Experiencing massive lag (mainly with moving layers, scrolling through UI, using certain transform tools and any of the drawing tools)
Environment/Versions
- GIMP version number: GIMP 3.06 and 3.2.0-RC2 (any GIMP 3 version)
- Package: Installer from gimp.org
- Operating System: Windows 11 Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621
Description of the bug
Very slow performance that is visible before even opening an XCF file
Most scrolling menus/dialogs lag (some being layers, paint dynamics, palettes, fonts, gradients but NOT brushes and patterns, brushes and patterns don't have any lag issues)
If the menus that do lag are changed to a very short height they will scroll smoothly
Moving layers as well as multiple transform tools (the standalone shear and rotate tools don't seem to be too bad though?)
2026-01-20 22-48-18.mp4
All of the drawing tools lagging (although not as extreme as the previous two)
Next are some additional notes via my own observations and discussion with Liam about the issue
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My PC performance is completely fine, I'm not noticing any abnormities in my CPU/Memory/GPU/etc. usage
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There are no abnormities in my dashboard (I'm told "swap" is a common culprit
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The project file demonstrated in the videos is not important, it is a bit big but the lag occurs no matter what
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I do not have NVIDIA shadowplay nor game capture enabled, additionally I have tried disabling Discord hardware acceleration as well as just closing Discord entirely
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This issue is exclusive to GIMP 3.0+, I do not experience this issue on older stable versions of GIMP, nor do I experience it on GIMP 2.99 versions, nor other programs like Inkscape (was recommended to check)
Reproduction
Is the bug reproducible? No, it is just always active.
Additional Information
Performance log of scrolling up and down in the "layers" dialog
gimp-performance-20260121T041115Z.log
Performance log of moving a layer around
gimp-performance-20260121T040801Z.log
Here are some of my PC specifications (although I'm unsure of how relevant it is)
