Viewport fps tanks when application is full screened on macOS #109989

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Tom Oliver · 2023-07-11T23:51:51+02:00

Tom Oliver commented

2023-07-11 23:51:51 +02:00

System Information
Operating system: macOS-13.4.1-arm64-arm-64bit 64 Bits
Graphics card: Metal API Apple M1 1.2

Blender Version
Broken: version: 3.5.1, branch: blender-v3.5-release, commit date: 2023-04-24 18:11, hash: e1ccd9d4a1d3
Worked: (newest version of Blender that worked as expected)

Short description of error
I've noticed that when using either my M1 Air or M1 16" Pro, when running Blender, the viewport performance is heavily dependent on the physical size of the viewport on screen. At first I thought this was just a limitation of my base model M1 Air, but it also happens on my M1 Pro Mac when plugged into a 4K or 5K display. Having Blender fullscreen will drastically reduce the viewport performance, but scaling the window down will fix it. Setting the scaling in macOS lower can also reduce the issue.

As far as I can tell, this happens in both 3.5 and 3.6, Metal and OpenGL backend.

Perhaps this is intended functionality, but I can run Blender on potato PCs and not have frame drops like this. Even just the default cube will drop tons of frames on both my Macs.

Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
Open Blender on a high resolution display and just start using it. The viewport performance is usually pretty poor on 4K / 5K displays if not scaling the window down.

**System Information** Operating system: macOS-13.4.1-arm64-arm-64bit 64 Bits Graphics card: Metal API Apple M1 1.2 **Blender Version** Broken: version: 3.5.1, branch: blender-v3.5-release, commit date: 2023-04-24 18:11, hash: `e1ccd9d4a1d3` Worked: (newest version of Blender that worked as expected) **Short description of error** I've noticed that when using either my M1 Air or M1 16" Pro, when running Blender, the viewport performance is heavily dependent on the physical size of the viewport on screen. At first I thought this was just a limitation of my base model M1 Air, but it also happens on my M1 Pro Mac when plugged into a 4K or 5K display. Having Blender fullscreen will drastically reduce the viewport performance, but scaling the window down will fix it. Setting the scaling in macOS lower can also reduce the issue. As far as I can tell, this happens in both 3.5 and 3.6, Metal and OpenGL backend. Perhaps this is intended functionality, but I can run Blender on potato PCs and not have frame drops like this. Even just the default cube will drop tons of frames on both my Macs. **Exact steps for others to reproduce the error** Open Blender on a high resolution display and just start using it. The viewport performance is usually pretty poor on 4K / 5K displays if not scaling the window down.

Tom Oliver added the

labels 2023-07-11 23:51:52 +02:00

funty commented

2023-07-12 00:14:13 +02:00

From my experience, running Blender on a Win/Linux potato from over 10 years ago with an integrated GPU, the viewport is smooth as butter, if the resolution is low. For example, on my potato I go as low as 1024x768 (XGA), and still find Blender usable for some workflows.
The same potato, when connected to a 1080p monitor will have a laggy low FPS viewport. But even on the 1080p monitor, when the Blender window is resized to a smaller size, it works much more smoother.

Other things being normal, I can suggest updating to the latest drivers on the mac if you haven't already, and/or use Blender in a small window dimension, with a small sized viewport. Depending on the complexity of your scenes, I might suggest as low as 720p, as I find it usable even at XGA for some workflows.

From my experience, running Blender on a Win/Linux potato from over 10 years ago with an integrated GPU, the viewport is smooth as butter, if the resolution is low. For example, on my potato I go as low as 1024x768 (XGA), and still find Blender usable for some workflows. The same potato, when connected to a 1080p monitor will have a laggy low FPS viewport. But even on the 1080p monitor, when the Blender window is resized to a smaller size, it works much more smoother. Other things being normal, I can suggest updating to the latest drivers on the mac if you haven't already, and/or use Blender in a small window dimension, with a small sized viewport. Depending on the complexity of your scenes, I might suggest as low as 720p, as I find it usable even at XGA for some workflows.

Pratik Borhade commented

2023-07-12 05:51:50 +02:00

Could be a Mac only issue. I don't have similar hardware to verify it.
@mano-wii , can you check?

Could be a Mac only issue. I don't have similar hardware to verify it. @mano-wii , can you check?

Yevgeny Makarov commented

2023-08-20 20:38:14 +02:00

Well, obviously, the more pixels to render, the slower it is.
I wouldn't be surprised if 6K is ten times slower than Full HD, hopefully in reality the correlation is not direct.

You need to provide more specific details, window sizes, fps for comparison.

1920 × 1080 = 2,07 Mpx
4096 × 2160 = 8,84 Mpx
4480 × 2520 = 11,3 Mpx
5120 × 2880 = 14,7 Mpx
6016 × 3384 = 20,3 Mpx

Also check your monitor settings, you may see the alert: "Using a scaled resolution may affect performance."
I don't know how much, but it's worth paying attention to.

Well, obviously, the more pixels to render, the slower it is. I wouldn't be surprised if 6K is ten times slower than Full HD, hopefully in reality the correlation is not direct. You need to provide more specific details, window sizes, fps for comparison. 1920 × 1080 = 2,07 Mpx 4096 × 2160 = 8,84 Mpx 4480 × 2520 = 11,3 Mpx 5120 × 2880 = 14,7 Mpx 6016 × 3384 = 20,3 Mpx Also check your monitor settings, you may see the alert: "Using a scaled resolution may affect performance." I don't know how much, but it's worth paying attention to.

Pratik Borhade commented

2023-09-26 07:03:37 +02:00

You need to provide more specific details, window sizes, fps for comparison.
Also check your monitor settings, you may see the alert: "Using a scaled resolution may affect performance."

@tommyoliversays ^

> You need to provide more specific details, window sizes, fps for comparison. > Also check your monitor settings, you may see the alert: "Using a scaled resolution may affect performance." @tommyoliversays ^

Pratik Borhade added

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Pratik Borhade referenced this issue

2023-11-22 11:26:38 +01:00

Regression: Blender Viewport Lagging in 4.0.0 (MacOS) #114875

Andrew commented

2023-12-06 18:47:06 +01:00

Issue only takes place when "Retina" is activated on the Mac, based on my research. Even with a full 5K/4K display scaling, selecting the non-retina option for the scaling fixes the issue immediately.

Andrew commented

2023-12-06 18:47:48 +01:00

"low resolution" settings work like normal, regardless of scaling.

Screenshot 2023-12-06 at 12.47.22 PM.png

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Pratik Borhade commented

2023-12-07 05:53:59 +01:00

@Andrew-Herman , can this be closed assuming #114875 is same?

Michael Parkin-White commented

2023-12-07 12:10:51 +01:00

This is purely a consequence of high resolution rendering. The non-retina options will upscale contents. For MacBook Pro's specifically, the 14"/16" models have native display resolutions of 3024 x 1964 (5.9 Mpx) and 3456 x 2234 (7.7 Mpx) respectively,, which is much higher than 1080p in both cases, as @jenkm has mentioned.

The resolutions listed in the display manager are "Scaled" resolutions. I.e. the contents will have the equivalent user-scaling of 1080p, but the retina variant will render twice as many pixels for additional sharpness and quality. In this case however, the underlying display still has as many pixels, so there is no super-sampling happening.

This is simply the equivalent of comparing performance of a 4K monitor versus a 2K monitor (of the same size), you would likely experience the same end result running on other platforms.

However, this does open a discussion about whether it would be useful to provide viewport scaling options in Blender. This would allow the viewport to be rendered at lower resolutions, which could be useful especially for high-DPI displays, especially with workflows with a higher performance cost.

This is purely a consequence of high resolution rendering. The non-retina options will upscale contents. For MacBook Pro's specifically, the 14"/16" models have native display resolutions of 3024 x 1964 (5.9 Mpx) and 3456 x 2234 (7.7 Mpx) respectively,, which is much higher than 1080p in both cases, as @jenkm has mentioned. The resolutions listed in the display manager are "Scaled" resolutions. I.e. the contents will have the equivalent user-scaling of 1080p, but the retina variant will render twice as many pixels for additional sharpness and quality. In this case however, the underlying display still has as many pixels, so there is no super-sampling happening. This is simply the equivalent of comparing performance of a 4K monitor versus a 2K monitor (of the same size), you would likely experience the same end result running on other platforms. However, this does open a discussion about whether it would be useful to provide viewport scaling options in Blender. This would allow the viewport to be rendered at lower resolutions, which could be useful especially for high-DPI displays, especially with workflows with a higher performance cost.

Andrew commented

2023-12-07 13:04:59 +01:00

@PratikPB2123 : Yup!

@Michael-Parkin-White-Apple:

However, this does open a discussion about whether it would be useful to provide viewport scaling options in Blender. This would allow the viewport to be rendered at lower resolutions, which could be useful especially for high-DPI displays, especially with workflows with a higher performance cost.

I would consider that useful for sure.

@PratikPB2123 : Yup! @Michael-Parkin-White-Apple: > However, this does open a discussion about whether it would be useful to provide viewport scaling options in Blender. This would allow the viewport to be rendered at lower resolutions, which could be useful especially for high-DPI displays, especially with workflows with a higher performance cost. I would consider that useful for sure.

Tom Oliver commented

2023-12-07 17:30:43 +01:00

@PratikPB2123 : Yup!

@Michael-Parkin-White-Apple:

However, this does open a discussion about whether it would be useful to provide viewport scaling options in Blender. This would allow the viewport to be rendered at lower resolutions, which could be useful especially for high-DPI displays, especially with workflows with a higher performance cost.

I would consider that useful for sure.

I believe Unreal Engine already does something similar, agreed it would be useful.

It's hard to say if this is specifically a macOS issue or just the nature of a high resolution viewport. Windows and macOS handle scaling differently, Macs with the inferior method, imo. When you use a non-pixel doubled resolution on a retina display, it's running an even higher internal resolution and scaling it back down to fit the panel, which probably isn't helping the issue.

On the other hand though, I'd assume a $2500 professional notebook could render a cube in a viewport at nearly any resolution, but I'm not a code guy so I'm talking out of my ass

> @PratikPB2123 : Yup! > > @Michael-Parkin-White-Apple: > > However, this does open a discussion about whether it would be useful to provide viewport scaling options in Blender. This would allow the viewport to be rendered at lower resolutions, which could be useful especially for high-DPI displays, especially with workflows with a higher performance cost. > > I would consider that useful for sure. I believe Unreal Engine already does something similar, agreed it would be useful. It's hard to say if this is specifically a macOS issue or just the nature of a high resolution viewport. Windows and macOS handle scaling differently, Macs with the inferior method, imo. When you use a non-pixel doubled resolution on a retina display, it's running an even _higher_ internal resolution and scaling it back down to fit the panel, which probably isn't helping the issue. On the other hand though, I'd assume a $2500 professional notebook could render a cube in a viewport at nearly any resolution, but I'm not a code guy so I'm talking out of my ass

Pratik Borhade commented

2024-03-01 05:44:44 +01:00

I'll close this as duplicate then #114875

Pratik Borhade closed this issue

2024-03-01 05:44:47 +01:00

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