Definitive evidence Retina Macbook pro slowdowns are software based

[JPOWA]

I have the base rMBP 2.3/8/256 and I have no scroll lag problems. I use facebook pretty heavy and it flows smooth as does all transitions. I'm pretty OCD when it comes to spending this much money and I see and have zero problems with this laptop. I hope you guys figure it out. Mine is also with stock default settings 1440x900 best for retina.
jeff

Are you on Lion using Safari?

Sorry and I don't want to doubt you...but thats impossible!
This thing on ML and Safari 6, which is way way better, lags as bad or worst than my 2009 C2D iMac with Nvidia 9400!

Using Facebook off course!

Using Safari, any one else notice scrolling on Facebook is much smoother if you play a video thats been posted to your news feed?

Don't see any difference!

 

[heresjohnny]

Personally, I think most of Apple's UI slowness in the least 4 years has been caused by software.... But they are not typically fond of fixing the software - they prefer to wait for the hardware to catch up.


(That said, some of the UI actions *are* very intensive and not easy to optimize. But the hardware IS definitely capable of doing all of this smoothly.)

 

[zerotiu]

Personally, I think most of Apple's UI slowness in the least 4 years has been caused by software.... But they are not typically fond of fixing the software - they prefer to wait for the hardware to catch up.


(That said, some of the UI actions *are* very intensive and not easy to optimize. But the hardware IS definitely capable of doing all of this smoothly.)

Last 4 years? hmm. I don't see any UI lag in 2011 MBPs 8GB ram. Of course, I compare it with mine, MBP early 08 2GB ram. Mine also doesn't have any UI lags unless I open a lot of applications.

Or maybe your standard of what is acceptable or unacceptable is higher than me.

 

[MercilessGunner]

There is no doubt my mind it is software based. The hardware in these systems is phenomenal and should not have had any issues scrolling a page. Especially since the system is capable of running the latest games. Both the CPU and GPU are beasts in this laptop. Also this laptop running at full resolution in Windows 7 doesn't seem to have the same problem.

 

[heresjohnny]

Last 4 years? hmm. I don't see any UI lag in 2011 MBPs 8GB ram. Of course, I compare it with mine, MBP early 08 2GB ram. Mine also doesn't have any UI lags unless I open a lot of applications.

Or maybe your standard of what is acceptable or unacceptable is higher than me.

I find my 2011 17" very fluid - but my 2008, 2009, and 2010 were all less so to varying degrees. (the newer the better.). I found my 2008 17" MBP & snow leopard annoying at times.

And yes, I very easily notice low fps in UI animation.

 

[zerotiu]

I find my 2011 17" very fluid - but my 2008, 2009, and 2010 were all less so to varying degrees. (the newer the better.). I found my 2008 17" MBP & snow leopard annoying at times.

And yes, I very easily notice low fps in UI animation.

Yes. Snow leopard is slower than leopard in my opinion. I go back to my leopard.

and that's why I need upgrade, I'm not sensitive about UI lag because I've used 2GB for almost 4 years

 

[Office Hours]

This hardware can handle smooth browser scrolling without a doubt. Chrome runs at 60FPS with these settings on what seems like 90% of sites. I've run two flash videos and still kept silky smooth scrolling. There ARE sites that still lag, but like the OP, I found that certain CSS properties cause this. I keep bringing this up. It's 100% a software optimization issue. I have no doubt that the retina is more demanding but we have enough power here. If the iPad 3 can do it with a chip that is less powerful than a Atom + ION, do you really doubt that a IB i7 + 4000/650m can't? C'mon!

 

[mykelala01]

confused

Now we are talking FPS on facebook? I thought we only do such thing, when playing games. Even my 6 years old laptop can run facebook smoothly

 

[blow45]

Personally, I think most of Apple's UI slowness in the least 4 years has been caused by software.... But they are not typically fond of fixing the software - they prefer to wait for the hardware to catch up.


(That said, some of the UI actions *are* very intensive and not easy to optimize. But the hardware IS definitely capable of doing all of this smoothly.)

amen to both of these, what's pissing some of us off is that ios has constantly been optimized to handle even some of the least capable hardware configurations, see ipad gen one, gen 1,2 of iphone etc, while os x has been left to become the joke that it currently is relying on one insanely good piece of hardware after the other. I mean how the eff can someone rationalize ml being a darwin kernel behind ios? Poor memory management? No problemo, ssds are fast anyway keep paging out to them, older macs with hard drives? eff em. No resolution independence? No problemo again, throw retina displays in there gives people something to buy anyway.

Great hardware becomes an alibi for lack of development, and because great hardware is made an incentive to sell more macs, there's more motivation to not take care of the software properly so more macs are made obsolete and people are motivated to buy newer ones.

We are here talking about apple's great computers, but at the end of the day it's other people's great hardware and apple's not so great os anymore slapped on top. And hence the problems start.

And one gets to the rather sad point of having windows at 200dpi flying on these babies and os x having us discuss fps on facebook. If that isn't a disgrace I don't know what is. These retina babies, they sure are great computers, of course you can't upgrade your ram, and the ssd is typically custom apple so you buy their overpriced flash, lg sure makes some really nice retina displays, windows flies on these macs, and as for os x, the actual contribution of apple to the mix well apparently it's chop chop lag lag cause the a team of apple devs has been too busy working for ios. So apple's pretty much contributed the non upgradeability factor and the sub par software, great stuff... now how are these iphones selling in China? They are doing great. Good, I couldn't be more happy.

 

[flipnap]

blow. you sound so upset. your post actually stressed me out

 

[blow45]

blow. you sound so upset. your post actually stressed me out

sorry for that man, I does read as a very upset post. I ll try to be more next time.

 

[crowsNest]

After using safari on the new retina for the last few weeks I can definitely say there is a fps issue. I think it is more of a problem when there are many images on the screen (i.e Facebook), probably something to do with the algorithms that manage all the upscaling and smoothing. I imagine this will ironed out in the long run.

The resolution is HUGE, but it is browsing god dam it, it is nothing this hardware can't handle, hell a 5 year old computer with 10% the power could browse the web no problem. Again I am sure it is something to do with the scaling of images coupled with the current lack of GPU support. If everything was retina native we probably would not have this issue.

 

[jcpb]

With the i7 chips the more ram you put in, the more vram you have on battery/low power mode. Integrated graphics memory is based on how much you can spare. 16GB brings it to almost a GB of vram, which I'm sure can make a big difference when rendering using the HD4000.

16GB RAM, only 512MB of it actually used by HD4000.

 

[DaffyDuck]

If I can run Diablo 3 on 2880x1800 at 20 fps, I'm sure it can render some text on a screen. Definitely a software issue that'll improve over time, not a hardware problem.

People are too early to jump on the "lets blame hardware" bandwagon.

The slowdows are caused primarily by Apple's scaling mechanism. If you run at 2880x1800 you'll get a buttery smooth experience...but everything is tiny. Since games don't use that scaling, of course they won't be affected.

I have witnessed the frame rate drop when doing things other than scrolling, like moving between virtual desktops and other animations that are already using the GPU. That's using the integrated graphics, mind you, but it's there.

I'm thinking Apple will continue refining their scaling and the issues will go away.

 

[seaw]

If you run at 2880x1800 you'll get a buttery smooth experience...

Wrong! Use Safari in 2880x1800 and enlarge the window horizontally. The wider the window, the more lag you get. It is not the scaling process!

 

[SpotZup]

Hello people and in advance, excuse my English. Well, to briefly describe myself, I'm a newcomer with OSX environment since my company bought me a MBP retina. I'm a hardcore gamer, have always been on Windows OS, and very sensitive to the tiniest lag.

So at a first glance, after the "wow, that's beautiful" effect (beautiful but not necessary more than its concurrent as shiny and rounded frames have fallen out of favor nowadays, but that's personal and far from the subject), I quickly realized how laggy this laptop is, when the world seems to say that Apple makes perfect products.

Like some of you, I don't understand why we are experiencing this. Ok, there are tons of pixels but, come on, some cheaper graphic cards run 3D games and our CPU is quite powerful so why some traditional 2D UI are causing all of that ? It's not only a Chrome's problem, most of the apps are not perfectly smooth unless we reduce them to fewer pixels. So it should definitely be software related.

Okay, all of that was just for saying. Now if some of you still have some lag issues with Chrome, I managed to make it run totally smooth (and when a gamer say totally smooth, that means above a hundred frames per second). Most of you may not need the whole process though.

First, stand with the default retina resolution (selecting above helps but it's so bad to underuse this absolutely splendid screen). Then make your Chrome browser take only the place it should. To do that, reduce its width to the smallest you can, then click the green "maximize" button to let it adapt as it wishes. This is both a trivial but very relevant advice. Now, go back to "chrome://flags" and enable "Override software rendering list", force "GPU compositing on all pages" as well as "Threaded compositing" (select enabled), also enable "GPU Accelerated SVG Filters" and "Disable GPU VSync" (it DOES make a huge difference). I also enabled "HTTP Pipelining, "Enable SPDY/3" and some other things but that doesn't concerns graphics so do as you want.

Now enable "FPS counter", restart Chrome and test this very page or some lightweight websites, that should be 100% smooth. Try Facebook, that's not perfect but incredibly easier on the eyes.

See you later now I tend to love my MacBook

Edit: I'm so sorry I just realized I upped a topic some months old, but that's still the first Google result when you wonder why your laptop is laggy so I assume it could still help.