BC4 on MacBook Pro 16" 2021 is very slow and glitching (macOS Ventura 13)

[TomasBlaho]

Hello there,
I'm successfully using my beloved BC4 on PC for years and I'm currently evaluating it on my new M1 MAX based MBP 16" 2021, Mac OS Ventura 13.0

Sadly it has very slow repaint, so scrolling is painful:
https://youtu.be/kAJSw9rfa8Y

Sometimes also the text disappears and I need to force redraw by resizing window or jumping to another conflict/change:
https://youtu.be/P2hWB526MO4

Do you think both could be caused by Intel app emulation on M1 CPU?

Regards,
Tomas

[Chris]

This appears to be a bug specific to macOS Ventura 13.

I've duplicated the disappearing text drawing issue with BC 4.4.3 in the Folder Compare, Text Compare, and Text Merge on an M1 Mac Air with macOS Ventura 13.

I haven't duplicated the slow repainting during scrolling, but that might be more visible on the higher resolution screen of the 16" MBP vs the 13" screen of the M1 Air.

I've added these to our internal bug tracker, we'll post an update when a fix is available.

[Chris]

We've also duplicated this issue on an Intel Mac running macOS Ventura 13.

We're actively working on a fix and will update when it is available.

[TomasBlaho]

It's good to hear it's just a bug. It looks like it could be fixed before the BC5 release then. Thanks for your great work!

[Zoë]

[Edit: Beta download link removed, official fix available in BC 4.4.4 on Download page.]

We're still looking into the issue and this build hasn't gone through our normal release testing yet, but it mostly fixes the drawing issues for us. Please give it a try and let us know how it works for you and whether it helps with the scrolling speed.

[TomasBlaho]

I can't check the glitch with missing text easily, but the scrolling speed looks the same:
https://youtu.be/SBUwqmKNVz4
I will let you know once I'm merging files with conflicts if the glitches are gone.

[Aaron]

Thanks a ton for including a video showing that scrolling performance.

Hmm, that's worse performance than we're seeing in-office, and we have another user with the M1 Max chip having larger than expected stability issues with Rosetta. I'm searching a bit into it now and one of the first hits I found was about some migrations or updates causing issues and suggested to try reinstalling rosetta2 with:
/usr/sbin/softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license

If you give that a try, then try BC4, then throw in a reboot and retry BC4, do either of those trials exhibit better scrolling performance?

[TomasBlaho]

I'm getting some kind of error during update, but it's reported as successful after all. It's visible in my video.
Based on some Apple support post, I was trying to create another user, but got the same error. Performance looks the same.
It's clearly dependant on the window size. Was your window maximised?
https://youtu.be/41dwJPmTj0E

[TomasBlaho]

Btw, in order to get rid of that Rosetta 2 update error, I was also trying to run it in safe mode (another Apple support post) and also a complete deletion and reinstalling of Rosetta 2. The error is still there, but Rosetta 2 was installed after my deletion, so maybe the error is not important.

[Chris]

Beyond Compare 4.4.4 is now available on the download page, it contains official fixes for macOS Ventura 13 drawing bugs.

[alex_pyl]

Hello, I updated long ago macOs to 13.0 and today to 13.2 and the issue still exists. The behavior still the same - slow drawing while scrolling the files.

[Aaron]

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback. We've seen a few different factors in play for some performance hits, and are currently internally testing BC 4.4.5 which has some fixes to address some of these and offer an improvement.

If you drag your window to be a smaller size, not full screen, does that help improve your performance?

[Chris]

BC 4.4.5 is out today, it includes a fix to improve scrolling/display performance on macOS.

[slessard]

Just installed 4.4.5. If the BC4 window is on my MBP's screen scrolling still has quite a bit of lag. If the BC4 window is on my external low DPI screen scrolling is nice and fluid.



ProductName: macOS
ProductVersion: 13.2
BuildVersion: 22D49
Darwin *************** 22.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.3.0: Thu Jan 5 20:48:54 PST 2023; root:xnu-8792.81.2~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 x86_64
Apple M1 Pro



Apple M1 Pro:

Chipset Model: Apple M1 Pro
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
Total Number of Cores: 16
Vendor: Apple (0x106b)
Metal Support: Metal 3

Displays:

Color LCD:

Display Type: Built-in Liquid Retina XDR Display
Resolution: 3456 x 2234 Retina
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Automatically Adjust Brightness: No
Connection Type: Internal

2250W:

Resolution: 1080 x 1920
UI Looks like: 1080 x 1920 @ 60.00Hz
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: 270

2250W:

Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (1080p FHD - Full High Definition)
UI Looks like: 1920 x 1080 @ 60.00Hz
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported

[Aaron]

Thanks. The new changes have a degree of improvement and varies a bit on how bad it was before. We appreciate the detailed hardware breakdown. While still not good enough with your current performance, would you say it's a noticeable improvement from before?

If you re-size/drag the window to be smaller on the internal/bad monitor, do you notice this improves things for you?