4K output from rMBP

nateo200 said:

SO the new Haswell rMBP's explicity state 4K output from their HDMI 1.4 ports....do you think Apple will enable this for our mere mortal Ivy Bridge rMBP's? Would seam like a mean thing to not given the hardware is more than capable...plenty happy with work arounds or 3rd party stuff but native support is always great. Grr only thing I'm mad about is lack of thunderbolt 2 on my Ivy Bridge rMBP...still erks me that they didn't just have Thunderbolt support 20Gbps from the get go especially since Thunderbolt 2 doesnt really add bandwidth rather it couples both 10gbps lanes into one big 20gbps lane. Oh well at least I have two ports. Now to try 8K output! Kidding...

Click to expand...

Yes, Apple enabled this on Ivy Bridge in Mavericks. I can now use my 4K TV at 30 Hz without my patch on my 2012 15" rMBP. However, HiDPI support does not work anymore - it seems that Apple removed HiDPI support for external monitors from Mavericks. I am no longer able to use 1920x1080 HiDPI on my TV. :-(

Source: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17832271/

nateo200 said:

Great! I'm assuming the 650M and 750M are supported obviously? Any issues with Integrated graphics vs discrete? Not like I'd use anything other than discrete graphics for 4K output but still.

Click to expand...

650M is supported. I have not tested 750M, but if it uses the same driver, it should be supported as well.

Integrated vs discrete graphics?
On 13" rMBP, 4K works fine using my patch, driven by Intel graphics.
On 15" rMBP, external displays seem to always be driven by the discrete GPU. I don't think you can drive an external monitor with the integrated GPU.

Tom the MacUser said:

Yes, Apple enabled this on Ivy Bridge in Mavericks. I can now use my 4K TV at 30 Hz without my patch on my 2012 15" rMBP. However, HiDPI support does not work anymore - it seems that Apple removed HiDPI support for external monitors from Mavericks. I am no longer able to use 1920x1080 HiDPI on my TV. :-(

Source: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17832271/



650M is supported. I have not tested 750M, but if it uses the same driver, it should be supported as well.

Integrated vs discrete graphics?
On 13" rMBP, 4K works fine using my patch, driven by Intel graphics.
On 15" rMBP, external displays seem to always be driven by the discrete GPU. I don't think you can drive an external monitor with the integrated GPU.

Click to expand...

Sweet! Super excited! I'm glad I bought the early 2013 rMBP, don't want to pay $2600 just to get a dGPU although I wish I had thunderbolt 2 :-( A shame they got rid of HiDPI....haven't updated to Mavericks yet as I'm afraid itll mess with some of my software support but I might just make the plunge. The 750M should work now that I think about it as its basically the same thing as the 650M just higher clock rate and "newer". With gfxCardStatus you might be able to run external displays with the integrated Intel graphics, you have to force it to stay on integrated and then every program on your computer will only see the integrated graphics until you switch it back to "Dynamic Switching" or "Discrete Only"...I keep it on Discrete or Integrated only since firefox likes to switch the 650M on randomly...maybe itll work to keep external displays on intel graphics? I'd give it a try. I wonder how the GPU's operate when you connect say 3 or 4 displays? Does it divvy up the load among the iGPU and the dGPU or what? I think you could have allot of power if say you let the iGPU run the built in display and one HD display while you let the dGPU run say two 4K displays or something like that...not sure how the GPU's map connections to HDMI and the two thunderbolt/MDP ports.

Tom the MacUser said:

Yes, Apple enabled this on Ivy Bridge in Mavericks. I can now use my 4K TV at 30 Hz without my patch on my 2012 15" rMBP. However, HiDPI support does not work anymore - it seems that Apple removed HiDPI support for external monitors from Mavericks. I am no longer able to use 1920x1080 HiDPI on my TV. :-(

Click to expand...

Tom, which port are you using to output 4K at 30 Hz? I tried using my HDMI port but am only getting 1080P still after upgrading to Mavericks. Apple, on their specs page, states that on the new rMBP (late 2013) 4K output is from the HDMI port and not the thunderbolt port. So which port did you use to get 4K from your early 2013 rMBP? Thanks.

tigdragon said:

Tom, which port are you using to output 4K at 30 Hz? I tried using my HDMI port but am only getting 1080P still after upgrading to Mavericks. Apple, on their specs page, states that on the new rMBP (late 2013) 4K output is from the HDMI port and not the thunderbolt port. So which port did you use to get 4K from your early 2013 rMBP? Thanks.

Click to expand...

Its definitely the HDMI port, although it should work over either thunderbolt port with the proper adapter.

EDIT: Make sure the device supports 4K or play with the settings. Try dialing back the output to 24Hz maybe? If the device has a DisplayPort try using that if you have the cable for it.

nateo200 said:

Its definitely the HDMI port, although it should work over either thunderbolt port with the proper adapter.

EDIT: Make sure the device supports 4K or play with the settings. Try dialing back the output to 24Hz maybe? If the device has a DisplayPort try using that if you have the cable for it.

Click to expand...

Hum, weird, as far I can tell my early 2013 rMBP (15 inch, 2.4 GHz, 650 M) is still limited to HDMI 1.2, i.e. a maximum clock rate of 165 MHz through the HDMI port. I am trying to drive a monitor at 2560 x 1080 at 60 Hz, and it's not letting me through the HDMI port (with SwitchResX, it just says invalid) until I turn it down to around 52 Hz. When connecting to my late 2013 rMBP, it's fine though and drives it at 60 Hz. If it is possible to display 4K through the HDMI port with the early 2013 rMBP though, then Apple must have bumped it up to HDMI 1.4...so did they or didn't they?

tigdragon said:

Hum, weird, as far I can tell my early 2013 rMBP (15 inch, 2.4 GHz, 650 M) is still limited to HDMI 1.2, i.e. a maximum clock rate of 165 MHz through the HDMI port. I am trying to drive a monitor at 2560 x 1080 at 60 Hz, and it's not letting me through the HDMI port (with SwitchResX, it just says invalid) until I turn it down to around 52 Hz. When connecting to my late 2013 rMBP, it's fine though and drives it at 60 Hz. If it is possible to display 4K through the HDMI port with the early 2013 rMBP though, then Apple must have bumped it up to HDMI 1.4...so did they or didn't they?

Click to expand...

HDMI port on the early 2013 rMBP's are all HDMI 1.4a which supports 4K, its probably just a firmware/software glitch....maybe Tom can enlighten us...I have yet to use 4K with my early 2013 15" rMBP with Mavericks as I only use SwitchResX on Mountain Lion (waiting for Mavericks to mature a bit). HDMI 1.2 is a pretty old standard by the way and for the most part these are physical standards meaning you can not just change a port from 1.2 to 1.4 to 2.0, the HDMI ports are all 1.4a on all 2013 models but you know Apple with its restrictions sometimes...

nateo200 said:

HDMI port on the early 2013 rMBP's are all HDMI 1.4a which supports 4K, its probably just a firmware/software glitch....maybe Tom can enlighten us...I have yet to use 4K with my early 2013 15" rMBP with Mavericks as I only use SwitchResX on Mountain Lion (waiting for Mavericks to mature a bit). HDMI 1.2 is a pretty old standard by the way and for the most part these are physical standards meaning you can not just change a port from 1.2 to 1.4 to 2.0, the HDMI ports are all 1.4a on all 2013 models but you know Apple with its restrictions sometimes...

Click to expand...

Yes, agreed. The port itself can definitely support HDMI 1.4 since installing Windows would allow higher resolutions than the 1080P OS X supported previously. It's unclear to me whether Mavericks removed the restrictions on the HDMI port for the early 2013 rMBP to allow 1.4 bandwidth. It seemed like Tom suggested it did, but at least for me, it's still a no go...would appreciate any input on this matter. Apple on their support site only lists late 2013 rMBP as supporting 4K (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6008). The hardware on the early 2013 rMBP can clearly support 4K though, so it would only be a restriction on the software side.

4K support under Mavericks on my 2012 rMBP:

jkg4 said:

4K support under Mavericks on my 2012 rMBP:

Image

Click to expand...

Over HDMI? That'd be awesome. I'm not sure what's up with my config then.

unfrostedpoptar said:

I got this one which looks correct:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DOZHL82



Good to know ahead of time. Now the question is will the Mac with the Accell work for 4k@60Hz when all the TVs switch to HDMI 2 in the coming months.

Click to expand...

I will buy your Accell if you still have I pay you 100 bucks

jkg4 said:

4K support under Mavericks on my 2012 rMBP:

Image

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Oh now those options (ableit capped at 30Hz for Ultra HD and 24Hz for 4K DCI) are making me excited! Honestly I don't expect to need 4K at over 24Hz anytime soon as since movies are 24fps, I can see wanting 48fps+ for general use and gaming though. Still hesitating to jump on Mavericks but this is convincing!

General UI scaling not new...

Most OSes of the past have supported general UI size scaling, all the way back to the mid 1980s. Yes - Apple COULD have done this - it's not rocket science. They chose a simpler solution instead.

As did the recent 4K groups, who chose to use a doubling of Full-HD resolution, rather than movie native 4K (4,096 x 3,072*), ensuring that you will never be able to simply view the original movie, unedited, on your home television.

This is looking backwards, like the HD-DVD standard, where it's more important to show legacy low-resolution images well than existing high-resolution images well. I for one could easily handle a small black border around the screen when watching doubled Blu-Ray movies.

- Jeff

* Vertical resolution of course depends on aspect ratio.

jdiamond said:

Most OSes of the past have supported general UI size scaling, all the way back to the mid 1980s. Yes - Apple COULD have done this - it's not rocket science. They chose a simpler solution instead.

As did the recent 4K groups, who chose to use a doubling of Full-HD resolution, rather than movie native 4K (4,096 x 3,072*), ensuring that you will never be able to simply view the original movie, unedited, on your home television.

This is looking backwards, like the HD-DVD standard, where it's more important to show legacy low-resolution images well than existing high-resolution images well. I for one could easily handle a small black border around the screen when watching doubled Blu-Ray movies.

- Jeff

* Vertical resolution of course depends on aspect ratio.

Click to expand...

The reasons are good.....doubling full-HD means the scaling is clean when viewing 1920x1080 sources on 3840x2160 displays. I would have liked 4096x2160 (1.89:1) but I understand the reasons for it.

4K output on 2013 MBP-r on Seiki Digital SE39UY04 39-Inch

I just ordered a Seiki Digital SE39UY04 39-Inch, plugged in the HDMI and boom, no issues 3840x2160@30Hz. After tweaking the picture settings, it is razor sharp, and the colors look great. I would not think about gaming with it though...3840x2160@24z (@15Hz w/ GoPro Hero 3+) video looks great, but the refresh rate is far to low for some highres gaming...I will stick to my 30" Dell UltraHD (2560x1600@60Hz). Great 4K MONITOR for my MacBook Pro for only $485.

I have been having a little bit of what would appear to be a network delay when browsing the web, but once I remove the external display, everything is back to normal. Not sure if it is just taxing the machine and/or the video card. I haven't had the best of luck period hooking up external displays...even at 1920x1080p, things just seem to start acting weird, but as soon as I unplug the external display (either via HDMI or Thunderbolt) everything runs super fast, like I would expect. I may do some testing on my Dell UltraHD @ 2560x1600 and see if I see the same delay when browsing, and vise versa, hook up the Seiki to my Mac Pro (3.33GHz 6-Core, 16GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB) and see if it handles the higher resolution better.

sneffets said:

I just ordered a Seiki Digital SE39UY04 39-Inch, plugged in the HDMI and boom, no issues 3840x2160@30Hz. After tweaking the picture settings, it is razor sharp, and the colors look great. I would not think about gaming with it though...3840x2160@24z (@15Hz w/ GoPro Hero 3+) video looks great, but the refresh rate is far to low for some highres gaming...I will stick to my 30" Dell UltraHD (2560x1600@60Hz). Great 4K MONITOR for my MacBook Pro for only $485.

I have been having a little bit of what would appear to be a network delay when browsing the web, but once I remove the external display, everything is back to normal. Not sure if it is just taxing the machine and/or the video card. I haven't had the best of luck period hooking up external displays...even at 1920x1080p, things just seem to start acting weird, but as soon as I unplug the external display (either via HDMI or Thunderbolt) everything runs super fast, like I would expect. I may do some testing on my Dell UltraHD @ 2560x1600 and see if I see the same delay when browsing, and vise versa, hook up the Seiki to my Mac Pro (3.33GHz 6-Core, 16GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB) and see if it handles the higher resolution better.

Click to expand...

Looks like the 5870 max resolution is 2560x1600 per the AMD Website...no need to test then.

sneffets said:

I just ordered a Seiki Digital SE39UY04 39-Inch, plugged in the HDMI and boom, no issues 3840x2160@30Hz. After tweaking the picture settings, it is razor sharp, and the colors look great. I would not think about gaming with it though...3840x2160@24z (@15Hz w/ GoPro Hero 3+) video looks great, but the refresh rate is far to low for some highres gaming...I will stick to my 30" Dell UltraHD (2560x1600@60Hz). Great 4K MONITOR for my MacBook Pro for only $485.

I have been having a little bit of what would appear to be a network delay when browsing the web, but once I remove the external display, everything is back to normal. Not sure if it is just taxing the machine and/or the video card. I haven't had the best of luck period hooking up external displays...even at 1920x1080p, things just seem to start acting weird, but as soon as I unplug the external display (either via HDMI or Thunderbolt) everything runs super fast, like I would expect. I may do some testing on my Dell UltraHD @ 2560x1600 and see if I see the same delay when browsing, and vise versa, hook up the Seiki to my Mac Pro (3.33GHz 6-Core, 16GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB) and see if it handles the higher resolution better.

Click to expand...

I had the exact same monitor but returned it. I saw the same problem. It isn't network lag, it's display lag.

My subjective estimate is that the Seiki is about a 1/10 of a second slower than the MBP built in display when running at 4k. I'm not entirely sure why. I think part of it is double buffering @30Hz incurs double the lag penalty than @60Hz. Part of it is probably the monitor itself.

In any case, 1/10 of a second makes the whole system feel sluggish. Operations that would take 1/10 of a second now take twice as long! Adding that extra .1 second to EVERYTHING was just brutal. Especially for mouse movements and scrolling.

If you decide to keep the monitor, I highly recommend getting http://smoothmouse.com/

I think avoids the double buffering on your mouse cursor, making it more responsive. Regardless, it makes your cursor much more responsive on the Seiki. It doesn't help scrolling though.

Some people recommend installing Quartz debug, to turn off beamsync, but I found it barely helped at all while ruining screen animations.

Can anyone 100% confirm that if I buy the 39" 4K Seiki display that I will be able to get 4K resolution at 30hz from my Retina MacBook Pro. My rMBP is the original mid 2012:
2.7GHz i7
16GB Ram
650M card with 1GB Ram
Running Mavericks most up to date release.

Thanks in advance if you can help me know for sure.

I am able to output 3840x2160 @ 30Hz from the HDMI port of my original (2012) MacBook Pro retina to a Seiki 50" Ultra HD display and my Sony 65" UHDTV

Other than the 8GB of ram, I have the same rMBP and Seiki. I can definitely drive 4k x 30hz through the Caldigit thunderbolt station or the Accell active mDP -> HDMI 1.4 adapter. I believe I can also do it through a passive adapter, but don't have one in front of me.

I don't seem to be able to drive it straight out of the macbook's HDMI, though I could have sworn I've done this in the past...

arbitrage said:

Can anyone 100% confirm that if I buy the 39" 4K Seiki display that I will be able to get 4K resolution at 30hz from my Retina MacBook Pro. My rMBP is the original mid 2012:
2.7GHz i7
16GB Ram
650M card with 1GB Ram
Running Mavericks most up to date release.

Thanks in advance if you can help me know for sure.

Click to expand...

arbitrage said:

Can anyone 100% confirm that if I buy the 39" 4K Seiki display that I will be able to get 4K resolution at 30hz from my Retina MacBook Pro. My rMBP is the original mid 2012:
2.7GHz i7
16GB Ram
650M card with 1GB Ram
Running Mavericks most up to date release.

Thanks in advance if you can help me know for sure.

Click to expand...

I just got the Seiki a few days ago and have almost the same laptop (late 2012, 2.6 i7). Works great both directly on the HDMI port and on either TB/MiniDP port with the Accell adapter.

David

seiki 4k with retina 13 mbp ?

Hi, will it works well at 3840 * 2160 with the retina 13"screen (intel 4000 hd graphics) ??

Results with rMBP 13 Late 2012

I have had no luck with the following configuration:

MacBook Pro Retina 13 inch, Late 2012
2.9 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
OSX 10.9.2 (Mavericks)
SwitchResX 4.3.6

Seiki 4K 39" UHDTV (Flashed with firmware for 50" SE50UY04_20130528)

Accell UltraAV Mini DisplayPort 1.1 to HDMI Active Adapter (compliant to HDMI 1.4b)

Notes:
1. Trying to drive display at 3840x2160 @30 Hz, but cannot even get it at much lower refresh rates (e.g. 16 Hz)

2. Initially tried it with OSX 10.8.5, SwitchResX, and overclocking patch (https://code.google.com/p/mac-pixel-clock-patch/wiki/Documentation) -- no luck with or without the patch

3. Then uninstalled SwitchResX and overclocking patch and upgraded to OSX 10.9.2 -- no luck. Maximum resolution that shows up under standard Display control panel is 1080p. Reinstalled SwitchResX -- no luck.

4. The same results are produced regardless of using the HDMI port vs. the Thunderbolt port with the MiniDP to HDMI adapter

5. With SwitchResX, the maximum resolution I can get to display correctly is 2048x1536 @16 Hz (upscaled -- the monitor thinks it is seeing 3840x2160 @16 Hz)

6. Interestingly, occasionally my FileVault unlock screen will appear at full resolution (3840x2160) correctly on the Seiki, but once logged in, it fails. It is hit or miss. The unlock screen also will appear at 1080p sometimes.

7. Here is what the display looks like when trying to drive at 3840x2160 @16 Hz (attached). The image fills up only less than half of the screen on the left side with a strange banding/wraparound pattern. However if I screen capture using Grab, it saves a normal looking 3840x2160 full screen, so that is what it thinks it is outputting. Attempting to drive at faster refresh rates gives nothing at all ("invalid").

8. This machine has no trouble driving a 27" iMac as an external display at 2560x1440 @120Hz (using a MiniDP cable), so the graphics output is much more capable than what is being produced when using the Seiki.

9. A friend with a late 2012 rMBP 15" running Mavericks plugged the HDMI cable into his HDMI port and it worked immediately at 3840x2160 @30Hz, no problem. Very frustrating!

I have run out of ideas of things to try. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: The solution to fixing this particular half-screen corruption problem is to uninstall the pixel overclocking patch and SwitchResX, going to the Display Pref Pane, and turning OFF underscanning. Then reinstall the overclocking patch.