Tracktion Waveform Free FPS / UI unresponsive issues on Ubuntu Studio 19.04

[Kott]

I'm afraid this all deep in JUCE and Tracktion GUI implementations.

[astey]

I'm afraid this all deep in JUCE and Tracktion GUI implementations.

Juce is capable of rendering OpenGl graphics

https://docs.juce.com/master/tutorial_o ... ation.html

Juce 6 – which will be available in June – is able to use Metal as well. This is crucial since cross platform developers need to implement separate rendering engines now: because Apple pulled up a big middle finger by announcing to deprecate OpenGL to all cross platform developers. "Reason" being too much overhead of OpenGL compared to Metal.

So, its up to the Tracktion team, if they want to improve graphics. The framework is capable of it.
There are other DAW and VST developers who use graphics cards since a couple of years now, such as:
Ableton - Live
Meldaproduction - all plugins
Vital Audio
So these apps can run at 60fps+, no problem.

Additional info:
To my knowledge there were problems synching real time audio to picture, if you use graphics cards. Plus, offloading graphics would cause equal amount of CPU consumption compared to CPU rendering. Don't know if this info is still valid. Nevertheless, new Notebooks and Desktop systems run at 160dpi and more, displays have 3000px and more, so the issue becomes more obvious over time and needs to be addressed at some point anyway.

Example:
Mac user had big performance problems with their brand new 5k iMac running Bitwig. Thats why Bitwig was forced to shift to Metal engine last year. Otherwise they rely on the Vulkan API.
Now Bitwig can run extensive graphical Analyzer and animations inside the GUI without problem and lag free.

[gavindi]

Waveform 11.0.36 (beta) just came out for testing and there's an option under 'appearance' to enable OpenGL rendering. I've just enabled it on my Ubuntu & 4K monitor and the GUI is easily twice as smooth. It's not silky smooth and jutters but it's a dramatic improvement.

[dRowAudio]

Can you try the beta and Open GL mode mentioned here please: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=546405

[astey]

Can you try the beta and Open GL mode mentioned here please: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=546405

You guys are AWESOME!

[Kott]

Can you try the beta and Open GL mode mentioned here please: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=546405

No luck. Maybe FPS a little bit better but GUI is still unresponsive with EDM template.

[Kott]

If it were so easy it would be not interesting.
This is weird that window's size impacts interaction so.

[Kott]

Waveform 11.0.36 (beta) just came out for testing and there's an option under 'appearance' to enable OpenGL rendering. I've just enabled it on my Ubuntu & 4K monitor and the GUI is easily twice as smooth. It's not silky smooth and jutters but it's a dramatic improvement.

Hi,
Did you test it with the EDM template as mentioned in this thread?

[Kott]

I switched on displaying FPS per apps in nvidia-setting, in problem Edit it's not above 17 FPS, while other projects have fair ~60

[dRowAudio]

Is there something specific about this Edit that's problematic?
Can you try zooming in and then moving the visible time/tracks around to see if reducing the amount of things being drawn changes the FPS?

I'm just wondering if it could be something that's animating that's causing unnecessary repaints. Like maybe Modifier animations or level meters (try closing the inputs/plugins area). If I can find a specific problematic component I can have a look and see if I can optimise that. It could be that there's just one thing slowing it down.

[gavindi]

Waveform 11.0.36 (beta) just came out for testing and there's an option under 'appearance' to enable OpenGL rendering. I've just enabled it on my Ubuntu & 4K monitor and the GUI is easily twice as smooth. It's not silky smooth and jutters but it's a dramatic improvement.

Hi,
Did you test it with the EDM template as mentioned in this thread?

Hi,
I haven't tried it with the EDM template until now and whilst scrolling is smoother, zooming and opening tracks and devices is very laggy. I've also noticed the lag in some of my own projects since my post.

So yeah, net gains are not a great as the losses due to lag.

G.

[gavindi]

Further update regarding the EDM template.
As soon as I disable the Oscillator on the Hi-Hats track (which leave its still animating, just with a cross through it) the responsiveness of the entire edit becomes substantially better.

The Osc modifies the L&R balance, panning and it's when this isn't grahpically moving that things seem to get better. Too many redraws of the balance slider/indicator, perhaps?

I made a new edit with only two tracks in it and applied the same LFO to panning on one track and even with this very light two track project, it causes lag.

G.

[Kott]

Further update regarding the EDM template.
...
G.

Can you test it with different window's size? Some WMs can draw height/width or you can get it with xprop console tool.
Reduce the size to 1600x900 then play edit. Stop playing then adjust size and again.

Is there something specific about this Edit that's problematic?
Can you try zooming in and then moving the visible time/tracks around to see if reducing the amount of things being drawn changes the FPS?

I'm just wondering if it could be something that's animating that's causing unnecessary repaints. Like maybe Modifier animations or level meters (try closing the inputs/plugins area). If I can find a specific problematic component I can have a look and see if I can optimise that. It could be that there's just one thing slowing it down.

I'll try on this weekend.
For me it definitely depends on window's size, adjusting just of tens pixels drastically impact redrawing. So, maybe some element has calculation based on canvas size and do bad math or/and too many cycles/calls.

[gavindi]

Can you test it with different window's size? Some WMs can draw height/width or you can get it with xprop console tool.
Reduce the size to 1600x900 then play edit. Stop playing then adjust size and again.

Oh my eyes! How do you people work at 1600x900!
I tried it and although there's less pixels to push at that resolution, I still experience lag with zooming and opening context menus, etc. Scrolling is close to buttery smooth with so few pixels, though. haha

I'm gonna take a punt that the interface is getting redrawn too often.

G.

[Kott]

Thank you)
Is it OpenGL or Software? I found that 1600x900 is last resolution going smooth with SW render, while OpenGL has mouse cursor latency and overall bad experience for now.