Very bad Eevee viewport performance on Macbook Pro 2018

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1

Hello there!
I’d like to ask you guys about an advice.

The problem is: ultra bad Eevee performance on:
Macbook Pro 15" 2018
2,2 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB Ram
Radeon Pro 555X 4GB

As soon as I run Eevee viewport I got very bad performance, I’m even not sure if my macbook starts to kick in his graphic card. I know that macbooks aren’t for 3D graphics, BUT… Blender works quite good on previous generation, the one that I was testing is:

Macbook Pro 13" 2015
2,9 GHz Intel Core i5
16 GB Ram
And no graphic card (only integrated Iris Graphics 6100 1536 GB

Here’s a video comparison, made on the the same project, so lighting and render settings are the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNs_MlbIYp8

Do you have any ideas?

2

On your 2018, have you turned off Automatic Graphics Switching? (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043)

3

I just ran in to this as well. I have the exact same specs, have ‘automatic graphics switching’ enabled, but still even simple Eevee scenes run at 3fps most while editing them. Is this is a known issue with the 2.80 RC, or are Mac Users just drawing the short end of the stick?

4

I’m on the previous generation and RC seems ok. Try posting a test scene, so I can give it a try.

5

It’s a file from @Zacharias_Reinhardt’s new 2.8 training. Zach, can I share the file ( 02 - Selection - Select Tool) here?

6

Hey Bart, sure you can do that.

1 Like
7

Thanks Zach!

Ok, so here’s an example of a relatively simple file that gets only about 3fps on my 2018 Macbook PRO. Most samples in the training so far have this kind of frame rate, making working in Blender on a Mac not great. Any ideas?

02_selection_select_tool.blend (344.7 KB)

8

That’s strange… On my 2016 13 inch with only an intel iris 550 I’m getting around 17fps rendered, 21fps in lookdev and stable 25+ in solid mode.

9

On a 2013 MBP but 2.80 build I get 17fps in look dev and 12-14fps in rendered mode. Might grab the RC and see if theres a difference

10

I am using RC2 right now with the same performance issues…

11

I have logged this issue:

https://developer.blender.org/T67312

12

I just downloaded RC2 and found no performance issue but I’m running OSX 10.11.6 with a Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB GPU

13

Hi.
Is there any way that you can measure the total vRAM used in the system while you are in Eevee with that scene?
If you manually reduce the Blender window size for example by occupying 1/4 of your screen, do the fps increase?

14

I see no lag on RC2 while switching from and to render modes… idle memory for Blender is about 512MB

07
07945×697 472 KB

43

(p.s. seems I’m unable to drag n drop images…)

15

Any news on this?
Did MacOS Catalina made things worse?
Does or does not work Blender on 15” or the new 16” in LokDev?

13” macbook i can confirm it works … but is significantly slower fps than a slower windows same 13” laptop with no ECC ram and same intel gpu/cpu. I talk in lokdev because in Solid all is just fine for work.

16

The latest download, Blender 2.81a, fixed the problem for me. I’m running Mojave.