Mac GUI is still painfully slow at times when dragging events up and down in the Project Window, scrolling in the mixer, and other things. If it’s not going to be addressed further then I’m going to Windows which is an expensive and big transition, so I’d like to know if it’s still being worked on. Can someone from Steinberg please please please answer this question?
Awesome. Thanks. 
Did you get an answer from Steinberg?
They haven’t answered my last two support requests, saying in emails that they’re super busy and will get back to me – it’s been four weeks since I sent the last one. It’s awesome.
What was the request?
I asked the same question I asked at the top of this thread, also about the crashes quite a few people are getting when loading really big sessions back-to-back, both of which have been discussed here already.
If you don’t mind me asking, what happens exactly when you do the things you described in your original post? Does Cubase get choppy or have a huge delay when you’re dragging or scrolling?
I’m asking because I’m using CB 9.5.21 on a trash can Mac Pro as well and I don’t experience what you are describing running a 2000+ template. The same template was pretty smooth on my old 2010 Mac Pro using 9.5 as well.
I am by no means trying to discredit your concerns and frustration with Cubase at all. I know Cubase 9 was suuuuuuuper slow and laggy on a Mac (so bad that I didn’t use CB 9 for an entire year until 9.5 was released). However, 9.5 has felt much better on a Mac for me. Though, I do agree that it is definitely not as smooth as 8.5 and earlier.
So my point in all of this is have you tried disabling or removing plugins or other applications running behind Cubase to see if that’s what is causing it? Or tried opening an empty project in CB and testing things out? Maybe remove your preferences or start CB in safe mode? Or could it possibly be your audio drivers? Have you tried using a different audio interface? Maybe turning up your audio buffer? Or what about a different display monitor? If you have your monitor(s) plugged in via Thunderbolt, have you tried different ports? I’m just throwing things out that may or may not help. 
For me it’s mainly sluggish UI in general. Cubase 9.5 have been super stable apart from that and have not crashed on me yet.
It’s generally slower compared to Windows, but the parts that are excessively so are the ones I mentioned in the first post, and in those cases the GUI is jerky or slow to respond, also things like dropouts when opening the piano roll MIDI editor in very CPU-heavy projects. There are a few Mac users who for some reason never experienced these things, but the problem has been worked on a lot by Steinberg and I’m just hoping that more work is happening. Or perhaps they can find out why it’s not an issue on certain Macs. 9.5 is hugely better than 9, of that there is no doubt, but they still have work to do to get it to the level of Windows.
I’ve tried most of your suggestions except for a few: a different audio interface isn’t possible to try (the Apollo 8 is the only one I have). The audio buffer size has no effect on it, and I don’t have any other monitors to try out, unfortunately. I’ve tried different ports, though. Going through plugins one-by-one is something I can try when I have a lot of time. Thanks for the suggestions though – I wish I had a better experience.
Yes, I agree that there’s issues in Cubase that some users experience and some don’t. I’ve been trying to get Steinberg to fix Retrospective Record for years now (they messed it up with 7.5.30) and they tell me they can’t reproduce the issue, yet there’s been a handful of users who have experienced the same thing.
I also agree that 9.5 is better on the GUI but still not as good as it used to be in versions prior to 9. Are you testing CB on Windows yourself or just from what others have said? If you’re doing it yourself, is it on your Mac Pro?
Concerning your audio interface, you can try setting your audio to the Built In Audio that MacOS provides. I know it might mess up your inputs/outputs/buses, so make sure to save your settings for your Apollo in the Audio Connections window first, and obviously duplicate your project file or something so that you don’t mess things up. Maybe zip your preferences as well just to back them up. Anyway, that’s an audio device you could at least try.
As for the display monitor, do you have it plugged in via thunderbolt or HDMI? If it’s the latter, you could try using a TV to substitute as a screen. Or, maybe if you know someone with a display you can borrow? As for myself, I’m using three displays all plugged in via thunderbolt and things seem fine. Although, my displays are older Apple and Dell LCDs, so maybe that could be a reason my system isn’t as laggy. I’m not sure exactly.
I think maybe peoples expectations are different when it comes to lag.
Check out Logic if you want to see a GUI that reacts like it should on a modern mac - everything just whizzes around the screen.
One of my biggest hair pulling issues is when swapping tools via right click - half the time you end up with the wrong one because the selection highlight is way slower the pointer. Drives me nuts.
Dropouts when opening and closing midi / drum editors is relatively recent - this never happened until the last couple of versions.
Closing sessions has become a problem in 9.5 - some can take 10-15 seconds or more now.
Meters are pretty slow when I open the mix window on a separate screen - makes them pretty much useless.
This is 2018. 4K games running at 60 frames a second is run of the mill. The Cubase arrange page with its - lets be honest, pretty simple graphics should be way better than it is.
I agree with everything you said
After reading your post, now that I think about it, I am experiencing the lag in the MIDI editors and when using the tools/mixer. I think I must have gotten so used to how it performs that I stopped noticing it. But thinking about how the same functions perform in Logic, it is much smoother and quicker (in Logic).
I’ve seen/used C 9.5 on Windows with other composer friends of mine, and it is very noticeably faster and more precise-feeling (though many say that Macs feel a bit slower/“blurrier” overall with the GUI). In Cubase, as you know, it’s more than that. I’m having the issue on both my Mac Pro and my MacBook Pro.
I’ll try the audio device suggestion --though the Apollo 8 is so badass and was a lot of $$, so I shouldn’t need to but another one just for Cubase if that’s the issue (though I’m pretty sure it isn’t given the broad range of interfaces that other users had when I first got Steinberg’s attention on the matter here on the forum a couple of years ago).
I have both monitors on Thunderbolt (both with HDMI adaptors). The MacBook Pro is just using its own screen.
Thanks for the suggestions, again – I’ll look into them more. I do feel that this is mostly on Steinberg though, given the history of this issue and wide breadth of users who experienced it/are experiencing it. I have a feeling you and I have the same GUI speed overall at this point, since we have the same history with it throughout the different versions.
Is these all retina screen related problems. I don’t notice any lag with my hackintosh(never have actually with this machine) and one screen via hdmi behind it. Might influence future screen upgrade plans.
No retina screen on the Mac I mostly use (Mac Pro). I remember when I helped get this attended to in the first place, the very large amount of people responding with the issue were both retina and non-retina users. Another guy on a Hackintosh had no issues, though, interestingly. But no one should have to buy, assemble and deal with a Hackintosh just to get the Cubase GUI working properly, of course.
I just demo’d Logic for the hell of it – good gawd, it’s so fast and instant with the GUI, and so was Studio One when I tried it a while back. Same with Pro Tools, which is use regularly in my work with post houses. Cubendo really needs to get up to par with every other DAW on Mac with this GUI issue, it’s still really falling behind.
For some reason, the size of the main Cubase window also influences the GUI speed. On my 4k monitor, if I make the main window really small, everything is much faster. When the window fills the screen it becomes laggier. I’m on Cubase 9.5, OSX El Capitan.
I’m on a Hackintosh and have the same laggy GUI issues you are having. This thing is really fast and Cubase (+an older version of Audition) is the only laggy software on my computer.
So it applies for every kind of Mac, it seems. It’s worth repeating over and over and over again, as you said: This does NOT happen on any other DAW on the exact same Mac – not one. A long time ago Pro Tools had this issue and they fixed it completely very fast. There is little to no communication from Steinberg on this forum in general with heavy ongoing issues like this, and customer support most often has no response either. So awesome.
I really hope more improvements are coming, I upgraded to Cubase 9.5 specifically for this issue and it has not been totally fixed. Logic and Reaper and other DAWs are super smooth over here.