Very high GPU usage on Figma Desktop App

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1

I’ve been experiencing very high GPU usage while using the Figma Desktop App. Upon opening a large file it performs great for 5-10 minutes, after that my GPU starts spiking up to 90% usage in Task Manager. Just holding space bar and moving around the canvas leads to severe lag, application probably runs at around 30ish FPS.

It happens mostly on larger files with a lot of layers and frames. The problem exists only on Figma Desktop App and the Figma Beta App(but the GPU usage spikes are less severe for some reason) I don’t have this problem when using Figma in the browser.

GPU Usage Comparison per app:
Figma Desktop App - 80%-90%
Figma Beta App - 40%-50%
Figma in the Browser - 20%-30%

The exact behavior:

  1. Open big file (nothing crazy around 16 pages with at most 10-12 main frames per page)
  2. Everything runs smooth for like 5-10 minutes.
  3. Application starts lagging, doing basic actions such as moving around the canvas makes my GPU usage go nuts.

Things I’ve tried:

  1. Reinstall the application
  2. Different GPU drivers

System:
Figma Desktop App ver. 116.6.3
Ryzen 1600x
32GB RAM
Radeon RX580 4GB
Windows 10

Problem exists on both the drivers listed below:
Adrenalin 22.11.2 Recommended (WHQL)
AMD Software: PRO Edition 22.Q4 (My current driver, which performs better.)

1 Like
2

I’d suggest you submit a bug report since you’ve run into performance issues which might need further investigation:
https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

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3

@realBobby Do you happen to have Instant Replay/Shadowplay or some kind of recording software for gaming on? I had the same issue as you and turned off NVIDIA’s version of this, and suddenly everything was super smooth.

4

I too have been having the exact same problem! On big files I instantly lag and on smaller files it’s fine for a few mins and then the lagging. The lag makes Figma impossible to use and I can see on task manager my GPU goes to 95% capacity which shouldn’t happen with Figma as I have a RTX 2060. I’ve also tried reinstalling the Figma desktop app and updating my GPU drivers as well as updating Windows but this hasn’t helped. I have a gaming PC with some pretty high specs so this shouldn’t be happening, especially with Figma which is weird.

2 Likes
6

I’m currently in contact with Figma Support and we are trying to troubleshoot it.

Since you are facing the exact same problem as me, but on an NVIDIA card, you should submit a bug report as well:
https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

1 Like
7

I had the same problem.

2 Likes
8

I have the same problem too

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9

I have exactly the same problem for 4 days now. RTX 2070 Super graphics card.

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10

I’m also struggling with unusably bad performance on Desktop and Chrome Version. After couple of minutes up to 100% GPU load and everything is absolutely laggy and unusable for me.

My system:
Ryzen 5700x
GeForce GTX 1650 TI
64 GB of Ram

11

I’ve been in contact with Figma Support for like 10 days now. The issues appears to be affecting mostly Windows users. We did manage to get a slight improvement in performance, at least for me (AMD machine). This is one of the messages I received from Support.

“Our engineering team recently turned off some settings which seemed to be negatively impacting the GPU usage specifically for Windows users. We’re still working to investigate this further …”

I suggest everyone facing this issues to open a ticket and provide Debug and Performance Logs.

12

ugh it’s slowed to a crawl for me. MBP. 16GB RAM.
It seems like its fine on restart but then once I open up Zoom or Blender or VSCode or something else, everything including figma slows.