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A little worried about scaling issues on rMBP. Need advice.

P

plexusnexus

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 26, 2012
23
0
I'm waiting for my rMBP but I feel a little nervous about the screen (as I imagine a few of you here are as well). I'm a little confused on how scaling works on the system. How are 1080p movies going to look on the screen? Will they look noticeably blurry? What about games at similar resolutions? To be honest, I don't want a computer that has extremely good resolution for 20% of the applications I use. Will this be the case? I understand that certain apps will be updated for retina, but what about applications that aren't hugely popular like Twitter? How will scaling work for those?

I'm mainly going to be using my rMBP for music production, photoshop, watching movies, playing some video games, and stuff for schoolwork. Are the problems that people are seeing with blurry images only temporary, or permanent? Thanks for any advice.
 
plexusnexus said:
I'm waiting for my rMBP but I feel a little nervous about the screen (as I imagine a few of you here are as well). I'm a little confused on how scaling works on the system. How are 1080p movies going to look on the screen? Will they look noticeably blurry? What about games at similar resolutions? To be honest, I don't want a computer that has extremely good resolution for 20% of the applications I use. Will this be the case? I understand that certain apps will be updated for retina, but what about applications that aren't hugely popular like Twitter? How will scaling work for those?

I'm mainly going to be using my rMBP for music production, photoshop, watching movies, playing some video games, and stuff for schoolwork. Are the problems that people are seeing with blurry images only temporary, or permanent? Thanks for any advice.
Click to expand...

Well seeing as no music production apps, photoshop and no word processor has been optimized for retina display, prepare to look at a blurry screen for quite a while.
 
I went to Best Buy today and played around with the Retina MacBook Pro. I tried several scaled resolutions including 1680x1050 and 1920x1200; I have to say I couldn't tell they were scaled resolutions. I think this contributes to the fact that it's "retina." I was very much impressed with this and I plan on buy one as soon as they start stocking the 16GB RAM models in-store.
 
I've been using one at the highest resolution in System Preferences (1920x1080 I think), and I don't really notice any blurriness unless I really go looking for it. This includes older versions of Xcode, Photoshop, and Text Editors that haven't been updated for the retina display. Maybe this is because I'm not and don't plan to use it at the "best for retina" 1440x900 resolution, but I'm pleased for my use.
 
I have had no issues with it being scaled at 1920x1200. If anything it still has a bit of that retina crispness as well as the increased desktop space. I'm just waiting for the chrome update to add retina support. You shouldn't be worried.
 
I also did not notice any blur due to resolution scaling. Some images/software do look slightly blurry, but the reason is the contrast between very crisp hidpi elements and "normal-res" stuff. You can always use the open-in-non-retina mode switch for problematic applications.
 
Not sure how some people can claim that they don't see the scaling blurriness. Have you ever used MS Office on the rMBP? Don't get me wrong - I love my Retina, but MS Office is borderline unusable and so are most (if not all, at this point) photo editing tools like Lightroom and Photoshop. I know that Aperture was optimized, but that one doesn't support my X-Pro1.

So if you're planning on doing more than browsing the web, you might either wait until more apps are retina-ready or buy an external screen.

Peter
 
kis said:
Not sure how some people can claim that they don't see the scaling blurriness. Have you ever used MS Office on the rMBP? Don't get me wrong - I love my Retina, but MS Office is borderline unusable and so are most (if not all, at this point) photo editing tools like Lightroom and Photoshop. I know that Aperture was optimized, but that one doesn't support my X-Pro1.

So if you're planning on doing more than browsing the web, you might either wait until more apps are retina-ready or buy an external screen.

Peter
Click to expand...

That's what I'm worried about. I can get an external monitor I suppose, but I hope MS and other software developers don't take too long to add retina support. Either way, Apple will let me return the system if I don't like it. But I'll feel silly waiting nearly a month to get a system only to return it.
 
kis said:
Not sure how some people can claim that they don't see the scaling blurriness. Have you ever used MS Office on the rMBP? Don't get me wrong - I love my Retina, but MS Office is borderline unusable and so are most (if not all, at this point) photo editing tools like Lightroom and Photoshop. I know that Aperture was optimized, but that one doesn't support my X-Pro1.

So if you're planning on doing more than browsing the web, you might either wait until more apps are retina-ready or buy an external screen.

Peter
Click to expand...

Like I said, it's really not a problem for me. I'm running at 1920x1200 though, so maybe that's the difference. Word and Photoshop, in addition to Xcode, text editors and everything else I'm using, don't feel so blurry as to be unusable. Sure, they may not be as sharp, but it doesn't bother me in the least.
 
alphaod said:
I went to Best Buy today and played around with the Retina MacBook Pro. I tried several scaled resolutions including 1680x1050 and 1920x1200; I have to say I couldn't tell they were scaled resolutions. I think this contributes to the fact that it's "retina." I was very much impressed with this and I plan on buy one as soon as they start stocking the 16GB RAM models in-store.
Click to expand...

They will never stock 16 GB. It is only available on apple online store.
 
I think it is a non issue all this really, yes the apps are going to get even better but at the moment I'm running the screen at one setting above the standard retina setting and there is tons of space for photoshop, modo, daz studio etc and you don't notice any of this blurriness if you sit side by side with a 2010 MacBook Pro with it's display looks pretty ropy in comparison to the sharpness of retina.

I think you get spoilt by the pin sharp of retina then moan at anything not pin sharp but in truth compared to the previous generation of LCD's any retina setting is miles better.

But I agree the best is still to come!
 
I'm starting to get a little nervous about my purchase now. All this talk about blurry, lag etc, I'm starting to have second thoughts.

I've been waiting for these new Macs since first reading the rumor on here about the new res screens. As a photographer this is a substantial investment for me, especially as this will be my first Mac, jumping ship from windows.

I assumed the screen would just run at full res, like it does on every PC I've ever owned. Yes everything is going to be tiny, so what! If you don't like it you lower the res. Like you do on any PC.

Now I'm reading that the OS is scaling everything and caining the $h!t out of the machine. AnandTech saying the system is at it limits running the screen and the fps just browsing is near just 20!

I'm going to need to run PS & LR on this thing and if it's not crystal clear then how on earth can I edit my photographs??

Surely running the screen in its native resolution (2880x1800) would remove the need for all the scaling and the sysem would work much smoother. Am I wrong? I wanted hi-res for the screen real estate. I've put off buying a 17" MacBook Pro for the increased res in a smaller form factor (15").

Seriously starting to wonder if I've made the wrong decision and should just cancel my order (for a 2nd time) and just stick with a Full HD windows PC where I know what I am seeing isn't being messed with.
 
Hioctane said:
I'm going to need to run PS & LR on this thing and if it's not crystal clear then how on earth can I edit my photographs??
Click to expand...

I've resorted to using an external screen for PS & LR. I don't feel comfortable giving anything to my customers that was done on the low-res versions of PS & LR as there's absolutely no way to judge whether a picture is sharp or not.

Apart from that, the rMBP is awesome. I personally wouldn't want to switch to anything else right now. I'm a bit worried about the seemingly slow adoption of it, though. There's not been a single Retina Update on the App Store - either it takes forever to make the necessary changes or the developers are waiting for their own rMBPs before they can even get started on modifying their apps.

Peter
 
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