Rhino for Mac performance issues

Rhino Rhino for Mac
1

I’m experiencing serious performance issues on my MacBook Pro on a pretty regular basis. To the point that I don’t find Rhino very usable any more, not speaking of how frustrating it is to use if I have to anyway.

I’m speaking of simple things like: Click-select an object – 1 second lag until it is highlighted. Deselect – 1 second lag. Gumball move an object – lagging. Undo Gumball move – 1 second lag.

It gets even worse in Layout view: I’m going crazy trying to place and edit the points and text of leader objects to annotate my drawing because no matter what action, there is at least a one second delay after every click, drag, edit.

Rotating and zooming is ok as long as I stay in wireframe display mode.

Is this just Rhino 6 performance that I have to live with? Or is there something wrong with my file or my Computer? I am attaching the file and my SystemInfo, though there are mostly external blocks in there that I won’t all include (or is there a simple command to include them when exporting the file?

Thanks for any help

SystemInfo: 
Rhino 6 SR21 2019-12-15 (Public Build, 6.21.19349.01012, Git hash:master @ a9aff0b2a2e07411210fef500868737069a15926)
License type: Commercial, build 2019-12-15
License details: Cloud Zoo.  In use by:  ()

Apple Intel 64-bit macOS Version 10.15.3 (Build 19D76) (Physical RAM: 16Gb)[Temp_SupportFile.3dm|attachment](upload://2YgflJhBUplFcUzzlxjPGjQ2Zm7.3dm) (4.3 MB) 
Mac Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,4
Machine name: MacBook Pro
Language: en

Intel Iris Pro OpenGL Engine (OpenGL ver:4.1 INTEL-14.4.23)

OpenGL Settings
  Safe mode: Off
  Use accelerated hardware modes: On
  Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
  
  Anti-alias mode: 4x
  Mip Map Filtering: Linear
  Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Height
  
  Vendor Name: Intel Inc.
  Render version: 4.1
  Shading Language: 4.10
  Maximum Texture size: 16384 x 16384
  Z-Buffer depth: n/a
  Maximum Viewport size: 16384 x 16384
  Total Video Memory: 1536 MB
  Graphics: Intel Iris Pro
  Displays: Color LCD (221dpi 2x)

Graphics processors
  Intel Iris Pro (1536 MB)
    Color LCD (1440 x 900)

USB devices
  Apple Inc.: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
  Broadcom Corp.: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
  Logitech: USB Receiver

Bluetooth devices
  None

Third party kernel extensions
  net.pluckeye.kext.pluckeye (1) 2D70D328-3B48-3FE7-8F59-C24FD85BD2D7
  org.pqrs.driver.Karabiner.VirtualHIDDevice.v061000 (6.10.0) 4D004D1A-ED2F-3780-AD53-A10F286EC759

Third party plugins
  /usr/lib/log/liblog_network.dylib

Rhino plugins
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/RhCore.framework/Resources/ManagedPlugIns/RhinoCycles.rhp	"RhinoCycles"	6.21.19349.1012
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/NamedSnapshots.rhp	"Snapshots"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/import_FBX.rhp	"Import_FBX"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/RhCore.framework/Resources/ManagedPlugIns/GrasshopperPlugin.rhp	"Grasshopper"	6.21.19349.1012
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/PanelingTools.rhp	"PanelingTools"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/AnimationTools.rhp	"AnimationTools"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/RhCore.framework/Resources/ManagedPlugIns/Commands.rhp	"Commands"	6.21.19349.1012
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/SolidTools.rhp	"SolidTools"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/RhMaterialEditor.framework	"Renderer Development Kit"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/import_ACAD.rhp	"AutoCAD file import: import_ACAD"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/RhCore.framework/Resources/ManagedPlugIns/RDK_EtoUI.rhp	"RDK_EtoUI"	6.21.19349.1012
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/Displacement.rhp	"Displacement"	6.21.19349.1002
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/RhCore.framework/Resources/ManagedPlugIns/BlockEdit.rhp	"BlockEdit"	6.21.19349.1012
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/Frameworks/RhCore.framework/Resources/ManagedPlugIns/RhinoDLR_Python.rhp	"IronPython"	6.21.19349.1012
  /Applications/Rhinoceros 2.app/Contents/PlugIns/RhinoRender.rhp	"Rhino Render"	6.21.19349.1002
2

I just switched from a 10-year-old MacBook Pro to current model. I had no performance problems with Rhino 6 on the 10-year-old Mac and have had none on my new MacBook Pro.

3

Hey Miano, thanks for the information – at least it’s good to know it’s not a general issue. Any other thoughts on this or general ideas on what can cause poor performance on MacBooks?

4

hi @accounts2, the version you are running is pretty old i believe. there was a severe performance issue a while ago which made it impossible to work even on super simple objects.

not sure you are talking about this problem, but other than that i can also confirm that rhino is a bit slow and laggy with moving objects for example. it seems to wait for the window to pop up and causes delays. its a bit choppy and makes working pretty unpleasant. i would say that version 5 still runs smoother in many regards.

5

Hi @encephalon, I’ve recently updated to 6.23.20049.14112, 2020-02-18, and I am not seeing major improvements with the lagging I’ve described.

Another thing I’ve tried is to do a ResetPreferences, to no measurable success.

It’s good to know though that other people are experiencing similar issues. I am just wondering if there is anything I can do to improve responsiveness especially for selecting and moving around objects and control points. It is just weird because it doesn’t feel like the system couldn’t perform these operations quicker, rather like it’s a programming issue – that is of course purely speculation on my side. The lagging is super annoying though and it feels like it is slowing down my design process by at least two times.

So, any additional thoughts still much appreciated!

6

Does it happen with any model, even if there is hardly anything in the file? Do you happen to have multiple instances of Rhino open or any other programs?
Tbh, I only use Rhino on Mac during Rhino teaching on relatively simple models, and even then I still find V6 Rhino to be quite sluggish compared to Windows.
Also you have no dedicated graphics card which certainly doesn’t help either.
Id be happy to test your file, but it wasn’t included in your first post.

7

Ok I think I’m on what’s causing the issue… I tried to attach the file this time – I manually embedded all blocks in Block Manager – but apparently it is too large.

So there is a floor plan in there of the building that I’m designing for – I’ve taken it out of a pdf file, cleaned it up a bit and converted it to .3dm in Rhino. I basically need it to create the geometry of the room and then to display the room’s surroundings in Layout mode. It’s probably just a lot of curves that are too much for my system to handle.

When I switch off the layer with the plan, selecting, transforming and undoing is a lot quicker. Still not great in Layout Mode however, which I can’t really understand… but I guess I can work with what I have for now.

If you still want to have a look at the file though and maybe have some more insight @Gijs , great – if not I that’s ok, I think I found a workable solution for now, like I said.

Thanks anyway!

BTW: if there are reasonably priced hardware solutions that improve Rhino performance on a machine like mine (like an external graphics card), I’d be interested in that as well

1 Like
8

I’m pretty sure the problem is related to the little Intel Iris display adapter.
I thought @dan, @stevebaer, and @jeff had figured out how to use a simpler display mechanism to avoid the slowdowns for those little Intel chips, but at best it is a feature for performance compromise.