GIMP 2.8 on Windows

I use GIMP 2.6 on my work computer (low-end c. 2006 Athlon dual-core desktop, XP, 1GB RAM) and everything runs just dandy. I just installed GIMP 2.8 on my Envy 14 (specs in sig), and I'm having a very poor user experience. It uses about 15% of the CPU, but the user experience is really jerky. Is 2.8 a significantly worse performer than 2.6, or is there something holding back my Envy 14 from a smooth GIMP experience?

Edit: This is very basic work - selecting by color, using the eraser and paintbrush tools, etc. with files under 10kb.

 

Is it possible that as the GIMP site says by omission W7 is not supported? I know it could just be an oversight but it lists XP/Vista. I assume all other standard apps work fine so not obvious component issue.

Run in compatibility mode for XP or Vista? I am just guessing.

 

Seemed like a long shot, but I gave it a chance anyway. Strangely, the dropdown menu only allowed compatibility mode for Server 2008, Vista (and service packs 1 and 2), and 7 - no XP or earlier. Consequence of installing to the 64-bit Program Files folder, maybe? Whatever the reason, Vista compatibility mode introduced some ghosting when scrolling horizontally but did nothing else to the performance. I only have another 5-10 minutes for this session, so it can be lived with, but it's still pretty vexing.

 

I've used GIMP 2.8 lightly on the desktop in my sig, and it seemed just as responsive as previous versions to me. Although for me, the previous version that I'd used the most was 2.4, not 2.6. Granted, the CPU and GPU are more powerful in my desktop than in your Envy, but not that much more powerful.

I was using it to do stuff like blow up images and reduce them to lower bit depths of colors, as well as some color selecting, with files of 1 MP to a bit over 100 MP. Some of the operations did take awhile on the 100 MP resolution, but not noticeably longer than with 2.4.

I'd test out a few more things like the eraser for you but I'm on my laptop with the desktop not set up, and the laptop only has 2.4 installed.

Although I do run XP (x64) on my desktop. So I can't rule out the possibility that for some reason it doesn't like 7. Would seem odd for it to support Vista but have issues on 7, though.

 

I'm running GIMP 2.8 on my T500 (W7 x64) with no performance issues whatsoever, and it's a generation behind your laptop. Did you install the GTK package bundled with GIMP, or is it a separate installation?

 

I installed the 2.8.4 version; did a custom installation with only localization (languages) unchecked from the basic installation parameters. There's a 0.1MB GTK for Windows element in the installer, though there's no separate GTK entry in my system's program listing, as I believe there is on my work computer. There are a couple GTK 2.0 directories in the GIMP folder as well, so although I didn't separately install any GTK package (there's nothing on the GIMP download page that I can find), I suspect it was part of the original installation.

I rarely do GIMP work on my laptop, and it worked well enough to do what I needed, so I might just leave it alone. If it continues to bother me I suppose reinstallation and searching a GIMP-specific forum will be my next steps.