Ableton's GUI Lagging extremely hard

[StainedRiver]

Hey,
so I recently bought a MBP 15'' with a pretty good setup (i7 2.6Ghz/32GB) and while a new project runs buttery smooth, after adding a couple of plugins and samples the GUI will become choppy(the time marker will jump from one bar to another) and extremely laggy, below 15fps. When opening projects that have intensive stuff going on, the GUI will work smoothly until i begin adding stuff and tweaking parameters, so it's definitely not a power problem.
Mind you, the sound continues to run smoothly and the CPU load is never past 60. I would like to know if there is something that can be done as producing efficiently is impossible this way.

Ps. I always try to use the less CPU intensive ways around projects, such as routing various synths to one midi signal and resampling/automating ON and Off plugins that are not being used.

Currently on MAC OS 10.14.6 and Ableton Live 10.1.3

Thanks

[jonljacobi]

This is apparently not uncommon, and I believe they are working on it. I have no issues but I’m back on High Sierra.

[StainedRiver]

This is apparently not uncommon, and I believe they are working on it. I have no issues but I’m back on High Sierra.

Is it possible to downgrade from Mojave to High Sierra? Are there any threads refering to a similar problem?
The issue is frustrating because Ableton is the only program that lags, I can have other stuff running in the background and they won't have a single problem.

[siliconarc]

is the Live interface zoomed in prefs? i've had choppy, laggy behaviour when zoom is not 100%

[StainedRiver]

is the Live interface zoomed in prefs? i've had choppy, laggy behaviour when zoom is not 100%

I saw a post on this last week. I used to have 110% zoom and noticed the performance increasing a bit after reverting back to 100%. However, it still isn't good.

[TLW]

I’ve been using Mojave for about a year and never seen anything like as bad as described here (2014 MBP Retina, quad i7, Intel graphics). Live 10 does seem to hit the Mac WindowServer pretty hard though, I was having serious problems with crackles until I tried the suggestion in the tips and tricks part of the forum to use an options.txt to reduce Live’s frame rate which solved the problem for me instantly.

I’ve not yet installed Catalina, I’m waiting on some plugin developers to catch up with it and I’ve a couple of Photoshop filters that might have problems with Catalina as well. I also prefer to wait until the initial bug-fixes have been released no matter whether the OS is Mac, Windows or a new Linux distribution. I learned the hard way with Vista which was a good operating system for audio work - well, better than its predecessors at least - after service pack 1, but not so great before it. I’ve been contemplating a new Mac for a while, but I’m now holding off until I know everything will work OK under Catalina.

As for installing older versions of the OS, you can’t take a Mac back to an OS version prior to the one it left the factory with, not easily anyway because the app store won’t offer you older OS versions. If you do manage it there’s always the risk your Mac will contain hardware that older OS versions don’t support - especially the T2 chip, thunderbolt version, USB C and graphics cards.

[StainedRiver]

I was having serious problems with crackles until I tried the suggestion in the tips and tricks part of the forum to use an options.txt to reduce Live’s frame rate which solved the problem for me instantly.

Hey, could you tell me more about this process?

[Airyck]

1 issue to check:

Are you using an external display with a usb c to HDMI adapter? I had bad lagging until I switched to a Display port adapter instead. Apple adapter and 3 others all lagged on HDMI.

The lagging would happen whenever I was using the above adapter along with a Max4Live LFO with the display on the LFO running. But I know the adapter an cause issues. Worth checking anyway if you have that setup.

[jonljacobi]

I’ve noticed performance hits with external displays even using DP.

[StainedRiver]

1 issue to check:

Are you using an external display with a usb c to HDMI adapter? I had bad lagging until I switched to a Display port adapter instead. Apple adapter and 3 others all lagged on HDMI.

The lagging would happen whenever I was using the above adapter along with a Max4Live LFO with the display on the LFO running. But I know the adapter an cause issues. Worth checking anyway if you have that setup.

I use an external monitor every now and then, but this issue occurs with the macbook's own screen. Could I ask what display port adapter you use btw?

[TLW]

Hey, could you tell me more about this process?

I should have posted a link, sorry.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=230967

It worked for me and has worked for others, but doesn’t seem to work for everyone or all Macs. trying it does no harm though.

Hopefully Ableton’s developers are looking at the Mac display issue as well.

[StainedRiver]

Hey, could you tell me more about this process?

I should have posted a link, sorry.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=230967

It worked for me and has worked for others, but doesn’t seem to work for everyone or all Macs. trying it does no harm though.

Hopefully Ableton’s developers are looking at the Mac display issue as well.

Ok so I did it and i think the performance is slightly better. I have found that closing Ableton and reopening it brings back the smoothness

[Airyck]

1 issue to check:

Are you using an external display with a usb c to HDMI adapter? I had bad lagging until I switched to a Display port adapter instead. Apple adapter and 3 others all lagged on HDMI.

The lagging would happen whenever I was using the above adapter along with a Max4Live LFO with the display on the LFO running. But I know the adapter an cause issues. Worth checking anyway if you have that setup.

I use an external monitor every now and then, but this issue occurs with the macbook's own screen. Could I ask what display port adapter you use btw?

I have 2 of these and have no issues with lagging since I started using them.

Belinda USB C TO DP Cable, USB-C... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073STSPPN?re ... b_ap_share