Is lag still an issue with rMBP 13?

[Z6128]

I just sold my Air 13 and was looking into getting a base 13 rMBP.

I've seen a lot of reviews talking about lag with things like web browsing. But those reviews were mostly from when it was first released.

Is lag still an issue with safari or say loading and scrolling through an iTunes library with 60gb of music and album covers?

 

[katmeef]

In the past two weeks I've sold my 15 rMBP and purchased a 13 rMBP and I'm not bothered by any lag, although I have had about 11 months to get used to it on the 15". I don't find the 13" to be any worse than the 15" even when the dgpu was on.

The fact the dgpu did not help of my 15 makes me hope it's just a software issue, I've read people say it's fixed in Mavericks

 

[Z6128]

i dont do any gaming whatsoever, so im not concerned with peroformance. the reports of safari lag made me hesitant though.

the difference between my iMac loading my itunes library and my old air loading it was night and day.

just don't want to upgrade to a machine that makes simple tasks a pain.

 

[DarkoDonnie]

I'm on a 2 day old rMBP right now. been using is for work and leisure for pretty much 36 hours straight - have had ZERO lag (even when using heavy adobe apps). It's seriously a powerhouse machine.

 

[FrankB1191]

Zero lag on the 13" rMBP we bought two weeks ago. In fact, it's smoother than my Ipad 4.

 

[soulreaver99]

It's as smooth as a Macbook Air except with a retina display

 

[trigonometry]

Lags bad when scrolling on zoomed up webpages.

 

[lagisibuk]

i'm using 13 retina before, no lag issues with browsing or etc.
and now using 15 retina, no issues lag too

 

[jread]

Another 13" rMBP here, also no lag. I was honestly expecting this thing to be total junk after all the bitching people have done about it on these forums, but honestly it is a wonderful machine and performs very well. I went for the i7 which makes it a little snappier, but not a huge upgrade from the i5.

Anyway, whatever was wrong with these must be fixed or maybe I'm blind, but I have no issues with my 13" rMBP.

 

[trigonometry]

Everyone saying there is no lag:

1. Command-L.
2. Type theverge.com.
3. Two finger spread to zoom, command +, whatever...
4. Try to scroll.

 

[jread]

Everyone saying there is no lag:

1. Command-L.
2. Type theverge.com.
3. Two finger spread to zoom, command +, whatever...
4. Try to scroll.

I see it stutter a tiny bit, but that's all, and certainly not enough for me to really notice or care.

I'm starting to think that the i7 really is a lot better than the i5 for certain things in the 13" rMBP, because I don't seem to have near the issues that a lot of people are reporting.

 

[trigonometry]

I see it stutter a tiny bit, but that's all, and certainly not enough for me to really notice or care.

I'm starting to think that the i7 really is a lot better than the i5 for certain things in the 13" rMBP, because I don't seem to have near the issues that a lot of people are reporting.

Interesting. i5 2012 model and the lag during these conditions is unbearable.

 

[1member1]

Everyone saying there is no lag:

1. Command-L.
2. Type theverge.com.
3. Two finger spread to zoom, command +, whatever...
4. Try to scroll.

what is the purpose of this ? no one will do it in day to day use...

 

[trigonometry]

what is the purpose of this ? no one will do it in day to day use...

I do because I surf the web a lot. And it goes to show that the rmbp does exhibit lag in normal use cases.

 

[1member1]

I do because I surf the web a lot. And it goes to show that the rmbp does exhibit lag in normal use cases.

I visit the verge a lot but never zoom in too much just to see lag.. their site is heavy i let it load a sec and then scroll down without lag.

btw it's only happen in the verge website.. other sites are very smooth on my rmbp.

 

[trigonometry]

I visit the verge a lot but never zoom in too much just to see lag.. their site is heavy i let it load a sec and then scroll down without lag.

btw it's only happen in the verge website.. other sites are very smooth on my rmbp.

OK, you guys win. Enjoy your reality distortion field.

 

[falconeight]

Everyone saying there is no lag:

1. Command-L.
2. Type theverge.com.
3. Two finger spread to zoom, command +, whatever...
4. Try to scroll.

Im going to return mine for a MBA. I do this way to much daily and its horrible. Wait I did that on my mac mini and a brand new air at best buy and guess what happened? The same thing maybe? Wait never mind because it didn't happen on my rMBP but it did with the others. I followed the directions recorded it on my phone. My resolution is set at 1440x900 which is second to smallest setting on the retina stock settings. I see no lag but you decide.

 

[trigonometry]

Im going to return mine for a MBA. I do this way to much daily and its horrible. Wait I did that on my mac mini and a brand new air at best buy and guess what happened? The same thing maybe? Wait never mind because it didn't happen on my rMBP but it did with the others.

I believe you. I really do. Yep. Empirical evidence be damned.

 

[alexrmc92]

Im going to return mine for a MBA. I do this way to much daily and its horrible. Wait I did that on my mac mini and a brand new air at best buy and guess what happened? The same thing maybe? Wait never mind because it didn't happen on my rMBP but it did with the others.

deleted

 

[falconeight]

I believe you. I really do. Yep. Empirical evidence be damned.

I posted evidence. Your turn

 

[Grmnracing]

I have the last Gen rMbp 13. I've never experienced lag. Any videos of this lag everyone talks about?

 

[pgiguere1]

This question always come in different new threads so I'm going to copy-paste my answer from a previous one:

The lag problem is application-specific and you may or may not perceive it. The worst offenders are mainly browsers other than the beta Apple ones (WebKit nightly/Safari 6.1 beta/Safari 7 beta).

You will get mixed answers from people because they use different software/browsers and because not everyone is equally sensitive to framerates and necessarily notice framedrops when they happen.

What I can tell you is that a rMBP using a stable browser release (like Safari 6.0.x or Chrome) is not as smooth as a non-Retina Mac using the same software. If you will notice it depends on you, but that's a fact.

You may use WebKit nightly (which is smooth) until Mavericks comes out but be aware that it does occasionnally crash.

Also, stop blaming the HD 4000. People seem to always associate scrolling performance with the GPU while the bottleneck is actually the CPU. In this case, bottleneck doesn't mean the CPU is fully used but rather that it's not used efficiently at all. You'll notice the "fix" implemented in WebKit nightly/Safari 7 makes your CPU usage % go a lot higher, but that's a good thing in this case.

People still haven't notice that manually switching between the HD 4000 and GT 650M on a 15" rMBP has no noticeable effect despite the 650M being several times more powerful? What does have an effect is having software that properly uses all the CPU power. That's where most of the load still is, despite the use of CoreAnimation in ML.

From Anandtech:

Next-generation GPUs should do a better job of driving these ultra high resolution displays, but today it looks like our biggest bottlenecks are software and single threaded CPU performance. In every situation where UI frame rate drops significantly on the rMBP, the offending application usually ends up consuming 100% of a single CPU core. This is true in Safari, Mail and other applications where I notice drops in scrolling frame rate.

Basically, that's a software issue Mavericks will fix. You can use WebKit nightly until then if it bothers you. The bottleneck is with the CPU, not the GPU. The HD 4000 is not underpowered for scrolling on a Retina display, it's not even fully used. It's the software that needs optimisation to prevent the CPU bottleneck.

Reviews of the 13" rMBP saying the HD 4000 is underpowered (like The Verge's) make an unfounded claim. Current 13" rMBP will be super-smooth with Mavericks. Heck, it could even have used a much older GPU and it would probably have been OK with proper CPU software optimization. I'm curious to see if The Verge's review of the 2013 13" rMBP will claim Haswell's iGPU has magically fixed things, like it's supposed to be more powerful than a GT 650M...

 

[trigonometry]

I posted evidence. Your turn

Here ya go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnWHc1FgRsk

 

[falconeight]

Ok cool yours lags mine doesn't.

 

[sofianito]

It's the software that needs optimisation to prevent the CPU bottleneck.

Do you mean Apple's engineers are bad at programming?

Not all tasks can be parallelized, which means some are single threaded and you can't do anything about it...