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MacBook Pro Retina mid 2014 extreme UI LAG! Video Proof!

That looks quite badly choppy, mine doesn't have lag anywhere near that bad, the only time i see it is when changing tabs in about this mac
 
andeify said:
That looks quite badly choppy, mine doesn't have lag anywhere near that bad, the only time i see it is when changing tabs in about this mac
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It's unusable . I have done many clean installs . On mavericks sometimes is even worse !
 
All these ui lags are caused by os X. It is not properly optimized for such things. if you go to windows, its much better and there are no issues. Its not hardware limited, its software. OS X uses a lot of open gl especially with transparency. All macs suffer from this. If you resize a window with your mouse, you will see that all macs are choppy because they are resizing in realtime.

Windows on the other hand, is a lot better with effects. Don't blame the performance of the hardware. Its OS X. Its the same issue what happened with the transition from ios 6 to ios 7.
 
Meh, the browser demos just look like slow loading of Pinterest... aka slow internet.

But seriously if people put this much effort into bugging Apple about the 2008, 2009 & 2011 graphics card failures Apple might have actually done people a solid and set up a repair program for the 2011 folks.
 
TheIguana said:
Meh, the browser demos just look like slow loading of Pinterest... aka slow internet.

But seriously if people put this much effort into bugging Apple about the 2008, 2009 & 2011 graphics card failures Apple might have actually done people a solid and set up a repair program for the 2011 folks.
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yea, actually bugging apple is the reason why they moved to integrated graphics
 
I have more or less the same UI lag in Yosemite while on Intel HD 4000.
I wish apple software engineers were more dedicated to optimisation 😕 Here's a interesting fact: OS X can switch from regular to HiDPI rendering on the fly. If you have half of your window on an external screen that half will be rendered in normal mode and another half (on your built-in screen) will be in HiDPI. That kind of functionality probably resulted in a complex code that's not as efficient as it could be otherwise.

It runs much smoother on 650M, so it's clearly an iGPU performance issue. As far as I know, this UI lag doesn't happen with non-retina screens of comparable resolution (2560x1440) even on iGPU.
 
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TheIguana said:
Meh, the browser demos just look like slow loading of Pinterest... aka slow internet.

But seriously if people put this much effort into bugging Apple about the 2008, 2009 & 2011 graphics card failures Apple might have actually done people a solid and set up a repair program for the 2011 folks.
Click to expand...

I'm from Romania , I don't know if you heard but here we have one of the fastest internet connections in the world . I have 500 mbps , i can download and stream 4k videos super fast , but I have lag on a simple website . Ridiculous .

On windows everything is smooth . Also there is a problem with cooling , when I play a 3d game the mac gets very hot like 90 ºC and fans go crazy .
 
maratus said:
I have more or less the same UI lag in Yosemite while on Intel HD 4000.
I wish apple software engineers were more dedicated to optimisation 😕 Here's a interesting fact: OS X can switch from regular to HiDPI rendering on the fly. If you have half of your window on an external screen that half will be rendered in normal mode and another half (on your built-in screen) will be in HiDPI. That kind of functionality probably resulted in a complex code that's not as efficient as it could be otherwise.

It runs much smoother on 650M, so it's clearly an iGPU performance issue. As far as I know, this UI lag doesn't happen with non-retina screens of comparable resolution (2560x1440) even on iGPU.
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Yea, it may be faster on 650m because its dedicated, it has more power to feed the open gl tasks. It also takes more power also. Thats why the dedicated gpu have worser battery life because your machine has to power both the gpu and cpu. Also take into account that with nvidia optimus, everytime you request an open gl task, it will use power.

What could be the issue from what i see, is that they are not offloading all the open gl to the gpu at all unless u have dedicated in the machine. Everytime I request an open gl task like the notification center, it uses only my cpu to render the tasks. no gpu acceleration at all. Also take into mind, that retina is pushing 3.2x more pixels than non retina macs.
 
Also from what I've heard the GPU(s) are underclocked . There seems to be a fix for MacBooks with dedicated gpu .
Looks like removing AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext fixes the issue : https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1386070/

"While Googling I found a tip regarding lagginess in Lion (not retina related) that suggested disabling System/Library/Extensions/AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext. Tried that, and it does make a noticeable different, albeit at the expense of additional heat and noise. It appears Apple very aggressively throttles the GPU to keep heat and fan noise down on the desktop. When I run xbench UI test (yeah, I know, xbench sucks) the numbers go from ~90 (with AGPM) to ~180 (without AGPM), so about double the performance.

It seems we only get full graphics performance with games that directly address hardware.

Note: I am running the GT650, not internal."

Could anyone try this ? On my macbook with intel iris has no effect .
 
ChrisDB said:
Also from what I've heard the GPU(s) are underclocked . There seems to be a fix for MacBooks with dedicated gpu .
Looks like removing AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext fixes the issue : https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1386070/

"While Googling I found a tip regarding lagginess in Lion (not retina related) that suggested disabling System/Library/Extensions/AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext. Tried that, and it does make a noticeable different, albeit at the expense of additional heat and noise. It appears Apple very aggressively throttles the GPU to keep heat and fan noise down on the desktop. When I run xbench UI test (yeah, I know, xbench sucks) the numbers go from ~90 (with AGPM) to ~180 (without AGPM), so about double the performance.

It seems we only get full graphics performance with games that directly address hardware.

Note: I am running the GT650, not internal."

Could anyone try this ? On my macbook with intel iris has no effect .
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I've just tried that and my scores increased (iGPU + 15%, dGPU + 60%).
UI smoothness? That's hard to tell. The difference between iGPU and dGPU is still visible. The actual improvement after disabling the kext is very hard to notice. There's still a slight FPS drop with iGPU... but honestly it doesn't look as bad as in your video

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I downloaded your video and examined it more. I'm also pretty sensitive to such things but UI lags on iGPU haven't really bothered me. It's definitely smoother on dGPU (although it's noticeable only in some actions), but the difference is not enough for me to complain.

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I still remember retina UI lags on Mountain Lion in 2012, those were pretty ****ed up
 
For starters, you are using QuickTime to record the screen at 2560x1600 pixels in real time. That alone uses a lot of CPU and GPU power taking it away from the rest of the system. This will amplify any lag that you will have.

For a fair comparison, but not as sharp of course, you can try recording with an actual camera.

I have a very similar model (Late 2013 2.4GHz/8GB/256GB) with the same GPU and yes, there is some lag entering Mission Control for the first time, and using apps like iMovie, Aperture, FCP, etc. But once it's up and running it's not bad at all. Mostly an initial clock up from idle.

But a lot of it is that it's running at such a high resolution off integrated graphics, I agree. For example, when I plug in my 1080p monitor and use it exclusively in clamshell mode, it's smooth as butter 100% of the time. But when I open the MacBook and use it's internal display it will stutter from time to time. A lot of it is OS X using lots of effects for windows/transparency.

I do think it will improve over time with later software updates, and hardware down the line of course. But for now, I don't think it is unbearable, and if it is, choose a different laptop, easy fix.

Personally I'd rather have a nice high resolution screen to do my work on with slight lag here and there than something like a MacBook Air LCD, lower resolution and quality, but smoother. And this is a 13" highly portable laptop. If you want the best experience possible, go with the 15". But there are tradeoffs for portability and a lower price.

I do agree that the lag is there though, I've had mine for around 5 months now. And I see it, but hardly care to take notice anymore. Some people just get bugged by it more. Anyone ever play GTA IV on a PS3? That is some lag 😉

As far as actual GPU power goes though, this thing runs most anything I throw at it. Games like Portal 2, Call of Duty, Need for Speed etc. all run just fine. It even plays back 4K video from my Moto X without stuttering a bit. So it's plenty powerful, it just has some lag with animations.
 
I've a 2012 rMBP with 650m running Yosemite. It's never lagged that much on any OSX version I've used to date. Be it using the dGPU or HD4000. I'd try doing a clean install and see if that fixes the problem.

dGPU is clocked fine. If anything it's overclocked a bit. I used to tinker with kext files when I was using Mavericks. I managed to disable automatic cpu and gpu throttling (cpu would run at 36x, gpu at 900/2500) and UI wasn't any smoother than when automatic software throttling was enabled.

/edit

Pardon my not reading you'd already done clean installing to no avail. Please give NVRAM & SMC resetting a try.
 
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I did everything reset NVRAM and SMC , clean install , nothing worked . The same lag was on Mavericks and Yosemite . It's definitly the GPU , is too weak for retina display , when I set the resolution with RDM to 1440x900 non hiDPI , there was almost no lag , but I could stand it , because the text was blurry and fuzzy .
I still had warranty on the machine but I didn't bother .

I just sold it and also made a little profit . With the money I'll buy a windows laptop with much better specs , an Ipad Air 2 and some nice headphones also 🙂 .

I'm very disappointed with Apple , the GPU's in all retina MACs are awful , I don't know how people can use them for video editing or other intensive tasks .

I'll buy a 15 inch Mac when Broadwell comes up or Skylake , but with a proper GPU .
 
Yeah, you got me curious about this. Started playing with my late 2013 13 rMBP and I am not having those issues. Weird. But no matter, I am not in business of pitting the two platforms against each other. I also have a Lenovo X220 which I love. Both platforms have their advantages, and I run VMs of Win 7 on my rMBP and a VM of OSX on my Lenovo. Go figure.
 
Have two Retina`s and yes there is lag, but nothing to make drama over. I normally have multiple apps open and dozens of webpages over multiple "Spaces" will it get better probably, will it ever animate super smooth at an ultra high frame rate probably not.

I don't spend enough time worrying about it for it to be a concern, all OS`s have issue, this is the least of mine.

Q-6
 
it's not "unusable," but it isn't as smooth as non-retina. It's 100% a software issue. It can play skyrim in windows at 60fps, but it can't smoothly browse through a web site at 60fps in osx? Hopefully, they'll fix it eventually.
 
I see lag in About This Mac, but nowhere else. My rMBP handles everything I throw at it with aplomb. Trade in my Mac for a Windows laptop? NO WAY! Loll...not even if the damn thing started to lag badly.
 
ChrisDB said:
It's unusable . I have done many clean installs . On mavericks sometimes is even worse !
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Running Yosemite 10.10.1 ... on the rMBP Late 2013 Iris Pro model. On the 5th clean install. Definitely a bug in WindowServer and likely to be unresolved until 10.10.3 or later if ever.

PS and other pro apps are often unusable.
 
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ttran88 said:
Mine was doing this a couple days ago and I found a fix.

https://david.gyttja.com/2013/01/21/fix-lagging-display-performance-on-retina-macbook-pro/

NOTE: If you only found one of the files its okay. Resetting your PRAM is the most important step. You should hear the apple chime twice if you did it correctly.
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Doesn't seem to fix the issues with WindowServer.

Might be a placebo effect since there is no lag on 1440x900 Best Fit with/without reseting ws preferences.

Much of the lag is noticeable if running at 1920x1200 or higher HiDPI.
 
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