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Bought Retina 15" -- scroll lag

S

stormslayer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2012
8
0
Folks:

Just bought a retina 15" and updated the OS immediately based on other posts here. Installed office too. Overall, great build quality, but...

1. If I open web pages w/ graphics, kaboom. Test: open nyt.com. Click on article. Expand size of text -- and then I get the spinning rainbow of doom for 60 seconds or more. Once the page finally renders in a bigger size, I can't scroll up or down without major lag.

2. In excel, if I page through a file w/ lots of data, I get scroll lag.

This is easily repeatable and I haven't changed a thing (other than updating the OS and installing office w/ the retina update). I'm using the standard resolution that's retina friendly.

At this point, I'm going to return it, and have no idea what I'll buy next. Any help appreciated.
 
I think there may be something wrong with your MacBook as it really has very little--if any--lag when it is operating properly. Just go back to the store and have them take a look at it.
 
stormslayer said:
Folks:

Just bought a retina 15" and updated the OS immediately based on other posts here. Installed office too. Overall, great build quality, but...

1. If I open web pages w/ graphics, kaboom. Test: open nyt.com. Click on article. Expand size of text -- and then I get the spinning rainbow of doom for 60 seconds or more. Once the page finally renders in a bigger size, I can't scroll up or down without major lag.

2. In excel, if I page through a file w/ lots of data, I get scroll lag.

This is easily repeatable and I haven't changed a thing (other than updating the OS and installing office w/ the retina update). I'm using the standard resolution that's retina friendly.

At this point, I'm going to return it, and have no idea what I'll buy next. Any help appreciated.
Click to expand...

I have had this exact issue with both my Rmbp. I just decided to live with it but its not cool. My 27" iMac is super fast in those circumstances, I just figured it was video card with retina...
 
superpalmtree said:
I have had this exact issue with both my Rmbp. I just decided to live with it but its not cool. My 27" iMac is super fast in those circumstances, I just figured it was video card with retina...
Click to expand...

Neither the OP or you should have to live with that.
What does activity monitor say? Anything draining CPU?

Flawless here on 2.6/16GB. Final cut pro is snappy. Excel sheet scrolling is fluid. One quick swipe and I scroll down from line 1 to 700 without ANY stutter. Same goes for NYT site. Fluid scrolling.

OP, if you can reproduce it, take it to the store or give Apple a call.
 
What resolution are you using? Are you using the scaled version Retina (Best)?
The only time I get a lag in scrolling is if I choose the highest resolution, which is impossible to work with and I don't care from it.
 
bobr1952 said:
I think there may be something wrong with your MacBook as it really has very little--if any--lag when it is operating properly. Just go back to the store and have them take a look at it.
Click to expand...

I'm having a hard time believing there's a magical flaw in my macbook -- it's a clean machine and other than updating to 10.8.2 and installing office, nothing has been installed. Now that I've started looking around, there's multiple threads here on it as well as on places like anandtech.

Sigh. It's fine if I don't resize text -- but if I expand the text on a site like nyt.com, it's impossibly bad. Also pretty lousy in excel. Perhaps worse on the 2.3/8gb, but that's not a good excuse for Apple.
 
If you try to scroll whilst zoomed in, it's going to be choppy. No doubt about that. But no 60 second beachball here.
 
AirThis said:
If you try to scroll whilst zoomed in, it's going to be choppy. No doubt about that. But no 60 second beachball here.
Click to expand...

Any idea why zooming in on the text would produce this behavior? It's not like the number of pixels that need pushed to the screen changes.
 
Before you return it, try resetting the PRAM.

I had the GPU go really slow on me (~10FPS in WoW) until I did this and it returned to normal.
 
stormslayer said:
Any idea why zooming in on the text would produce this behavior? It's not like the number of pixels that need pushed to the screen changes.
Click to expand...

True. The same number of pixels are being pushed. But we don't know how the zooming routines of Safari work behind scenes. They're probably not optimized for retina. From what I've seen the only solution to scrolling whilst zoomed in is to use SetResX. That will end your choppiness but you will get slightly blurry text in non-zoomed browsing mode.
 
Every rMBP i have tried has been lagging when using the highest resolution, both 13" and 15". If you use the "Best for retina" there is no lag what so ever, but if you use the smaller text one, its going to lag. The software for scaling is not what its suppose to be tbh.
 
Melons said:
Every rMBP i have tried has been lagging when using the highest resolution, both 13" and 15". If you use the "Best for retina" there is no lag what so ever, but if you use the smaller text one, its going to lag. The software for scaling is not what its suppose to be tbh.
Click to expand...

He's talking about the double-tap gesture to "zoom in". You get lag on the site he mentioned whilst scrolling in that mode. It doesn't matter if you're in best for retina or not. It will lag if zoomed in.
 
Melons said:
Every rMBP i have tried has been lagging when using the highest resolution, both 13" and 15". If you use the "Best for retina" there is no lag what so ever, but if you use the smaller text one, its going to lag. The software for scaling is not what its suppose to be tbh.
Click to expand...

I'm using best for retina. There's lag. Just got back from the apple store and tried their base 15" retinas. There's lag.

There does seem to be different amounts of lag, but in all cases, going to nyt.com, expanding the text size, and then scrolling = mega-lag on the 2.3/8gb model.
 
Interesting… I have the base model and see no evidence of any "mega-lag." In fact, there is no difference in my base rMBP and my 13" MBA or 2011 i7 MBP. Except for the screen quality, that is.
 
Last edited:
Can confirm that NYTimes zoomed in in Safari "stutters" (but never beachballs), at both HiDPI1440 and HiDPI1920. Absolutely buttery smooth zoomed in using Chromium at any resolution. And I see similar stutter zoomed in on my 2010 cMBP with Safari.

Never seen any issue with Excel, but perhaps my spreadsheets are not large enough! ;)
 
nontroppo said:
Can confirm that NYTimes zoomed in in Safari "stutters" (but never beachballs), at both HiDPI1440 and HiDPI1920. Absolutely buttery smooth zoomed in using Chromium at any resolution. And I see similar stutter zoomed in on my 2010 cMBP with Safari.

Never seen any issue with Excel, but perhaps my spreadsheets are not large enough! ;)
Click to expand...

Ok so it's at least not something exklusively retina and the ui performance is about the same as that of 2010s MBPs. Thats the most useful info I've read in weeks! :) Which models were the rMBP and cMBP?

Anyone mind making a video?
 
0x000000 said:
Ok so it's at least not something exklusively retina and the ui performance is about the same as that of 2010s MBPs. Thats the most useful info I've read in weeks! :) Which models were the rMBP and cMBP?
Click to expand...

2.6Ghz/16GB/512GB NVidia 650M GPU rMBP
2.53Ghz/8GB/128GB SSD NVidia 330M GPU mid-2010 cMBP

Safari definitely has some issue with zooming, try resizing the browser window when zoomed in on NYTimes, it updates worse than 1FPS!!! Neither Chromium nor Opera show that behaviour.
 
I decided to test the same things you were. Never had visited nyt.com on this macbook before either and mine loaded up quick, clicked an article and everything loaded up. No beachball, smooth scrolling. Was instant.

rMBP 2.3ghz
 
dilutedq said:
I decided to test the same things you were. Never had visited nyt.com on this macbook before either and mine loaded up quick, clicked an article and everything loaded up. No beachball, smooth scrolling. Was instant.

rMBP 2.3ghz
Click to expand...
I have to agree with you there. I too tried zooming on NYT and Facebook but didn't notice anything different in scrolling. I really have not experienced any noticeable lag with any browsing I've done. Haha--maybe I'm doing it wrong. :D

OK--apparently I am doing something wrong as I did try the 2-finger gesture--something I never use--and did notice the lag--oh well--I guess there is something Apple can work on there.
 
bobr1952 said:
I have to agree with you there. I too tried zooming on NYT and Facebook but didn't notice anything different in scrolling. I really have not experienced any noticeable lag with any browsing I've done. Haha--maybe I'm doing it wrong. :D
Click to expand...

I will say that facebook has laggy scrolling on the center frame (going through statuses) if It has the chat pane up on the right side and a bunch of ads.

I also forgot to mention I run at 1920x1200 scaling.
 
dilutedq said:
I will say that facebook has laggy scrolling on the center frame (going through statuses) if It has the chat pane up on the right side and a bunch of ads.

I also forgot to mention I run at 1920x1200 scaling.
Click to expand...

I'm bummed. I often resize text when I read, so the ui lag is a problem. Add in some chance of screen burn in later on (another problem that some, but not all report), and it's tough to justify keeping this machine. I'm not used to this sort of risk with apple -- reminds me of way back when I bought a duo and ran through three mb's. It was ahead of its time...
 
stormslayer said:
I'm bummed. I often resize text when I read, so the ui lag is a problem. Add in some chance of screen burn in later on (another problem that some, but not all report), and it's tough to justify keeping this machine. I'm not used to this sort of risk with apple -- reminds me of way back when I bought a duo and ran through three mb's. It was ahead of its time...
Click to expand...

I think it is a webkit problem. As on firefox (and also when I'm in Windows 7 on IE) I do not have this problem.
 
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