Need help to kill smooth scrolling in Chrome

S

shznit

macrumors member

Original poster

Apr 4, 2010

84

1

• Nov 14, 2012

• #1

So Mountain Lion removed the toggle for smooth scrolling in System Preferences, General. I just found out today when I purchased a 13" rMPB and wanted to kill it so I could scroll lag-free with spacebar in Chrome. I googled the issue and found the following commands:

defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool NO
defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false

They worked, but only in Safari. I'm looking for someone who knows OSX better than I to help me figure this out. I know there has to be a way because I also bought a MacBook Air a few months ago with Lion on it and immediately unchecked smooth scrolling. After updating to Mountain Lion, the setting stuck and smooth scrolling is still disabled in Chrome exactly like in Safari, so the setting must be somewhere.

 

Last edited: Nov 24, 2013

S

shznit

macrumors member

Original poster

Apr 4, 2010

84

1

• Nov 15, 2012

• #2

many smart people here, nobody knows?

 

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5

Jun 6, 2003

12,110

77

Solon, OH

• Nov 16, 2012

• #3

shznit said:

many smart people here, nobody knows?

Click to expand...

Try this, to force Chrome to re-read the settings: Click the wrench (21-) or three bars icon (22+) and open the Settings. Click Show advanced settings. Add a new user. Set this new user as the default user. Restart Chrome, and set up sync again if need be. If the problem is now gone, delete the old user. Otherwise, set the old user as the default, restart Chrome again, and try something else.

 

Simplicated

macrumors 65816

Sep 20, 2008

1,422

254

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

• Nov 16, 2012

• #4

Interestingly, it works in Chrome 23, but not in my Safari.

 

C

colloc

macrumors member

Jul 27, 2012

87

0

• Nov 16, 2012

• #5

shznit said:

So Mountain Lion removed the toggle for smooth scrolling in System Preferences, General. I just found out today when I purchased a 13" rMPB and wanted to kill it so I could scroll lag-free with spacebar in Chrome. I googled the issue and found the following commands:

defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool NO
defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool false

They worked, but only in Safari. I'm looking for someone who knows OSX better than I to help me figure this out. I know there has to be a way because I also bought a MacBook Air a few months ago with Lion on it and immediately unchecked smooth scrolling. After updating to Mountain Lion, the setting stuck and smooth scrolling is still disabled in Chrome exactly like in Safari, so the setting must be somewhere.

Click to expand...

Do you experience lags on your rMBP?

 

S

shznit

macrumors member

Original poster

Apr 4, 2010

84

1

• Nov 17, 2012

• #6

colloc said:

Do you experience lags on your rMBP?

Click to expand...

here and there. Chrome definitely lags on some sites more than Safari, but it's not a deal breaker. The screen is so awesome that I can overlook the occasional lag.

That said, tapping spacebar quickly scrolls down a whole page and if it's not smooth it really annoys me (even when it's smooth the blur is annoying), not to mention it ramps up the cpu wasting battery, which is why I always disable smooth no matter what pc I'm using.

wrldwzrd89 said:

Try this, to force Chrome to re-read the settings: Click the wrench (21-) or three bars icon (22+) and open the Settings. Click Show advanced settings. Add a new user. Set this new user as the default user. Restart Chrome, and set up sync again if need be. If the problem is now gone, delete the old user. Otherwise, set the old user as the default, restart Chrome again, and try something else.

Click to expand...

didn't work. I wonder why the setting stuck when I unchecked smooth scrolling 10.7 before upgrading to 10.8. Taking these toggles away is just ridiculous.

 

Last edited: Nov 17, 2012

S

shznit

macrumors member

Original poster

Apr 4, 2010

84

1

• Feb 17, 2013

• #7

resurrecting this thread in hopes of a solution.

 

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5

Jun 6, 2003

12,110

77

Solon, OH

• Feb 17, 2013

• #8

Looks like newer versions of Chrome honor the smooth scrolling system setting (that also affects Safari). Disabling this ought to do the trick.

 

M

maxosx

macrumors 68020

Dec 13, 2012

2,385

1

Southern California

• Feb 17, 2013

• #9

I've had great experiences with the latest rev of Chrome on my 15" MBP r. Same for Firefox. Only Safari is a bit irratic, a problem Apple's sure to address.

 

S

shznit

macrumors member

Original poster

Apr 4, 2010

84

1

• Feb 17, 2013

• #10

wrldwzrd89 said:

Looks like newer versions of Chrome honor the smooth scrolling system setting (that also affects Safari). Disabling this ought to do the trick.

Click to expand...

I am running the newest version of the dev channel and smooth scrolling is still enabled despite the terminal command. I tried uninstalling and re-installing (I deleted every chrome-related file I could find) but still no dice.

Are you saying that when you press spacebar in chrome it doesn't smooth scroll for you?

 

wrldwzrd89

macrumors G5

Jun 6, 2003

12,110

77

Solon, OH

• Feb 17, 2013

• #11

shznit said:

I am running the newest version of the dev channel and smooth scrolling is still enabled despite the terminal command. I tried uninstalling and re-installing (I deleted every chrome-related file I could find) but still no dice.

Are you saying that when you press spacebar in chrome it doesn't smooth scroll for you?

Click to expand...

I never tried spacebar-scrolling until you mentioned it

 

S

shznit

macrumors member

Original poster

Apr 4, 2010

84

1

• Feb 17, 2013

• #12

wrldwzrd89 said:

I never tried spacebar-scrolling until you mentioned it

Click to expand...

Try it in Safari and Chrome if you don't mind. My eyes are trying to focus on the blurry text while it's moving and it leads to strain. With smooth scrolling disabled the next page appears immediately.

 

Last edited: Feb 17, 2013

johnsawyercjs

macrumors regular

Feb 27, 2007

117

36

• Nov 14, 2013

• #13

I know this is an old thread, but here's the official word on this from Google, at https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=102099:

"Smooth scrolling isn't quite there yet on windows and linux, which is why it's [an option] on about:flags. It's fully functional on mac, which is why it's on by default." [and which is why they no longer include a flag to turn it off]

They also say that Chrome honors the system default for smooth scrolling, but starting with Mountain Lion, OS X no longer has a prefpane setting to turn off smooth scrolling, and the command line method to turn it off (defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool NO) doesn't have any effect on Chrome, because Chrome uses its own smooth scrolling code.

 

S

shznit

macrumors member

Original poster

Apr 4, 2010

84

1

• Nov 24, 2013

• #14

No worries, I was actually going to post an update. I finally figured out how to kill it!

I ran the terminal command on a fresh installation of Mavericks beta and final before installing Chrome and rebooted. Then I installed Chrome and smooth scroll was gone.