MacBook Pro Retina and Resolution

[seaw]

Hi,

I'm very interested in how the new Pro deals with those different resolution options.
If I'm right, then the best for retina option shows us the native 2880 by 1800 with everything doubled in size so a pixel of the menubar for instance is now rendered with 4 pixels compared to the older non-high-res display. This is how it was done on the iPhone and the iPad!

Then there are the other higher resolutions. The one looking like 1680 by 1050 and 1920 by 1200.
And I think I'm right that those are first rendered in the doubled resolution, so, 3360 by 2100 and 3840 by 2400, and then scaled down again.

1. Is it right that only the best for retina option gives me the actual and native resolution 2880 by 1800 and the other two options give me a native resolution of 1680 by 1050 and 1920 by 1200 but just better looking because of the scaling process?

2. If that is so, it must be bad for the performance, doesn't it?

3. Why is it not working like that: Apple gives me always the native resolution 2880 by 1800, no matter what, and just tells everything else (Icons, Menubar, Finderwindow) to scale?

4. Why is the scaling process so complicated? I mean every icon can be scaled steplessly, see Cover Flow or the magnification in the dock!

Thanks

 

[Gata]

1. Is it right that only the best for retina option gives me the actual and native resolution 2880 by 1800 and the other two options give me a native resolution of 1680 by 1050 and 1920 by 1200 but just better looking because of the scaling process?

No- you can't set it to the native 2880x1800 from within System Preferences. The highest it'll go is a 1920*1200 resolution that will have more "retina" pixels per "actual" pixels.

2. If that is so, it must be bad for the performance, doesn't it?

The Nvidia card can handle it pretty well, but again the answer is no.

3. Why is it not working like that: Apple gives me always the native resolution 2880 by 1800, no matter what, and just tells everything else (Icons, Menubar, Finderwindow) to scale?

Apple's waiting on developers to update their apps to take advantage of the Retina Display; at this point, apps would either look smaller or be scaled up (with pretty mixed results)- keep in mind, too, that 2880*1800 is an extraordinarily high resolution for a 15" screen, and you'd be getting a tremendous amount of real estate that would make most things seem too small to be usable.

4. Why is the scaling process so complicated? I mean every icon can be scaled steplessly, see Cover Flow or the magnification in the dock!

Again, I think the issue is that developers themselves need to update their apps in order to support the Retina Display; when you scale something up to the Retina Display, you're magnifying it by a factor of 4, which means things are going to get blurry/pixelated pretty fast. They're either going to need a fix from the developer's end, or they're going to try to make do with what they have, which involves more than simply scaling content up.

Answers in red.