PC Drivers & Software

[dealio]

Corel Painter 2020 application uses the GPU on a machine to enhance performance. The application has a Brush Accelerator assessor that determines which components (CPU, GPU, memory) meet the minimum requirements to support enhanced performance. My system exceeds the minimum requirements in 3 of 4 categories (CPU cores=6 vs 4 minimum, GPU supports OpenCL 2.0 vs OpenCL 1.2 minimum, memory=24GB vs 8 minimum). My CPU does not support AVX2, which is the 4th area. My GPU is the Radeon Pro WX7100 with BIOS Part Number 113-C9540101-105 (BIOS Version 015.050.000.001) running the 19.Q2.1 driver on Windows 10 x64 (1809) with 24 GB RAM and 1TB SSD system drive, yet the Brush Accelerator reports that it cannot use my GPU for acceleration. This is odd since the WX7100 exceeds the GPU requirement for OpenCL. Anyone have this experience? and a resolution? Trying to determine if this is a application issue or GPU issue or something else.

TIA,

David

[dealio]

The 19.Q3 release of the Radeon Pro driver seems to have something in it that makes Painter 20/20 now at least recognize that the WX7100 is present and supports OpenCL 1.2. However, for some reason, it won't use it. Anyone have similar (or different) experience?

[justshootme2]

I have exactly the issue that dealio describes. The performance test on Painter 2020 shows the GPU supports OpenCL 1.2, but lists it as "not used." I'm going to put in a support ticket to Corel, and I will post the results here if any.

[dealio]

It will be interesting to see what Corel says. At the time of the post above, I checked the Corel forums and no one had mentioned an issue with Painter 20/20 and the Brush Accelerator (name of the Corel in-app tool that assesses performance potential of the computer). But since with the 19.Q2.1 driver the Accelerator didn't recognize the WX7100 and with the 19.Q3 driver it does recognize the GPU (even though the app won't use it), it may be driver-related.

[dealio]

justshootme2‌ did you get anywhere with Corel? Just curious what they said. I also have tried 19.Q3.1 and get no better result.

[justshootme2]

Attached are screenshots. In my case, OpenCL 1.2 is used by the integrated Intel graphics, but not by the discrete AMD Radeon card. The integrated card is running Painter 2020 more than 5X faster than the “fast” card. I use a 4 year old Dell laptop, but it's pretty damn fast, even when rendering from SolidWorks. But painter refuses to use the fast graphics card? This doesn't seem right. I have submitted a ticket.

Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10

[justshootme2]

Just a note, I just submitted the ticket. I got busy and just haven't had the time, and Painter is actually working well using the Intel integrated graphics; I was just having problems with the AMD discrete graphics card.

[fortesque]

I did a similar test with my older Dell precision which runs on a firepro M6100 (which I believe is based on a radeon 7870) and on my Wacom msp 16 (which has a quadro m1000m) and had similar results, whereas my vega card is not even properly recognized. Sent another ticket to Corel's support but they just dismissed it by stating again that the card isn't fast enough to cope with the cpu, which obviously is not true.

At this point I'm guessing they just forgot to add support to newer generations of AMD products.

[fortesque]

Im having the same issue on my RX Vega 64. (19.8.2 drivers)

The software recognizes the card as AMD accelerated parallel processing gfx901 and wont use it to accelerate brushes.
I did a test on my old laptop which features a firepro M6100 and everything is working fine and the card is recognized properly.

I sent a mail to the corel support and they answered that the gpu is not in use because the cpu (ryzen 7 1700) is faster than the gpu at openCL workloads (which sounds weird).

[dealio]

One way that could be accurate is if the driver for the RX Vega is not efficient in its implementation of OpenCL. In that case,  Corel's Accelerator might determine that the CPU is faster than the GPU, and then ignore the GPU.

[justshootme2]

I did get a response from Corel Support, but it is not helpful at all--just links to instructions on how to test my performance, and how to optimize the settings. If they had actually looked at the screenshots I sent, they would have seen that I have become an expert at using the settings, because I've been in there so much lately. Here is what I got back from Corel:

"

Anansiya Sebastian (Corel)

Sep 25, 01:44 EDT

Hello Dixon, Thank you for contacting Corel Customer Support. My name is Anansiya and I have been assigned to your ticket. I appreciate you for bringing the query to us. In regards to your query, I request you to follow link to fix the issue. Link 1: http://product.corel.com/help/Painter/540219480/Main/EN/Win-Documentation/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html... Link 2: https://support.corel.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025425073-Painter-2020-Tuning-GPU-settings-for-optima... Looking forward for your response. Have a great day! Regards, Anansiya Corel Customer Support Services"

And here is my response to Corel support:

"Hi Anansiya,

Actually, as a long-time IT tech, I know how to use the performance settings, and how to rate the performance of my pc pertaining to the GPU acceleration. This is how I obtained the attached screen shots, which clearly show that I have done all of this tweaking in the settings. Please examine the screen shots carefully, and pay particular attention to the AMD Radeon test graphic, where the OpenCL 1.2 graph is greyed out.

My issue is that Painter 2020 will not use the OpenCL 1.2 that is available in my fast discrete graphics card for acceleration, even though the application acknowledges it is available. The Painter 2020 app will, however, use the OpenCL 1.2 component of my slower Intel integrated graphics card for brush acceleration.

My question is, how do I get Painter 2020 to use my discrete (and much faster) AMD Radeon card’s available OpenCL1.2 module for brush acceleration? And why is it refusing to use it? I know how to set Painter to use that card in the settings—but it seems Painter does not want to use it to my advantage.

Hope this makes sense?"

Thanks

Dixon

[dealio]

Typical response from tech companies these days. Avoid analyzing the data that you sent or replying with a thoughtful response; perhaps because it is beyond the skillset of the tech support person, or maybe because of a customer service protocol that's apparently designed to frustrate knowledgeable customers rather than resolve any problem. So instead they send you detailed instructions on how to do the obvious, or worse, useless elementary tasks that neither resolve the issue nor shed any light on potential next steps for troubleshooting. And never do they even speak of root cause so that you might learn how to prevent the problem permanently. Their simple goal is to get your ticket closed. Period. This is definitely true for Corel's technical support. Pardon my rant. I have had too much experience with Corel's tech support, but I know they aren't alone and other companies are just as bad. BenQ was even worse and in my experience AMD's formal tech support process wasn't much better. It was only when I came to these informal forums that I got good information from AMD personnel that resolved the 10bpc issue.

I hope you get a useful response to your sensible question.

[justshootme2]

I just got this last night from Corel, and have sent them the two files that they asked for. I'll keep you updated.

Anansiya Sebastian (Corel) Sep 26, 20:18 EDT Hello, Thank you for contacting Corel Technical Support. In order to properly assess the circumstances at hand, I require a copy of your MSINFO32 report and a WinAudit report from your Windows OS. To start, please visit the link below: WinAudit http://www.parmavex.co.uk/WinAudit.zip Once the WinAudit.exe file was successfully downloaded, please follow these steps: 1.    Double click on the WinAudit.exe file. 2.    Wait for a few minutes for the audit program to completely scan your system. NOTE: You'll know it's done when the Audit button at the upper left portion turned from red to grey. 1.    Click on File > Save and proceed to save the .HTML file to your desktop. 2.    Please send the resulting file to us by attaching it on your reply. To generate the MSINFO32 report, please do the following: 1.    Press Windows Key + R. The Windows key is located between the Ctrl and Alt keys. 2.    Type msinfo32 and click OK. 3.    While viewing the System Summary node go to File then Save (Please do not use Export). 4.    Save your MSINFO32 report as msinfo32.nfo on your desktop for easy access (you may delete the file once you have attached it to support case and submitted the case). 5.    Send the file as an attachment on your reply. I appreciate your patience and understanding. Regards, Anansiya Sebastian Corel Customer Support Services

[dealio]

justshootme2‌ Wondering if you got an answer from Corel.

[j---]

Any luck finding a fix for this?

I built a new PC for my dad and he's having the same issue with an Rx 580. Corel doesn't seem to want to admit there is a problem.

This was the response he got from Corel support after submitting the MSINFO32 & Winaudit info they asked for:

"I looked up the benchmarks on both the CPU and GPU by a very small margin the CPU is more powerful, therefore the GPU will not be used as an acceleration method in Painter."

I'm not a Painter user myself but I installed the trial to test on my own system and from what I can tell the GPU should add on to your performance score rather than not be counted at all.

[dealio]

No, I have not had any luck fixing this issue. But I've done a little more testing with Corel software since having the issue. I use CorelDRAW as well, and it has a user-selectable option to use the GPU in the Options panel. When I check this option, CorelDRAW is syrupy slow in dragging vector options across a blank canvas -- an action that takes seconds to do and which it does with no delay when the GPU option is off. In addition, Copy&Paste and Print operations take minutes to complete even for the simplest vector objects (e.g. rectangle with NO fill). So it makes me question if Corel's developers know how to use the GPU or if there is a universal issue with the way the graphics driver uses the GPU. Hard to say. For instance, Photoshop also has an option to use the GPU. However, I have devised no test to determine if its performance is better or worse with the option enabled. If I had such a test, then the results of the test would likely help make a determination on where the issue is -- in the driver, or in the Corel software. Atm I think it is a Corel issue, as you stated.