displays, this is a big deal (or should be) for PO.
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  • nigel turley
    Support case filed - I'll update this thread with any news...
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  • NNN635854384818570682
    Just took the leap from beloved Aperture to C1 V9.0 on my one-year old Retina iMac.

    Used the built in Library import of the Aperture Library to be managed catalog within C. About 12,000 files

    All came over OK and seems to be some strange things (not unexpected) to work through.

    Interface: different, liked Aperture but will be able to adjust.

    Capability: C1 is vastly superior and can't wait to get over the learning curve.

    Support tools: Great with C1, videos and tutorials a first rate

    Performance: C1 disappointing. Aperture for the most part ran as expected. C1 has noticeable lag in many areas to the point that I jumped back to Aperture to know something out without frustration.

    Help, I'm not sure now that I'm as all in as I was before the conversion. How do I go back if I want to? Should I just nuke the C1 Library (before I get too many edits within it) and start using Aperture again until a fix if forthcoming? Should I be patient and wait for the performance to get fixed while I push through with my new Catalog?
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  • BobRockefeller
    [quote="NNN635854384818570682" wrote:

    Help, I'm not sure now that I'm as all in as I was before the conversion. How do I go back if I want to? Should I just nuke the C1 Library (before I get too many edits within it) and start using Aperture again until a fix if forthcoming? Should I be patient and wait for the performance to get fixed while I push through with my new Catalog?

    Now there's a tough call.

    I tried out Capture One Pro back at v7 as a replacement for Aperture, and found it didn't convince me to switch to it. When Aperture died, I knew I had to make a move and did it to Lightroom. By that point Aperture's RAW adjustment capabilities were falling even being Lightroom's.

    But I've never really liked Lightroom, even though it's fine software and I can get a lot done with it.

    So with CO9, I'm trying to go all in and just power through the aggravation. Some of that is an unfamiliarity with CO that will disappear with time in the saddle. Some of that is missing features and bugs.

    But performance on my late 2013 Mac Pro has been fine - and it had better be. One day I may have a retina iMac and the reports here about the slow performance gives me hesitation. What if CO is such a professional tool that it's only going to be happy on the most powerful hardware (and I'm thinking big RAM and multiple GPUs)?
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  • NN635420785644361250UL
    It is not limited to a retina iMac. I have a 27" mid-2011 3.2 Ghz iMac running Yosemite, 8GB RAM, storing everything on a Synology NAS connected via a gigabit switch. C1 v7 was ok, albeit a bit slow, v8 was a big improvement last year. The only issue with v8 was it required restarting after a sleep due to a lost mount point (really a MacOS issue). v9, however is unusable in its current form.

    I've upgraded to 9.0.1. That was seemingly a big help, but after the first launch, its back to completely unusable. Trying to determine whether its memory, cpu, or network I/O using activity monitor, C1 shows up as 'not responding' until the checks and loads finally complete, so there's no actual numerical updates as the program slogs along.

    I've been trying many things for the last week to isolate and try to find a workaround. Every launch of the catalog requires a recheck that takes nearly an hour at times. It crashes at other times. If I'm really patient, and the catalog actually fully loads and I wait for one of my larger user collections to load and the dust to settle, it appears to be working ok. But that takes far far too long to be usable. Upon settling, it looks like I'm using arount 2.7 GB of RAM, and once the loading stops, not much is going on (as expected).

    As hard for me as this is to say, I may have to go back to lightroom. I just can't have this kind of unreliability and poor performance. C1 is a great tool when it works. Hopefully the C1 folks will get another version out ASAP.
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