Almost unusable on macOS, very slow and hangs

I have tried KiCAD 5.1.2. and it was very slow, so I upgraded to 5.1.5. and now it is even worse, when using eeschema on the demo PIC programmer it just hangs, pcb layout is still painfully slow (double clicking on an item takes 2 seconds before the information screen pops up). I have read about settings regarding OpenGL and Canvas scaling, but I must admit I have no clue where I have to do it and what settings are most appropriate for macOS in the preferences menu. What can I do?

I’m using a mac Mini 6-core with 32Gbyte RAM and a 4k screen

Peter

I now tried a complete new start. I did some research how to completely remove KiCAD from macOS and also delete all temporary, demo and test files. Rebootet the system, did a fresh install and rebootet again. Now the performance issue has disappeared. So there must have been something before that went completely wrong, but I have no clue what this could have been. At least the issue disappeared.

Peter

My guess is that somehow it used non-accelerated graphics, fallback. It draws all graphics with the CPU instead of dedicated graphics hardware. 4k screen makes it worse. You can test by switching Preferences -> Accelerated/Standard Graphics.

That was also my first guess, but there is no such thing as standard graphics in Preferences. The only options for Accelearted and Fallback is “No Antialiasing”, "Subpixel… ", and "Supersampling… " which is now which in regards of using the GPU? That’s why I went back to square 1.

Sorry, I made a quick check but it was 5.99 (the developent version), not stable version. In 5.1 they have names Modern (Accelerated) and Modern (Fallback) where Accelerated is of course harware accelerated and Fallback is not. Fallback may be slow. Antialiasing doesn’t probably affect much, although No Antialiasing may theoretically be faster.

I use a Mac (OSX Sierra 10.12.6, 32Gig, 5k Retna).
KiCad 5.1.5-0

KiCad graphics are Fast, no issues. In fact, rather surprising is the 3D view is faster than blink of an eye.
I loaded a design and replaced the Terminals (in/out) with Footprints I made that are made with Sweeps (in FreeCad) - I expected them to kill IkCad but, Nope! Blinked my eye and they didn’t hesitate displaying.
[Note: the wires do have different width silk screens by ‘Design’, though I may redo them - it’s not an Antialiasing thing…]

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