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Do 2019 15inch macbook pros have UI lag ?

T

thomasthegps

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 23, 2015
220
145
France
I'm thinking of buying a rMBP 15 but in the past I've experienced pretty awful UI performance on 15 inch rMBPs while using the intel integrated chip. Has anyone bought the 2019 rMBP and experienced UI lag ?
Thanks
 
All 15” models have discrete graphics chips, so if you needed a performance boost macOS would handle it for you.
 
McBeresford said:
All 15” models have discrete graphics chips, so if you needed a performance boost macOS would handle it for you.
Click to expand...

Then why do I experience UI lag on a 2016 rMBP with rx 450 ? Other people seem to be aware of the intel chip lagging. I don't want to have to force Mac OS to use the AMD card to prevent lag. Not for the price they're asking for.
 
Define what you mean by UI lag. It may have nothing to do with the GPU which can only process commands at the rate the code and data from the CPU provides to the GPU.
 
My 2015 has slight "lag" when opening folders in Launchpad if it's on the intel GPU...but it's smooth as butter when the R9 M370x is engaged. If my 2015 is fine, then your 2016 should be more than good enough. Every computer, phone, tablet, etc has lag or glitches if you look hard enough. But what's the point? You've got life to live.
 
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jerryk said:
Define what you mean by UI lag. It may have nothing to do with the GPU which can only process commands at the rate the code and data from the CPU provides to the GPU.
Click to expand...

Animations like switching desktop, expose and scrolling in safari or chrome are noticeably choppy on the 2016 15 inch rmbp. I don’t care about the occasional skipped frames every once in a while. And my post is not about that.

I’m simply saying that I would expect the ui to sit at around 60fps 99% of the time. But it seems like it hovers at around 40-50fps almost all the time. On a $400 computer i’d be able to live with that but to me spending a huge amount of money on a mac that has that issue is a deal breaker. A friend with the 15 inch model with rx 560, 6 core cpu complained about animation lag after having bought his, which indicates to me that this issue isn’t only bothering me. After googling a bit it seems like other people are experiencing that as well, But I haven’t found any accounts of it happening on the 2019 version as of yet.

All i’m looking for is someone who’s bought the 2019 15 inch version and could tell me if animation/scroll lag is still present on that
model. I can’t be clearer than that.
 
Earlier macOS versions had some software issues when drawing certain content (scrolling, mission control etc.) but it has mostly been fixed. That said, drawing model of macOS can be expensive and if you are using badly coded software you might see some lag. For instance, mission control draws all the window content in real time, which is not a cheap thing to do.
 
jerryk said:
Define what you mean by UI lag. It may have nothing to do with the GPU which can only process commands at the rate the code and data from the CPU provides to the GPU.
Click to expand...
What lag are you referring to? I've never seen lag with a discrete GPU, even with multiple (2) 4K monitors.
[doublepost=1560647464][/doublepost]
leman said:
Earlier macOS versions had some software issues when drawing certain content (scrolling, mission control etc.) but it has mostly been fixed. That said, drawing model of macOS can be expensive and if you are using badly coded software you might see some lag. For instance, mission control draws all the window content in real time, which is not a cheap thing to do.
Click to expand...
I had the base model of the 1st 5K retina from 2014. Mission Control did stutter big time, but it was fixed in El Capitan (I think it was El Capital).
 
McBeresford said:
I’ve had the 2016, 2018 models and have none of these issues, regardless of the gfx card used. Something else is wrong.
Click to expand...

I guess it depends on the persons tolerance. Some people are happy with 45ish fps animations... Its not like the ui lags enormously but as i said its not as smooth as what you’d expect it to be.
 
thomasthegps said:
Animations like switching desktop, expose and scrolling in safari or chrome are noticeably choppy on the 2016 15 inch rmbp. I don’t care about the occasional skipped frames every once in a while. And my post is not about that.

I’m simply saying that I would expect the ui to sit at around 60fps 99% of the time. But it seems like it hovers at around 40-50fps almost all the time. On a $400 computer i’d be able to live with that but to me spending a huge amount of money on a mac that has that issue is a deal breaker. A friend with the 15 inch model with rx 560, 6 core cpu complained about animation lag after having bought his, which indicates to me that this issue isn’t only bothering me. After googling a bit it seems like other people are experiencing that as well, But I haven’t found any accounts of it happening on the 2019 version as of yet.

All i’m looking for is someone who’s bought the 2019 15 inch version and could tell me if animation/scroll lag is still present on that
model. I can’t be clearer than that.
Click to expand...
My 2019 13” feels faster than my 2018 15” i9. I’m not convinced it is just the graphics card, it’s also little things like you’ve highlighted like folders opening. Everything just feels smoother and more instant response. I have no explanation for it, nor was I expecting it, I was expecting a small performance drop but acceptable to the smaller form factor. Yet I’ve ended up with a machine that feels faster. Weird, but I am not complaining :)
 
Afaik, 2016+ 13 touch bar models have a faster integrated graphics cards than the 15. So if dGPU isn't being used (e.g. no specific processes, no external monitors), 15 will have inferior UI performance, on top of 15 needing to drive the higher res display.

With that said, I think the integrated GPU on the 15 should be enough to run macOS UI smoothly. If you see noticeable lag, it must be software related. I remember reading about this issue on many previous models and there was some potential fix that involved deleting some files.
 
jerryk said:
Define what you mean by UI lag. It may have nothing to do with the GPU which can only process commands at the rate the code and data from the CPU provides to the GPU.
Click to expand...

The above is the answer.

Even though there is no such thing as a lag-free OS because we are not using Windows 3.1 GUIs these days, the macOS interface is basically lag free and smooth on modern and recent hardware even though Quartz is more intensive than Direct Draw.

But applications are another matter. Some of them are more graphically intensive than others. Some are more optimized than others. Some are using slow old APIs for the sake of backwards compatibility. These issues will be more or less apparent on MacOS, Windows and Linux.

iOS has avoided that for the most part because apps are written from scratch and optimal for this platform. iOS devs care less about supporting some old APIs like OpenGL and they are always moving forward with the OS.
 
thomasthegps said:
Animations like switching desktop, expose and scrolling in safari or chrome are noticeably choppy on the 2016 15 inch rmbp. I don’t care about the occasional skipped frames every once in a while. And my post is not about that.

I’m simply saying that I would expect the ui to sit at around 60fps 99% of the time. But it seems like it hovers at around 40-50fps almost all the time. On a $400 computer i’d be able to live with that but to me spending a huge amount of money on a mac that has that issue is a deal breaker. A friend with the 15 inch model with rx 560, 6 core cpu complained about animation lag after having bought his, which indicates to me that this issue isn’t only bothering me. After googling a bit it seems like other people are experiencing that as well, But I haven’t found any accounts of it happening on the 2019 version as of yet.

All i’m looking for is someone who’s bought the 2019 15 inch version and could tell me if animation/scroll lag is still present on that
model. I can’t be clearer than that.
Click to expand...

If that is what you are concerned with it might have to do with the screen refresh rate as much as the graphics card. Not sure if that has been improved with MacBook Pros.

FWIW, iPad Pros the screen refresh rates have been vastly improved. Going from 60Hz to 120 Hz for the 10.5 iPad Pro and later. This makes the motion appear more smooth and fluid since the display is refreshed faster than the pixels are changed by the graphics card. Really shows when you use the pencil to draw. Anyone know if the MBP display got similar updates?
 
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