Hello, I just bought a brand new MacBook Pro 16" i9 8-core 2.3 Ghz with a Radeon5500 graphics card specifically to work with Sketchup Pro.
It has Mac OS Catalina installed so I checked if I have the latest version of Sketchup, i.e. 19.3.
I started with a trial to test some of my previous designs I made in Sketchup Make 2017 in my previous (simple Lenovo i5) laptop.
Stangely enough, the Mac is really slow when I for instance download from the warehouse. Or it doesn’t download at all! The paint bucket is also not very responsive. Sometimes I need to click 5 times.
I already changed the OpenGL settings twice but it doesn’t make any difference.
What am I doing wrong?
Because I thought I had the perfect computer for Sketchup Pro.
The specs should be more than enough.
my network is not the issue, works just fine. Paintbucket is more complex since I started using a MacBook and if I want to change a colour in one part of a furniture item for instance it takes me 4x double clicking before there is a response. Also scrolling up and down in the colours or materials is slow or none responsive. I have to learn to deal with a Mac/sketchup combi, but this should work properly you would think…
Also picking a colour to change a tone is not so easy. Sometimes I need to click 3 or 4x on any in model colour before I can edit a colour and when I check in to my colour wheel so I can change the tone it stays on the grey scale. with my old Lenovo this was all very fast and easy.
That certainly should be a more-than-adequate computer for SketchUp, so something is wrong. Since I have been pondering an update to my 7 year old MBP, I’m interested in how this sorts out. FWIW I don’t think it is Catalina or SketchUp 2019.3 per se, as I am running that combination without these kinds of problems.
Have you examined the Activity Monitor to see whether something is gobbling up unreasonable amounts of CPU, memory, or network bandwidth? Sometimes on a new computer there are initial tasks such as indexing for Spotlight that bog things down for a while. A runaway app could potentially book so much memory that everything slows to a crawl (when my Space Navigator goes amok, that happens).
Are other apps behaving normally, or are they either slow or having glitchy click responses too?
Yes, your Mac should not have no problem with SU so something else is wrong. Others run the same combo no problem (as said). Does it exhibit these qualities on a blank file or are you opening a large file? I’m also curious about background process like rebuilding mailboxes or iTunes library activity.
SketchUp material application on the Mac is terrible. If there were another way to apply textures I would use that. That is pretty much my experience, as you describe. It is the slowest feature of a slow program (that I use regardless).
Unfortunately I bought a new MBP last year. I took it back before the month was up.
Huh, I agree that the materials editor in Mac could be redesigned, but speed is not a problem for me, everything works clean and crisp. The symptoms the OP is describing are not normal in my opinion.
@maaike are you using a space mouse? Does activity monitor tell you anything about background processes?
@endlessfix, I am opening a large file that I built in my windows/SU make 2017 version, maybe here could be a problem. I can try to save it in this laptop with SU pro and then try to open again. I am using a Magic Mouse 2 and in the activity monitor there is not more than 15% at once in use as far as I can see. @John, helpful! But I can see you have more options in your paint bucket than I have. And my problem is more to get in a downloaded warehouse item and change a colour scale. This takes much more time now using MBP. @pbacot, I hope I will figure it out soon. I still have time to return the laptop, but I love it so much I don’t want to do this! @slbaumgartner, CPU, memory or network doesn’t look like unreasonable.
Also I’m wondering if MBP has a preference for certain wifi network bands? Mine has a choice of 2.4 Ghz or 5.0 Ghz.
meanwhile I did open the file again on MBP in SU pro and still the same problem! Downloading from the warehouse doesn’t work or is really slow. I also did a speedtest and this is the result:
PING ms-13
DOWNLOAD Mbps-251.21
UPLOAD Mbps-24.96
Only thing left I can think of could be the wifi network bands choice…
Did you save the file before closing it? I seem to remember reading here that when moving a file from PC to Mac, first time opening it takes much longer than after it has been saved.
What is change a color scale? 5ghz can Cary more data and might be faster but the speed you posted for 2.4 should be plenty fast. Still, it sounds like a network issue, keep activity monitor open to the network tab during a download to see the data speed you are actually getting, Sometimes the warehouse is limited by the speed of their servers. Are you seeing the loading progress bar during the slowdown? Or does the progress bar go by quick then the downloaded object take a long time to show up? Don’t give up, many of us use SU on Mac and the speed is fine.
@endlessfix, I did download from the warehouse with my activity monitor open at network and it turns red and says sketchup(not available).
By changing a colour scale, I mean making an existing colour/material (wood) darker or lighter in a dining table or some kind. This takes a lot of time and when I can finely edit colour the colour wheel starts at white and not with the colour I selected. With my Lenovo this took me only a few seconds and now with MBP it takes me minutes…I’m not sure if this is because I just need to learn all over again how to work with SU or because it’s not working properly. I feel like I’m a beginner again. @Anssi, Yes I did first save it.
That sounds a lot like a network issue. Do you have a firewall, proxy, or VPN? If you look at the advanced panel in System Preferences->Network for the active interface, what does it show on the DNS tab?
It seems to be related with dragging a file or component in the work area. High spec machines are affected , so it seems,
They are working on a solution, hopefully, with the next maintenance it will be fixed.
