Retina Problem with iTunes

[superpalmtree]

Anyone else with the Retina Macbook Pro have the computer get very slow and unresponsive if you have iTunes in full screen mode with the visualizer on? I'm using Mission Control and have iTunes in one window, anytime I enable visualizer everything goes to a crawl....

[geneilie]

Same here. If I enable the visualizer the excel or any other app is unusable

[superpalmtree]

Thanks for the reply. I can't believe we're alone with this problem?

[geneilie]

I did some tests on the Retina MBP in the store. I tested 2 of them and all have the same issue. I am not sure if this is generally applicable, but what I've done was to change the setting to Scaled -More Space. In that case the other apps are getting to be extremely slow.
Is this is a retina display downside? Seems crazy that iTunes can slow it down so much.

Try another thing as well:
- change to scaled - more space
- energy saving > uncheck the "Automatic graphics switching"
- try to take a screenshot with Shift-Command4 - just move the cross on the screen - you will also notice that it is not that smooth.

[superpalmtree]

Originally Posted by geneilie

I did some tests on the Retina MBP in the store. I tested 2 of them and all have the same issue. I am not sure if this is generally applicable, but what I've done was to change the setting to Scaled -More Space. In that case the other apps are getting to be extremely slow.
Is this is a retina display downside? Seems crazy that iTunes can slow it down so much.

Try another thing as well:
- change to scaled - more space
- energy saving > uncheck the "Automatic graphics switching"
- try to take a screenshot with Shift-Command4 - just move the cross on the screen - you will also notice that it is not that smooth.

Thanks!

I did actually have all your recommended things tweaked already on my system. The screen shot lag is very annoying for me as I use it often! What in the world is up with this? My only guess is the Retina Resolution with the GPU, something isn't right. Do some Retina Macbook's not experience this?

[sectime]

Originally Posted by geneilie

I did some tests on the Retina MBP in the store. I tested 2 of them and all have the same issue. I am not sure if this is generally applicable, but what I've done was to change the setting to Scaled -More Space. In that case the other apps are getting to be extremely slow.
Is this is a retina display downside? Seems crazy that iTunes can slow it down so much.

Try another thing as well:
- change to scaled - more space
- energy saving > uncheck the "Automatic graphics switching"
- try to take a screenshot with Shift-Command4 - just move the cross on the screen - you will also notice that it is not that smooth.

With graphic switching off aren't you running on the 4000 built in only? Made it into a 13 rMBP

[superpalmtree]

Originally Posted by sectime

With graphic switching off aren't you running on the 4000 built in only? Made it into a 13 rMBP

I am using this utility that switches GPU auto.
http://gfx.io

[Rhinoevans]

Shocked! Software issues with the new Retina display!

[tillsbury]

Not entirely sure this is a massive issue, is it? The visualiser is pretty heavy duty in its display of graphics, and fullscreen in scaled you're doing it at the maximum resolution possible. I doubt if the visualiser is heavily optimised, so you're probably running doggy old code too. Why would you (a) be surprised or (b) ever want to run excel or something else with a *full screen* visualiser running *behind* your main window?

[cstm]

i tried it, performed as normal. maybe I missed something?

[superpalmtree]

Originally Posted by tillsbury

Not entirely sure this is a massive issue, is it? The visualiser is pretty heavy duty in its display of graphics, and fullscreen in scaled you're doing it at the maximum resolution possible. I doubt if the visualiser is heavily optimised, so you're probably running doggy old code too. Why would you (a) be surprised or (b) ever want to run excel or something else with a *full screen* visualiser running *behind* your main window?

well it's not just the visualizer - the screen shot lags too, and facebook for me is laggy on scrolling. just seems a system of this caliber should be smooth but maybe i expect to much.

[epigenome]

Originally Posted by tillsbury

Not entirely sure this is a massive issue, is it? The visualiser is pretty heavy duty in its display of graphics, and fullscreen in scaled you're doing it at the maximum resolution possible. I doubt if the visualiser is heavily optimised, so you're probably running doggy old code too. Why would you (a) be surprised or (b) ever want to run excel or something else with a *full screen* visualiser running *behind* your main window?

This is exactly what I was thinking... best I can remember (haven't played with an external recently) it's not even like you could use both with itunes in full screen mode when using an external display.

[geneilie]

I found more info on this. It took me some time to go though a lot of threads but these guys explain the behaviour and causes pretty well:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16215038#post16215038

Hope it helps!

I'm a lot more comfortable with the issue right now. From what I'm gathering, there will be an update to OSX that will solve the "issue".

----------

Originally Posted by epigenome

This is exactly what I was thinking... best I can remember (haven't played with an external recently) it's not even like you could use both with itunes in full screen mode when using an external display.

I'm never going to run iTunes that way, but noticed it once when the full screen went on automatically due playing a video in my library. CTRL-1 to switch to my first desktop where I was working on some stuff in excel. That's when I noticed the performance issue. As I've never seen this before on my old 17" MBP I questioned the graphics card. So I started doing some QA on it
Pushed it to the limits to see what's going on. As I can tell so far it's a known issue with the retina and others have explained the causes pretty well.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16215038#post16215038