Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Discuss Moho bugs (or suspected bugs) with other users. To report bugs to Smith Micro, please visit support.smithmicro.com

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger

formxshape
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2017 2:05 pm

Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by formxshape »

So work got me an iMac Pro, 3.2ghz 8 core, 64gb ram, Radeon Pro Vega 56 8gb GPU.

I open Moho, empty file 1920x1080 12fps. Press play.
The timeline playhead stutters along, doesn't move smoothly.
Status bar fps indication rapidly drops to show an empty file is playing back at 3fps.

What's going on? A £4k computer and I'm getting 3fps playback.

I'm guessing it's due to the non Nvidia GPU? I can't find much info on smith micro's website about the exacting requirements for Moho... but... this is disappointing.
I was a bit dubious when work offered to buy this iMac, not heard great things about apple's direction recently.

Hopefully Moho 13 runs better.. or I've got to switch to a PC and tell my boss they wasted £4k...
JoshF
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat May 18, 2019 10:47 pm

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by JoshF »

Same thing for me - slow playback even with a two bone rig on a single vector layer.
(BTW, where's that status bar showing FPS in Moho?)

Allowing frame skipping helps - but not good for true animation review.
Only way to review accurately is to output a preview .mp4 which is not a good work flow.
Any other work arounds out there?

iMac specs:
10.14.4 (18E226)
4.2 GHz Intel Core i7
64 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro 580 8 GB

Thanks!
chucky
Posts: 4650
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:24 am

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by chucky »

I'm afraid Steve Jobs left the building guys.
Apple stopped making computers, now they make fashion accessories.

Sorry, I can only really make unhelpful and annoying quips.
Although, I'm wondering if performance improves a great deal if you turn off brushes in the display?
Also turn off dynamics and just allow frame skipping.
That feature has become hugely heavy to lift in recent releases.
chucky
Posts: 4650
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:24 am

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by chucky »

I take it back, Apple just announced the new imac pro... now that's a computer. Wow.
You should get the medium specked with a mortgage and see if the OS respects you for it :mrgreen:
JoshF
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat May 18, 2019 10:47 pm

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by JoshF »

We'll see! ;)
Thanks - I tried your suggestions but didn't seem to help. Guessing this problem (playback lag) isn't happening for PCs? No one else seems to be complaining about it.
Just tried a complex scene on an older mac with AS 11 and it plays at speed!?
chucky
Posts: 4650
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:24 am

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by chucky »

Eeek , that sounds horribly annoying.
I hope updates/new versions put an end to that.
JoshF
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat May 18, 2019 10:47 pm

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by JoshF »

Thanks anyways! Great work on Stick Fight BTW! https://youtu.be/o-FaqyvywxY
JoshF
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat May 18, 2019 10:47 pm

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by JoshF »

So just to explore further I updated to Moho 12 on the older iMac and earlier OS (specs below) and it works great!
So problem must be with the newer iMac / OS or graphics card.
Dang! :(

iMac (older - Late 2012)
10.12.6 (Sierra)
3.2 GHz Intel Core i5
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX 1024 MB
chucky
Posts: 4650
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:24 am

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by chucky »

It's a pity OSX doesn't have 'compatibility mode' so you could run the new hardware and OS but without the problems.
Hey and thanks Josh.
Hang in there, it won't be long. :D
User avatar
slowtiger
Posts: 6067
Joined: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:53 pm
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact:

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by slowtiger »

Ha! I just wait for the first one lashing out 6.000 $ or more for the newest Mac Pro (the Cheese Grater) and then complain that a 400 $ software will not run on it...
AS 9.5 MacPro Quadcore 3GHz 16GB OS 10.6.8 Quicktime 7.6.6
AS 11 MacPro 12core 3GHz 32GB OS 10.11 Quicktime 10.7.3
Moho 13.5 iMac Quadcore 2,9GHz 16GB OS 10.15

Moho 14.1 Mac Mini Plus OS 13.5
chucky
Posts: 4650
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:24 am

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by chucky »

The top 'o the line 'cheesegrater' setup is more like 45,000 US, no kidding. :shock:
rayamc
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:47 pm

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by rayamc »

I got extreme slowdowns recently. Spinning beachball on each click. Terrible. And guess what PC gloaters... putting the file on Windows had exactly the same result!

Try this: turn off shape effects in the display options (top right of the timeline) If the slowdown goes away then it could be down to stray points from a make shape operation being orphaned.

That was my problem. A 3 point line I used for shading in the centre of an object were left in a layer when I duplicated it and deleted the shape they were part of. Took me hours to track down. Hopefully this could help you out.

I am thinking of getting an iMac pro too so I'd like more than 3fps in Moho!

It's a good test to try out files on either system before blaming the machine/OS as it could just be a bug in Moho. I have reported this
chucky
Posts: 4650
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:24 am

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by chucky »

PC gloaters, hah that would be the shoe on the other foot. :mrgreen:
Of course shape effects and especially brushes slow down display, but I can't decipher what you are saying about orphaned shapes and your corrupted file.
Could explain more clearly please? This is very interesting but also very vague.
User avatar
kimandreasjohansson
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2017 10:14 am

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by kimandreasjohansson »

Hi

I have been trying lots of different ways to understand why the timeline stutters so much on newer imacs in mac os.

My tests with both windows 10 (via boot camp) and later versions of mac os on a 2017 imac and older 2014 macbook pro has led me to the following conclusions :

Just like described in the original post MOHO is close to unusable on any 5k imac regardless of specs. Vega 56, radeon pro, xeon, i7, i5, people seem to have the same problem on mac os. I´m also afraid that the problem is still there on MOHO 13 just as on 12.x

The solutions:
- Install windows 10 on your imac and MOHO will run like butter.
- Another solution to run MOHO on your imac in mac os is to right click on the app icon and tick the ”open in low resolution” (1080p ish) the app will run just as fast as on windows 10.
- Run moho on a mac with a lower resolution screen, then MOHO will run smooth even on a pretty slow and old mac. (My guess is that JoshF´s mac from 2012 doesn´t have a high resolution screen.)
- Undock the viewer and resize it to an equivalent size of 1080p on your 5k screen. It will be TINY but it will run smooth.
- Run your mac screen in a lower resolution, change it in screen settings.
- Attach a lower res screen and run moho on this.

My theory from all these solutions is that MOHO is really badly optimised for high resolution screens. The reason it runs faster on windows than mac os on the same 5k imac is simply that windows 10 already runs MOHO in the resolution equivalent to the low resolution mode that you can enable as an option on mac os. When I open MOHO in windows 10 I can clearly see that the viewer and interface is just as pixelated as the low resolution mode in mac os.

The problem might be that MOHO really struggles if the viewer is gonna play back the content of your animation in real time in the default 5k resolution. My guess is that team need to either optimise moho better for higher resolutions or give the option to lower the resolution on only the viewer (not the interface) to match the resolution that windows is using per default.

Anyway, hope one of these solution might be of help.
Visual artist based in Sweden.

iMac 5K (2017) 3.4 ghz i5, radeon pro 570, 16 gb ram
MacBook Air m1 16 gb ram
JoshF
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat May 18, 2019 10:47 pm

Re: Moho 12 Pro - iMac Pro 3.2ghz SLOW

Post by JoshF »

Thanks @kimandreasjohansson!

I think you're on to something and are correct about it having to do with the 5k (or 4K resolution) on the Retina Macs.

I was also having this same timeline playback lag problem (drop-frame, etc) on my newer mac using Adobe Animate CC and Clip Studio Paint (animation mode). But when switching over to my 1080 Wacom Cintiq (connected to the same Mac) the same files would play back at the correct FPS(!) I couldn't understand why another monitor would be "fixing" the issue until you mentioned it has to do with the resolution effecting playback on a Retina vs 1080. Could all three products not be optimized for 4k/5k, or is this really a Mac thing? If I ever upgrade to a 4K Cintiq I wonder if I'll have problems again in all three software. Yes, you're correct - the older mac is 1080. :)

Thanks again!
Post Reply