10.10.3 did wonders with my 5K iMac

gusnyc said:

I installed 10.10.3 and the difference in performance is incredible. The scrolling in every app is much more fluid. Everything seems to be much smoother than before.

I am very happy with this update and I recommend it to anybody with a 5K iMac.

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So glad to hear. I just updated. I've been having difficulty with Safari. Seems to hang a lot and getting error messages. Hearing this made me happy! Thank you!

Here also - base iMac 5K. The Mission Control lags much much less. The framerate drops with lots of windows open, but it's really a lot better and a lot more usable. Preview animation of large photos is also much better and doesn't lag.

This is really an improvement.

Same report here. Baseline Retina 5k iMac with 24 gigs RAM. Everything is much more fluid and smooth, especially scrolling in all apps except Mail. For some reason Mail has bad scrolling lag, a2-3 second hang when searching for messages, and a 5-10 second lag time from a message appearing on the app icon to the message actually appearing in my inbox.

aevan said:

Here also - base iMac 5K. The Mission Control lags much much less. The framerate drops with lots of windows open, but it's really a lot better and a lot more usable. Preview animation of large photos is also much better and doesn't lag.

This is really an improvement.

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Yep I have a base iMac with 24 GB of RAM and I'm glad to report that the interface is MUCH faster

So far I've notice;

• General folder browsing is much more consistently quick
• Preview is much faster
• PDF reading using Preview is much faster

This update is exactly what I gambled on getting the base model. So now the base model is getting the best of both worlds with performance and running cool without the fan kicking up.

I was wondering before why I bought the iMac 5k , but now with 10.10.3 it is much faster. Thank you.

The only creepy thing I discovered with the update so far was with Messages app, where I was sending an iMessage with pic from the iPhone but on the iMac inside the Messages app a .vcf contact is visible instead of the pic, and the contact is from the remote party, not mine.....

Feels like my 27" iMac (Late 2013) is quite bit snappier since 10.10.3 as well.

I posted so many messages across so many threads saying that some examples of lag were clearly related to the operating system and not the 5K. This was clear because people were reporting it present in many different models (old iMacs, Macbooks etc).

'I told you so'.

steve23094 said:

I posted so many messages across so many threads saying that some examples of lag were clearly related to the operating system and not the 5K. This was clear because people were reporting it present in many different models (old iMacs, Macbooks etc).

'I told you so'.

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True. However, to be honest, lag hasn't been completely eliminated, it's just better. I still hope 10.11 will be a performance release where they can make it shine. It's good Apple is working on performance, though. 8.3 is also making iOS devices perform faster.

My guess is - they had to polish out a few things for the MacBook release, and the hardware inside is not the best performer when it comes to speed - I'm guessing that thing would lag on 10.10.2. I'm hoping for some deeper, under the hood improvements for the next OSX. For example, I'm still having performance issues with some PDFs (both on iMac and MacBook Pro) that I didn't have in Mavericks.

But still, great news.

Maybe my tolerance to such things is higher, but I didn't think 10.10.2 was "slow" or laggy on my rMBP 13. Sure, I started to see a little bit of slow-down with everything opened, but that is to be expected.

Good to hear 10.10.3 is quicker anyway - performance increases are always welcome! iOS 8.3 seems to not only be quicker, but easier on battery as well. Yesterday my iPad Mini 2 didn't drop below 100% despite using it for about 90 mins web browsing and e-mailing on battery and in low WiFi signal area of my house. It certainly would have dropped before.

steve23094 said:

I posted so many messages across so many threads saying that some examples of lag were clearly related to the operating system and not the 5K. This was clear because people were reporting it present in many different models (old iMacs, Macbooks etc).

'I told you so'.

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I've always agreed with this. Its only logical (imo) that if a 5k iMac can run a fairly intense but well optimized game then it should be able to do the basic non intensive stuff. And if it can't its because there is a conflict between the hardware and software that can be fixed.

There was a time where the iPhone 5S was slow, laggy, stuttery. At the time it was the "fastest" iPhone however it didnt perform like it was the fastest. The problem wasn't the hardware being slow obviously, it was the software optimization for 64 bit (or other hardware I don't know).

I just updated my 5k iMac at work, and I'm still in the "Optimizing Your Mac" stage so I really hope I don't eat my words. Lol.

I've never had a problem with the base iMac 5k. Every morning I use it, it's so fricken nice. 27 inch retina screen 6 inches from your face and not seeing pixels. pretty cool.

It even scales Windows 10 via Parallels better than native windows! lol. I think Parallels does some "magic" on it's end.

Very happy with purchase.

My 5k arrived and very happy with it! It had 10.10.1 installed initially, and I did see a hint of "not 100% smooth" in Launcher, but after the 10.10.3 update that seems much better.

Performance wise it is blowing my head off. I can't believe it is pushing 14.7 million pixels and is this smooth.

If you're thinking of buying one, run, don't walk!

Did Apple update the AMD driver for the 5K

Just curious if the improvement might also be tied to a driver update for the M290X/M295X

lssmit02 said:

Just curious if the improvement might also be tied to a driver update for the M290X/M295X

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Do you have any info on that? Are you speculating the driver was updated or do you know it was? I'm interested.

Anyway, other users reported some improvements on other Macs as well, although I don't see it on my MacBook Pro (though, I have a feeling battery life is better, but that could be tied to the fact I've been using the 10.10.3 beta on it for the past few weeks)

10.10.3 better for 5K overall

Hey guys, it has been reported that 10.10.3 brought 5K support to nMP and I can confirm that.

In addition, the 5K support in the older Mac Pros has also been improved. We used to have to power cycle the Dell 5K to engage the 5K mode, now they just boot up in 5K.

So I think that 10.10.3 is just more "5K friendly" and certainly the AMD drivers for D300/D500/D700 got added support so quite likely they tweaked the 290/295X as well.

You aren't just imagining it, 5K support improved across the board.

MacVidCards said:

Hey guys, it has been reported that 10.10.3 brought 5K support to nMP and I can confirm that.

In addition, the 5K support in the older Mac Pros has also been improved. We used to have to power cycle the Dell 5K to engage the 5K mode, now they just boot up in 5K.

So I think that 10.10.3 is just more "5K friendly" and certainly the AMD drivers for D300/D500/D700 got added support so quite likely they tweaked the 290/295X as well.

You aren't just imagining it, 5K support improved across the board.

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Thanks for the info. I'll have to tell my dad who owns a nMP.

I just wish AMD updated their Boot Camp drivers and added 5K support as well. The latest drivers available from their web (14.301), though still an improvement over stock Apple drivers, lag behind their generic counterpart and support only up to 4K.

I just wish AMD updated their Boot Camp drivers and added 5K support as well.

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From everything I have read, that is a Windows limitation, not a driver limitation.

MacVidCards said:

Hey guys, it has been reported that 10.10.3 brought 5K support to nMP and I can confirm that.

In addition, the 5K support in the older Mac Pros has also been improved. We used to have to power cycle the Dell 5K to engage the 5K mode, now they just boot up in 5K.

So I think that 10.10.3 is just more "5K friendly" and certainly the AMD drivers for D300/D500/D700 got added support so quite likely they tweaked the 290/295X as well.

You aren't just imagining it, 5K support improved across the board.

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Thanks for the info! So I'm guessing the performance increase is not because of OS X itself but because of the drivers. This is even better, as I still hope the next OS X major release will bring further performance optimisations.

blufrog said:

From everything I have read, that is a Windows limitation, not a driver limitation.

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No, its driver support (and obviously hardware support) that determines max Windows resolution.

Dell UP2715K

Running Windows in Parallels on my iMac on a secondary Dell P2715Q in "looks like 2560x1440" mode, you could not tell that it wasn't a native 5K display. It looks *that* good.

vladobizik said:

Thanks for the info. I'll have to tell my dad who owns a nMP.

I just wish AMD updated their Boot Camp drivers and added 5K support as well. The latest drivers available from their web (14.301), though still an improvement over stock Apple drivers, lag behind their generic counterpart and support only up to 4K.

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This is incorrect. Several people have reported running nMP in Windows at 5K. The laggard was OSX.

MacVidCards said:

This is incorrect. Several people have reported running nMP in Windows at 5K. The laggard was OSX.

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Yeah, sorry, my bad. I was referring specifically to the Retina iMac 5K resolution but failed to mention that. It's the iMac that still runs Windows only at at 4K with the current drivers.

blufrog said:

From everything I have read, that is a Windows limitation, not a driver limitation.

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No it is not, Windows runs in 5K just fine using Parallels. The problem is only with Bootcamp and the GPU drivers.

What is the temperature like when doing general day to day work on the iMac 5K with 10.10.3? I'm wondering whether I should hold off for the iMac 5K 1.1 or whether the drivers have matured enough that the GPU is running cooler. The reason why I'm concerned is the benchmarks making their way around the web have it getting up to a blistering 100+ degrees celsius and I'm hoping that a combination of optimised drivers and the non-intense work flow (apart from the occasional bit of video compression that purely uses the CPU) will mean that it is runs a lot cooler. I'd love to hear someone who uses it on a regular basis on what it is like in 'the real world' vs. the synthetic benchmarks that are doing the rounds.