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Logic 9's UI extremely laggy - any fixes?

I've been a pretty happy Logic user since 2004, but lately version 9 has been really cheezing me off. It seems that whenever I'm playing my current project, the user interface becomes completely unresponsive to key commands and mouse clicks, which will be delayed for many seconds, or ignored entirely.


This is a fresh install of Logic Pro 9.1.4, 32-bit, on one of the new Mac minis (dual 2.7GHz i7, 4GB RAM, stock 500GB hard drive), with a PreSonus FireStudio Project. However, this was also happening on my previous system, a 2008 15" unibody MacBook Pro. It was happening a little bit on Snow Leopard but it's gotten much worse under Lion. My MacBook had aftermarket RAM (8GB) and an aftermarket SSD, but everything in the Mini is stock.


It's happening even if I only have one or two tracks, although it seems to be worse if I have any of the various metering plugins running and open, or ChanEQ with the analyzer turned on. I wonder if maybe those plugins aren't handling UI updates correctly, or something.


Just to be clear, I have absolutely no third-party AudioUnits installed, and it's neither a CPU nor an I/O issue (both gauges are pretty much empty, and Activity Monitor shows Logic as taking about 10% of one CPU), and yet it takes anywhere from 3-10 seconds for a simple mouse click to go through.


This is getting EXTREMELY frustrating, especially since the lag seems to always happen at the worst moments (i.e. I'm trying to turn down the volume on a track which suddenly got really loud, and the lack of responsiveness means my ears get blasted and I have to take a break for them to recover before I can start mixing again).


Has anyone else been experiencing this and found a workaround? Is anyone at Apple even paying attention to these issues? I feel like it's the same problem that was being discussed in this thread, which was never resolved: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2396951


Message was edited by: robert113

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7), 2.7GHz i7, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD

Posted on Jul 30, 2011 7:31 PM

Reply
516 replies

Jul 30, 2012 8:06 AM in response to George Bellas

I don't think you understand what OpenCL does. It has nothing to do with increasing graphics performance. The point to OpenCL is that a moern graphics card has a pretty powerful processor on it (that just happens to be optimized for graphics functions), and OpenCL makes use of the spare time left over on it for doing non-graphics things. (This is a massive oversimplification.)


OpenCL has NOTHING TO DO with improving UI performance. If anything, making heavy use of OpenCL will make the UI performance DECREASE, because suddenly the graphics card is being used for non-graphics things.

Jul 30, 2012 8:24 AM in response to fluffy

To me it feels like the mouse events are going into a loop and overloading an input buffer. When it happens, the keyboard doesn't respond either and it never effects any other graphics or the audio playback.


I noticed the UI often comes back to life when it reaches a simple part of the song or the end, like a cpu core has become free or something.

Jul 30, 2012 9:21 AM in response to fluffy

My understanding of Open CL is based on information supplied by Apple to its developers, as described below.


My point has been that, despite whatever computationally intensive functions that could be offloaded to the GPU, there may be a solution using this underlying technology that's been further integrated in Lion and Mountain Lion.


About Open CL for OS X

OpenCL™ (Open Computing Language) is an open standard for cross-platform, parallel programming of modern processors such as multicore CPUs and programmable GPUs. Introduced with OS X v10.6, OpenCL lets your application tap into the parallel computing power of these processors to improve performance and deliver features made possible by compute-intensive algorithms. OpenCL is comprised of thee parts: a C99-based kernel programing language, a powerful scheduling API and a runtime that efficiently executes kernels on the CPU or GPU.

Going beyond the standard, OS X v10.7 adds integration between OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch and Xcode making it even easer take advantage of the power of the OpenCL in your application.


Using OpenCL is easier than ever in OS X v10.7:

• OpenCL is fully supported by Xcode. The Xcode offline compiler removes a configuration step that used to have to be performed before the kernel could be run and aids in debugging earlier in the development process.

• You can write OpenCL functions in separate files and include them in your Xcode project. These files can be compiled as your application is built. This improves application performance because kernels need not be compiled when the application is running

• OpenCL now integrates with Grand Central Dispatch, making it easier for you to focus on making your OpenCL kernels more efficient.

• The autovectorizer is used for compiling kernels that will run on the CPU. It accelerates performance up to four times without additional effort. The autovectorizer allows you to write one kernel that runs efficiently on both a CPU and a GPU. It is invoked regardless of whether the openclc compiler is called from Xcode or if the kernel is built at runtime.

• You can, of course, continue to use code you’ve already written to the OpenCL 1.1 standard.

Jul 30, 2012 10:39 AM in response to fluffy

Fluffy,


I understand your point, and to clarify what I am attempting to convey:


It seems that Logic is not prioritizing certain screen redraws in favor of successfully processing audio tasks. And if that is indeed the case, there may lie a solution with offloading some of those tasks (whatever they may be) to the GPU.


Regardless of what the case may be, as all of this is mere conjecture, we just need to wait for an update.

Jul 30, 2012 11:09 AM in response to George Bellas

George Bellas wrote:


Fluffy,


I understand your point, and to clarify what I am attempting to convey:


It seems that Logic is not prioritizing certain screen redraws in favor of successfully processing audio tasks.

OSX has always tweaked task priority with each release, even the incremental updates get tweaked to try and improve some aspect of performance. Unfortunately, it's not always in Logic's best interest. Two things come to mind... Retina support may be having an affect and also the fact that Logic still contains some very old code and seems to be falling behind the development pace of OSX. Logic has exhibited problems with each new release compounded by a lack updates. OSX is becoming a do-it-all OS trying to combine the mobile iOS, a software store and support for considerable new hardware, application support appears to be suffering.


Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to see the next version of Logic be more Garageband like, GB already has newer technology than Logic and is generally more compatible with the most recent hardware/OSX. Support for Logic seems to be dwindling, hope not.

Jul 30, 2012 11:33 AM in response to Pancenter

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to see the next version of Logic be more Garageband like, GB already has newer technology than Logic and is generally more compatible with the most recent hardware/OSX. Support for Logic seems to be dwindling, hope not.

Yeah, this is something I'm getting worried about too. I mean, GB has some pretty nice stuff in it, but it's also intended for people who don't want a lot of control over their projects and just want a bunch of presets to do things with. Its support for track automation is terrible, its external MIDI is nonexistent as far as I know, and its softsynths are pretty feeble and inflexible.

Aug 2, 2012 2:52 AM in response to fluffy

OK, this is now affecting my work with clients, and this is just not good anymore. If Logic doesn't work with Lion or Mountain Lion because of some underlying graphics issue that is not easily fixed, just say so ...we can all downgrade and wait it out. But the lack of communication regarding this very real issue has me seriously concerned. I've used Logic Pro for 18 years, and many of you know me. This problem is real. After upgrading my Mac Pro with a stronger video card, the issue has been reduced, but not resolved. Today, I brought my 2008 Mac Book Pro to a clients house to work. What a nightmare. Mountain Lion installed. ANY Audio Unit with moving graphics rendered logic nearly unusable. I was first using Synapse Dune, playing a simple bass part, and quite literally couldn't click on anything, stop, or even close the plug-in window. The client asked me "could you stop for a second," and I said "no, I'm waiting for logic to respond." We both sat for 45 seconds until logic finally responded. I was then able to close the plug-in window, and once I did that, logic started responding again. I then closed logic, restarted, brought the same project up again, and opened the channel EQ with the analyizer enabled ...same exact thing ...about a 30 to 45 second wait till the plug-in would close, and I was able to stop playback. The rest of the session had me stopping logic's playback before opening a plug-in ...making a change, closing the window, then starting playback. Even that workaround didn't stick, logic eventually stopped responding again when editing in Vegeance Sound Metrum.


Apple people who care about fixing this: You have to give it some time to start. You can't just try it out for 5 minutes. The issue sometimes takes up to 30 minutes before it reveals itself. Try it on a Mac that only has a video card with 256 mb of ram ...it WILL present itself.

Aug 2, 2012 3:20 AM in response to Darren Burgos

I know this is no satisfactory solution, but it did get me working again. I switched back to the internal sound system instead of my firewire interface and the problem has gone!


My symptoms were: Logic would stop responding to input if I tweaked a plugin during playback. Usually taking 20 secs to respond. Sometimes I would even have to wait until the track finished playing to get control back, or force quit. But, it is now fine on internal audio.


I'm on a 2008 iMac with 4GB ram, so I'm at the performance low end, so I expected to still have the issue, but I've been running fine for 2 hours now (apart from the system wide treacle-like responsiveness of ML compared to SL).

Aug 2, 2012 5:48 AM in response to fluffy

I have a mac pro Quad 3.0 16gb ram 500gb PCI SSD and I have these issues also shutdown problems, lag and program closing problems since lion. Did clean installs and still have problems. I have no problems with my MBP.

Going to revert to SL. Had no issues when using SL. Also have issues with FCP 7, itunes, toast, Google Chrome,and others. It seens the longer the computer is running the more persistant the issue.

Aug 2, 2012 9:32 AM in response to battlegimp

@battlegimp


what's the purpose ? make music with the internal interface is it that you're saying ?


if it's what you suggested, i can reproduce the issue with any audio interface selected


please guys send your feedback to apple, this bug is really annoying and a total shame which demonstrate that logic is not tested by professionals.


they should at least more listen to customers request and communicate!! this problem is a business killer, i got delayed on work etc....


really Apple what's your problem ? where is the pro support ? the pro answers ? the pro software ?


btw i'm digging into presonus studio one...i still prefer logic, but the switch is getting closer.

Aug 2, 2012 2:16 PM in response to Darren Burgos

I've been having the exact same issue. Latest version of logic running on a mob with 4gb of ram and an apogee duet 2 - worked fine under SL, less so under lion (but was ok) and since upgrading to ML its been a freaking nightmare.


The lag - exactly as you described - happens after 10-15 mins of use and can happen with any plugin / synth. I've had lag on a range of logic stock plugins (even ones with no graphical element; for example hipass.) as well as 5 or 6 3rd party ones. It seems that once it starts happening, it happens with any plugin, almost at random.


One quick fix out of the freezes (which is by no means ideal) is holding down the mouse button over the Logic app icon and choosing "arrange window". This seems to snap logic out of it and allow you to at least stop playback.


Completely disgraceful that professionals are having to deal with this crap. Sort it out, apple: you're affecting people's day jobs here!

Logic 9's UI extremely laggy - any fixes?

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