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Lion vs 9400m!

Asclepio

Asclepio

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 11, 2011
718
315
Hello could someone tell me how Lion's GUI is on 9400m card?
It run smooth? have some driver issue?
I just re-tried Lion .1 on NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT and is not fine especially on Launchpad, when i open a folder the animation is awful... and also resize from a full screen mode App is not smooth. i know it depends how apple write the drivers, so not good job on 7300 GT.
Plz Need feedback on 9400m card.
Thanks
 
Asclepio said:
Hello could someone tell me how Lion's GUI is on 9400m card?
It run smooth? have some driver issue?
I just re-tried Lion .1 on NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT and is not fine especially on Launchpad, when i open a folder the animation is awful... and also resize from a full screen mode App is not smooth. i know it depends how apple write the drivers, so not good job on 7300 GT.
Plz Need feedback on 9400m card.
Thanks
Click to expand...

I have a 320m and the animations are still awful, both cards you mentioned should have no problem with these but they do because Apple hasn't figured out how to write graphics drivers for Darwin yet.
 
Thanks for replay i imaged that.
I wait someone with some feedback on 9400m...
 
I have a late 2009 MacBook Unibody with a 9400m (4 GB RAM, though) and it runs completely smooth as if it was Snow Leopard, really. The only issue I have is sometimes not connecting automatically when it wakes from sleep.
And I didn't clean install.
 
The 9400m is not that smooth in Lion especially on battery power. Compared to Leopard, the frame rate of the UI animations are not as smooth. This is on a white macbook 5,2.
 
gumblecosby said:
The 9400m is not that smooth in Lion especially on battery power. Compared to Leopard, the frame rate of the UI animations are not as smooth. This is on a white macbook 5,2.
Click to expand...

Thanks for replays,
I try to understand if depended how much ram is installed on mac?
How much ram do you have on your Macbook?
 
Asclepio said:
Thanks for replays,
I try to understand if depended how much ram is installed on mac?
How much ram do you have on your Macbook?
Click to expand...

4gb @ 800mhz. Im fairly OCD on the animations for reasons I dont know. I find less a than smooth ui distracting. Mission Control is as smooth as the 10.6 version expose on this laptop. App expose is worse than 10.6. Launchpad is smooth on ac but rough on battery power. Same with full screen transitions. These patterns same to be prevalent on most systems so I expect things to improve by 10.7.5 .
 
The only GUI performance issue with my 9400M Macbook is that the folder animation in launchpad is choppy, but other than that its fine. I think its a software issue and not the graphics card.

I should also mention I have 8Gb of ram.
 
Asclepio said:
I don't see autentic 60 fps since tiger...



The 10.5 expose hack in snow leopard gave 60fps expose and spaces animations.

Tiger used to slow down animations instead of skipping frames to make sure it always stayed smooth. I preferred that.
Click to expand...
 
Have a 13" Macbook Pro with 4gb ram 2.26 C2D and 9400m and haven't had any problem with animations in the GUI. Always been smooth, and it was always smooth in SL as well. I keep a very minimal system with no add ons or very many programs open at once so that might be why I never run into a problem. People who are more intensive on their system might run into some animation stutter i presume.
 
my 9400m is quite smooth. other people complaining might just be curmudgeons.

TheGdog said:
The only GUI performance issue with my 9400M Macbook is that the folder animation in launchpad is choppy, but other than that its fine. I think its a software issue and not the graphics card.

I should also mention I have 8Gb of ram.
Click to expand...

I have 4gb, and I just tested the folder animation, open close open close 20 times... smooth every time. not sure why yours isn't working out, but what brand of ram are you running?
 
I'm not surprised, I remember when I had an iMac with 9400M when I would open the application folder using stacks there was always lag.. Hopefully it gets resolved, but doubt it.. I think if you don't have a decent GPU you might just experience lag with launchpad..
 
Yamcha said:
I'm not surprised, I remember when I had an iMac with 9400M when I would open the application folder using stacks there was always lag.. Hopefully it gets resolved, but doubt it.. I think if you don't have a decent GPU you might just experience lag with launchpad..
Click to expand...


I went to the Apple store the other day and was playing around with a 13" MBP
there and it was choppy when my 9400m isn't at all. It really comes down to what resources are being used all the time.
and to DarkestRitual, noticed you have an eMac. I miss mine, that was one of the best desktop computers I ever had.
 
My Unibody Macbook (2008) (basically renamed to pro later) runs Lion like a beast, it comes with the 9400m ofcourse! I have 4GB ram and everything is smooth as butter including folders in LaunchPad.

Edit: I forgot to add, I have a SSD in mine though.


DarkestRitual said:
my 9400m is quite smooth. other people complaining might just be curmudgeons.
Click to expand...

Lol the ppl complaining are 320m owners cause they are facing issues with the graphics on their newer mbp models...rofl
 
Last edited:
Upgraded daughter's iMac to Lion (2.66 Ghz C2D, 20", 9400M) and it's very smooth. Nothing to complain.
 
DarkestRitual said:
my 9400m is quite smooth. other people complaining might just be curmudgeons.



I have 4gb, and I just tested the folder animation, open close open close 20 times... smooth every time. not sure why yours isn't working out, but what brand of ram are you running?
Click to expand...

Funny when I was using it last night it was choppy, but just now its smooth. I usually don't notice because the only folder I have is for utilities, and I hardly open it up. Odd that its works well now.

Anyways I have crucial ram.
 
Here are some things I have noticed about Lion and the 9400M GPU:

  1. Launchpad animations are fairly smooth when your computer is plugged into an outlet. When your computer is not plugged into an outlet, however, the animations are horrid and will make your system feel ancient.
  2. I'm not sure why this occurs, but Launchpad animations are smoother when it is accessed from a fullscreen application. For those who don't believe me, try it. It's very strange.
  3. Mission Control animations are decent. I have noticed, however, that when no windows are open the 'zoom out' animation is smoother. When multiple windows are open, the animation stutters.
  4. All animations are somewhat degraded when driving a high-resolution display.

The animations on Apple's new machines are buttery smooth and I hope that, with future updates to Lion, we are able to enjoy that buttery smoothness too.
 
Gradsta said:
Here are some things I have noticed about Lion and the 9400M GPU:

  1. Launchpad animations are fairly smooth when your computer is plugged into an outlet. When your computer is not plugged into an outlet, however, the animations are horrid and will make your system feel ancient.
  2. I'm not sure why this occurs, but Launchpad animations are smoother when it is accessed from a fullscreen application. For those who don't believe me, try it. It's very strange.
  3. Mission Control animations are decent. I have noticed, however, that when no windows are open the 'zoom out' animation is smoother. When multiple windows are open, the animation stutters.
  4. All animations are somewhat degraded when driving a high-resolution display.


The animations on Apple's new machines are buttery smooth and I hope that, with future updates to Lion, we are able to enjoy that buttery smoothness too.
Click to expand...

I already am enjoying all that buttery smoothness with my 9400m. As I said earlier. My 9400m is running better then the 15 MBP at the apple store when it comes to animations. Theirs were choppy all over the place.
 
derekamoss said:
I already am enjoying all that buttery smoothness with my 9400m. As I said earlier. My 9400m is running better then the 15 MBP at the apple store when it comes to animations. Theirs were choppy all over the place.
Click to expand...

I did notice that too. The reason it is choppy on those machines is because of the "Welcome to the Apple Store" software. I have used my friend's brand new MacBook Pro and it is a much different--smoother--experience.

1.jpg
 
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