I recently upgraded to the Apple MBP 15" 2018 i9 32gb RAM. Top of the line. I saw almost no performance increase in preview generation - this biggest bottleneck to my workflow. I added a Sonnet eGFX Box with Radeon WX9100 (expensive bugger!) and I got a zero increase in preview generation performance. But I also saw no increase in this spec when upgrading my MPB. The published statement that Capture One Pro 12 relies on RAM to generate previews is hogwash. It barely touches the RAM on my system, let alone the processors.
I did a test and observed that Capture One Pro 12 uses 10% of my available 32GB of RAM and 10% of the processing power of my i9 chip when generating previews.
I just wrote the following e-mail to Capture One Support. I would appreciate it if you all write similar notes to them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease! Here is a link to my screen recording that shows the performance issue:
https://youtu.be/8_59jtIl71AHere is the support e-mail:
I recently upgraded to Capture One Pro 12. I also recently upgraded to the mid 2018 MacBook Pro 15 with i9 processor, 32GB RAM, and top of the line specs. Lastly I added a top of the line eGPU (Sonnet eGFX breakaway box 650 + Radeon WX 9100).
After all of these upgrades, I see a nice boost in exporting files from the raw. My system moves at more than double the speed as my previous MBP without eGPU. However, I have zero increase in speed in importing and rendering a new shoot. I often import 1,000 - 2,000 images per shoot, and the preview generation time is quite slow. I noticed that the GPU is not utilized at all for this. This is surprising to me because rendering previews seems to be the perfect task for a GPU.
I did some research and other users are reporting the same conclusions. I also saw an article that you posted that said RAM is the deciding factor in rendering previews. However, I disagree with this, and I would like a better explanation. I doubled the ram and processing power in my MBP and saw no change in rendering previews. Another user compared his 40GB RAM iMac Pro to his MBP with 16GB RAM and way less power, and saw no difference in preview generation time.
On my system, when I observe the apple activity monitor, with only Capture One running, generating previews, I can tell that the GPU is not used at all, and more shockingly, the CPU is only utilized to 10% of its processing power. Lastly, the RAM, which you write on your published paper, is most useful in generating previews, odd as that sounds to me, is also not utilized at all! I have 32GB of RAM, and C1Pro12 uses 10% of that RAM in generating previews!
I documented this on a short screen video recording. Please view it here:
https://youtu.be/8_59jtIl71ASo, first order of business, please comment on this situation and let me know if I am missing something. Please also explain further why you say that RAM is the determining factor in preview generation performance when my tests show that it has no effect to speak of. Please also explain why a number crunching intensive task like preview generation is only using 10% of CPU power, and no GPU power at all.
Thank you for your time and help on this.
- Mark Tomaras