Win PC that runs on1 without chugging?
Let me start with the fact that I'm a enthusiast photographer. Went from Canon DPP to Affinity Photo and ON1 PR (22.5 & 23.1)
Judging by On1's minimum specs I thought I was in the ball park. After masking a vehicle using a local adjustment and just the line mask I realize I'm not even on the parking lot!
This thing chugs like a 1 legged turtle. Unusable. (using PR 22)
So my question is: What are the power users PC specs? The guys working with this program everyday.
My set-up: Win10, i5 4690k@3.50ghz, RTX 2060 6 gig, 32 gig ram, 1 gig sata ssd. Latest recommended drivers and tried all of the system adjustments recommended.
Kind of figured it wouldn't be fast but should be usable?
Is Mac the answer or build another PC?
This is by no means a ON1 bashing as I love the program.
Very interested in any advice and all replies.
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This is a list that I compiled 4 years ago of things that you can try. If you don't want to dump catalogs (#6), at least wait until they are done building. Instructions for #1 and 2 are linked below.
1) Check that the GPU driver is up to date
2) Make sure GPU is set for On1 to use it
3) In Win 10 Graphics Settings/Options make sure High Performance is selected for On1.
4) Remove any On1 folders from the path of your Antivirus
- C:\Program Files\ON1
- C:\ProgramData\ON1
- C:\Users\(your name)\AppData\Roaming\ON1
5) Close the left panel while editing to prevent the previews updating constantly
6) Turn off cataloging: Remove everything from the catalog and work directly off of your drives.
7) If it's an option, move your cache to a fast drive.
8) If you don't have a lot of RAM, move your mem swap file to a fast drive and give it twice your RAM size
9) File > Edit > Preferences > Files(Tab) > UNCHECK Apply Lens correction automatically to RAW photos
10) Run Windows sfc /scannow at an elevated prompt to look for errors on your PC1 -
Thanks Rick, I'm gonna follow everything on your list tomorrow night after eating a bunch of candy. (correction, I meant to type "giving out" a bunch of candy)
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Sam, I had a system very similar to yours (slightly later i5, same graphics card). Raw 2022 ran, as you say, like a one-legged turtle. First off, that did improve steadily over the year as ON1 worked on it - but a lot of effects & masks, or masking in Local remained a definite problem. This year I upgraded to an i7-12700 (same graphics card, as I'm not a multi-millionaire) and it was like night and day. I could do *anything* with 2022 (I also have 32gb of DDR4).
Fast forward to 2023. First of all the graphics card caused no end of problems. That's much improved, but there are still random graphical glitches (to be fair, Affinity also has some problems - but still runs plenty fast with graphics card use switched off). And overall, it's still light years ahead of the early-release 2022 + i5. But it definitely slower (but still useable - it's really local adjustment masking that chugs a little). However, I anticipate that, like 2022, things will improve over the next couple of months.
And, yeah, annoyingly Photo Raw runs butter smooth on my Macbook Air with 16gb ;)
But when it comes to Windows, I really do feel the big difference is the extra cores and threads of the i7. Like night and day vs the i5.
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Hi Caroline,
Your comment is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping to get. Now I'm debating on whether to build another pc exceeding my needs as to future proof it ($$$$) or go with some kind of a Mac product ($$$$$$).
Honestly, my wants are probably getting in the way of my needs as I'm in the early stages of learning AP and PR but it's interesting to see how other users of the software approach this intersection.
So my question is, when you sit down to edit a photo.......... 1st choice is: Macbook or Windows?
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Ahhh Sam, there's a question! My Mac has a 13in screen and my PC a 27in screen, so if I'm home it's naturally the desktop although I *can* quickly hook my Mac up to said screen - and I did at times with my chugging i5 and ON1 Raw 2022.
But, see, I'm a Windows girl. And MacOS - which always gets in the frame somehow! - is just so annoying. If you really know your way around Windows (and I'm - sadly - old enough that my experience goes right back to the birth of Windows) it's genuinely shocking the number of things that either aren't easy to do, (or, as far as I can see, can't be done) on Mac. By way of example, I challenge any Windows user to pick up a Mac and work out how to create a shortcut. (Needed that to add plugins to ON1 and Affinity Photo, just for one of many examples). I found out how to eventually, but what a drama and how clunky (and I've already forgotten what Apple calls them - aliases??). Rinse and repeat on any number of things.
So when I'm away from home, yeah I use the Mac. But - hell's teeth - the hoops you have to go through to import files manually where you want them to go (and bypassing Apple Photos because I've still never found where the Mac actually put the first bunch of photos I innocently imported via that app)(genuinely...!) I needed my photos to go on Onedrive for both off-site backup and automatic sync with the desktop when I got home.
Don't get me wrong. I switched deliberately from Windows laptop to a Macbook Air and the laptop just blows me away. It's incredibly fast and utterly silent and I just love it. But MacOS... If *only* I could switch it natively to Windows! ;) There is no Windows laptop that really comes anywhere close, unless you don't mind fans running at full speed the whole time. And battery life correspondingly vanishing quickly.
Having said that, once you've got your photos where you want them and you're using & absorbed in ON1, then it absolutely does run flawlessly - and when it comes to new versions, Mac ON1 just comes with less bugs, though ON1 do sort them out with reasonable speed. It does seem pretty much a match for my i7/RTX2060, and that still blows me away with this tiny, silent machine.
If you're not an experienced or 'power' Windows user, and tend to do things automatically the way the O/S *wants* you to do things, it might not be too much of a shock. If you've long since learned to bend Windows to your will not Microsoft's, it's a bucket of cold water and you'll need Google Search on hand constantly. And Apple will win, much of the time, whereas Microsoft can be defeated. :D
In Apple's defence, all my data & photos are on Onedrive and Apple integrates that very well. It may be that some of my grief is because it's not *perfectly* well-integrated. But that really impressed me, as did the fact that I'm an Android phone user and all my Google data and apps were very easily available. I would buy my Air all over again. On the other hand, I would never, ever buy an Apple desktop (partly because I'm also a gamer). But then, I also build my own PC so every single component is my first choice (and the end result a lot cheaper). Affinity Photo, incidentally, runs absolutely fine on both machines, and also did on my i5 (but for some reason Luminar Neo as a plugin doesn't work on Mac, a known but still unresolved issue). I do think AP is a lot less complex than ON1 though, so it has a big head start.
So while you'd have to prise my Macbook M2 Air out of my cold, dead hands, at home it's Windows desktop every time, unless there's a very good reason to hook up the Air.
After that rant, you're probably wishing you'd never asked! :)
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Aah... the good old days of DOS. I think Windows were just Port Holes back then!
I think for now I'm gonna get a game plan together for a new pc build in the near future. I don't want to go the Mac route. Too old and set in my windows ways.
Thank you for your most valuable input in helping me return to Microcenter:)
Seriously, thank you as I appreciate the input you and Rick have given me.
And a huge thank you to Rick as I went down his list and performed as many tasks as I could without hardware. And much to my amazement, editing the same photo, pretty much the same way, the little i5 was extremely useable!
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I've been using ON1 since 2017. Upgraded each year, and I'm now on 2023.
My Windows PC is still the same with Intel i5-3470 32.Ghz, 4 cores. 16 GB RAM. Dual 24 inch monitors. However, to overcome graphics compatibility / low features I did upgrade from an old/low performance graphics card to my current graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Super with its own 4 GB RAM. I did configure the graphics card that the ON1 EXE should use it. The overall biggest system performance improvement came for me with adding an SSD drive as C: for OS boot, and reassigning my HDD to D:. All my stored images are on D:, but my programs and temp space are on C:
When I look at Windows Task Manager display of resources I see both CPU and GPU getting used by ON1. Neither gets 'pegged' by any of my operations. The things that I see taking a variable long time (5-30 second.)
- some exports with resizing
- merging images for focus stack or panorama
Each of NoNoise AI nor Tack Sharp AI take maybe 1.5 second on my 6000 x 4000 pixel images. (in contrast, Topaz Sharpen AI takes 30+ seconds per iteration!). Of course if I invoke multiple apps which each need graphics and/or CPU than they compete for resources, and I can see CPU spikes to 100%. Never have seen GPU get above 50%.
I think Rick S. list of suggested tweaks/turn offs will help squeezing the most performance with the system you have.
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Update: Rick S., I added a NVMe 2tb drive in a enclosure (usb C to C) and moved my cache file to it. Tried it this way due to the fact that my mother board is older with no slot for the drive. I'm certain it's slower than being on the board but probably faster than my internal SATA drive.
Using 2023 and numerous masks and effects and local adjustments (just overdoing it) I couldn't bring this I5 to it's knee's. Absolutely a useable machine at this point.
Honestly all I did was run down your list step by step. Bravo and thank you for your help.
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Sam, glad it worked out for you.
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