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Why is Aperture 3.5.1 so horribly slow on my new 12-core Mac Pro?

A

ApplesAOranges

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 7, 2011
335
3
Just recently purchased Aperture for my new 12-core Mac Pro and I found the app being so slow it´s impossible to get any work done. I have 64GB of RAM and Thunderbolt 2 SSD with reading/writing speeds of over 1300 MB/s. I´m running the latest Mavericks. All my other apps work great! I have only yet imported one project in my library about 30 iPhone 5 photos, not even RAW! I get severe 5 second stutters where my mouse stops working when it´s trying to do some one simple adjustment. Even when I´m just browsing my photos left and right the app stutters little bit. This app is just horrible and very amateurish and Apple should give my money back!

I googled and found this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5590335?tstart=0

One guy had this to say:

Upgrading to Mavericks and Aperture 3.5.1 is a massive FAIL. Do not do it!

Well it is now May 2014, and there has been no acknowledgement of any issue, or any update from Apple to fix it. On my MBP 17" mid-2010 laptop with 8 gig memory, the latest versions of Mavericks and Aperture 3.5.1 have brought my image processing to stand still.

It used to all work great. Now I cannot import images, just trying to import my last shoot of only 260 photos it is still running after almost two days and it has only copied 69 photos. I also end up with a lot of duplicates on disk when Aperture crashes and I have to start the imports over.

I've tried everything, repairing permissions, restarting before importing, closing all other apps during imports, splitting and shrinking the library, deleting thousands of images from the library and on the disk, importing from the camera in smaller batches, using a card reader instead of the camera, changing USB ports for the disk, repairing the Aperture library and rebuilding the library, turning off previews...
Nothing has worked and it just keeps getting worse, no matter what Aperture just hangs. There's plenty of disk space and the same amount of memory as before.

If the latest versions are not intended for 2010 machines, fine, give me a warning instead of an upgrade alert, I'd never have done this. Now the only word at all from Apple support was there is no going back without a full wipe and clean install of the OS. This is the most un-Apple-like experience I've ever had and it's pretty shameful.
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Am I experiencing the same problem here? And does anyone else here have this problem? Or is Aperture this slow just normally? Why isn´t Apple doing anything about this? :(
 
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Hmm. I just tried importing a few photos (300 or so small ones, 750MB total, old scans), and it took about 20 seconds.

I'm using a Mid-2012 Quad 2.7 GHz MBP with 16 GB RAM and 10.9.2 with Aperture 3.5.1.

It used ~300% CPU.. I dunno what your issue is.

How much CPU time is it using?

Edit: I imported off a USB 2 external drive too, lol. So like 30 MBps. Maybe it's a thunderbolt issue? Have you tried copying to your main SSD and importing from there?
 
MacSince1990 said:
Hmm. I just tried importing a few photos (300 or so small ones, 750MB total, old scans), and it took about 20 seconds.

I'm using a Mid-2012 Quad 2.7 GHz MBP with 16 GB RAM and 10.9.2 with Aperture 3.5.1.

It used ~300% CPU.. I dunno what your issue is.

How much CPU time is it using?

Edit: I imported off a USB 2 external drive too, lol. So like 30 MBps. Maybe it's a thunderbolt issue? Have you tried copying to your main SSD and importing from there?
Click to expand...

Actually my Aperture library is in the Mac Pro´s internal SSD drive for now, but I´m planning to move it on external Thunderbolt 2 SSD drive. I´m pretty sure that will not make any difference. I think there´s something severely wrong with Aperture&Mavericks how they use CPU and RAM.

I had no issues importing the first 30 photos, but I have huge issues editing them. It´s impossible with so much stuttering.

Could this be because Aperture has no manual save function? So it saves every single move you make automatically all the time. So that´s gotta be a huge task for the CPU, right?

I´m reading stuff like this all over the internet:

Bought AP3 the other day, all patched up. Felt ready to really start adjusting and working with my photos. Unfortunately skin smoothing causes roughly 10 sec delay per mouse click. Highlights and shadows causes AP3 to hang at about 80% processor load stating "processing".Just about everything including faces (approx 15 sec) goes slow. Before the 3.0.3 update there were substantial memory leaks... and yes I am experiencing irratic mouse movements as some one mentioned, especially when applying brushes (or rather trying)

Currently I am frustrated with the poor performance virtually making the app unusable, not what I expected from Apple especially since this one cost me real money. Any ideas on what could be the problem?
Click to expand...

These kinds of comments describe perfectly what I´m going through.
 
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Not seeing any issues using Aperture on my late 2012 iMac with 3TB Fusion drive. If there are problems with the new Nac Pros, though, Apple should address them. I don't know what their plans are, but Aperture is overdue for a major update.
 
12 core is your red flag. It appears that 6 and 8 core machines are faster at certain tasks than the 12 core. More is not always better.
 
phrehdd said:
12 core is your red flag. It appears that 6 and 8 core machines are faster at certain tasks than the 12 core. More is not always better.
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That's clearly not the issue. He's not talking about single core speed, it's just a matter of bugs/incompatibilities.
 
ApplesAOranges said:
Actually my Aperture library is in the Mac Pro´s internal SSD drive for now, but I´m planning to move it on external Thunderbolt 2 SSD drive. I´m pretty sure that will not make any difference. I think there´s something severely wrong with Aperture&Mavericks how they use CPU and RAM.

I had no issues importing the first 30 photos, but I have huge issues editing them. It´s impossible with so much stuttering.

Could this be because Aperture has no manual save function? So it saves every single move you make automatically all the time. So that´s gotta be a huge task for the CPU, right?

I´m reading stuff like this all over the internet:



These kinds of comments describe perfectly what I´m going through.
Click to expand...

Honestly not sure. Check the CPU usage under Activity Monitor.

Like I said, I'm using Mavericks 10.9.2, have the same version of Aperture as you, and have a 4-core 8-thread machine running at 2.7 GHz. It all went extremely quickly.

Perhaps Aperture is confused by the number of cores you have? Try shutting off all but four, maybe that would help.

I honestly have no idea.

----------
phrehdd said:
12 core is your red flag. It appears that 6 and 8 core machines are faster at certain tasks than the 12 core. More is not always better.
Click to expand...

Definitely not the issue. Even if 6-8 cores is faster, it's not the difference between taking days and taking seconds.
 
phrehdd said:
12 core is your red flag. It appears that 6 and 8 core machines are faster at certain tasks than the 12 core. More is not always better.
Click to expand...

Guess I should have spent 3000 bucks less and get the 6-core, so I could run Aperture! :mad:

Is there an easy way to overclock my slow 12-core? So I can run apps without them stuttering like crazy.
 
soulreaver99 said:
You're holding it wrong :p
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:p

Well there´s clearly some new 12-core Mac Pro / Mavericks / Aperturegate going on!

Found another thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/22415772#22415772

aperture Brushes still slow on maxed out imac i7 will it ever change

Why are brushes still slow to No Go. I have an imac 3.4 i7 with 32G ram and 2g video card but still brushes are a major issue and can't be used in any professional manner because of the time involved in waiting and waiting.
Does anyone know what's going on and if it will ever be addressed by apple?
Click to expand...
 
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phrehdd said:
12 core is your red flag. It appears that 6 and 8 core machines are faster at certain tasks than the 12 core. More is not always better.
Click to expand...

If that were the OP's issue, it would still be performing unacceptably on the 6 and 8 core machines. The 12 just isn't that much slower.
 
ApplesAOranges said:
Guess I should have spent 3000 bucks less and get the 6-core, so I could run Aperture! :mad:

Is there an easy way to overclock my slow 12-core? So I can run apps without them stuttering like crazy.
Click to expand...

Don't be misled by that nonsense. The 12 cores are only slightly slower.

Aperture just isn't good software. I think it's low cost availability is just a gimmick to sell Macs. I bought it but never enjoyed it nearly so much as Lightroom. I used to run Lightroom on a 2007 MBP just fine and productively. Aperture was always ridiculously slow with the exact same library, and now it just doesn't open at all. (When I try, I'm told I need to buy a new Mac. Thanks Apple :rolleyes:)
 
The Bad Guy said:
Ssssshh…you're not allowed to say that around here. :eek:
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You're right, sorry. Forgot where I was a second. Everybody please disregard the inflammatory post above. Aperture is fine pretty much some of the time. And Lightroom can suck too. :eek:
 
Really interested about Lightroom. Maybe I should give it a try, since Apple is selling unusable software.
 
If you try LR, wait for the 18th to see if they announced or release LR6. No point in loading LR5 if LR6 is out in a couple of days.


BTW, since you have a new machine that should be under warranty, what does Apple say when you turned in a trouble ticket to their support group? Aperture runs just fine on my quad core 2012 rMBP. And I have never heard of folks with old Mac Pros complaining about the problem. You may want to search in the Mac Pro forum to see if you can find more.
 
compuwar said:
Imported from a different version of Aperture, disk, or the phone directly?

Paul
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Straight from the iPhone 5.

By the way. I´ve been using iPhoto for years on my 2009 and now 2013 iMacs. I have thousands of photos in there in one library. It runs flawlessly.

But Aperture is having serious seizures even with 30 simple pictures. Mostly with the brushes, but with other simple things too, like just browsing the photos back and forth. What gives Apple?

MCAsan said:
If you try LR, wait for the 18th to see if they announced or release LR6. No point in loading LR5 if LR6 is out in a couple of days.
Click to expand...

Will do, thanks!

MCAsan said:
BTW, since you have a new machine that should be under warranty, what does Apple say when you turned in a trouble ticket to their support group? Aperture runs just fine on my quad core 2012 rMBP. And I have never heard of folks with old Mac Pros complaining about the problem. You may want to search in the Mac Pro forum to see if you can find more.
Click to expand...

And I´ve never gotten through to Apple support, it´s such a bureaucracy! I´ve only gotten hardware support from local Apple certified maintenance shops, but they don´t deal with apps.
 
Maybe I'm missing something or just not clued in, but isn't Mavericks still Beta? Meaning, not all software is going to run perfectly on it, which is why they release Beta software, so they can fix those issues?
 
1Zach1 said:
Maybe I'm missing something or just not clued in, but isn't Mavericks still Beta? Meaning, not all software is going to run perfectly on it, which is why they release Beta software, so they can fix those issues?
Click to expand...

Beta on what, where? Mavericks, 10.9, was released last year. It is Yosemite, 10.10 that is in beta now and will be released in the fall.
 
I don't really know about the intersection of hardware and Aperture. I run it on my new iMac is a 4 core machine and on boring days, I time various AP processes. It just screams. And I own LightRoom. Even the NIK plugins are pretty zippy.

Aperture has two functions. A photo editing toolkit. And a database, which powers the Browser function. Being an Apple Program running on Apple hardware, that database is, in my opinion, a real workhorse.

The database depends on the file structure created by Aperture. From time to time, it helps to fix the database. You start the program and simultaneously hold the Command & Option keys. You are presented with a window that gives you three options to fix things. Two of them are fast and light, the third, Rebuilding the Database, is the most thorough and drastic. And it takes more time to run. Try this and see if it helps.
 
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