MBPr couple use questions.

[MRiOS]

I'vebeen reading through many of the threads here for a while and I haven't been able to find or maybe I missed if these where answered but I have a couple questions.

1. Is there any performance change between using the retina display in 1440x900 retina mode as opposed to unscaled native 1228x1800?

2 I plan on using windows solely for Microsoft office and older games like warcraft3 and Starcraft,not for anything intensive. Would installing in VMware have any detrimental affects to the performance of those applications, or would boot camping be a better option?

Thanks

 

[NewbieCanada]

I don't use VMware, I use Parallels, and I don't play games, but under Parallels my "Windows Experience Index" for graphics (both business and gaming) is a 6.

Certainly no issues at all for MS Office.

 

[stevelam]

I'vebeen reading through many of the threads here for a while and I haven't been able to find or maybe I missed if these where answered but I have a couple questions.

1. Is there any performance change between using the retina display in 1440x900 retina mode as opposed to unscaled native 1228x1800?

2 I plan on using windows solely for Microsoft office and older games like warcraft3 and Starcraft,not for anything intensive. Would installing in VMware have any detrimental affects to the performance of those applications, or would boot camping be a better option?

Thanks

Unscaled native is 2880, not 1228 which doesn't even exist. Yes there will be performance change. Software scaling is just slow. Unscaled 2880 is unusable on a 15" screen.

Playing games through VMware is a horrible idea.

 

[dhartung02]

I don't use VMware, I use Parallels, and I don't play games, but under Parallels my "Windows Experience Index" for graphics (both business and gaming) is a 6.

Certainly no issues at all for MS Office.

Ughh....your VM has a higher experience than my physical work windows 7 Dell laptop....

 

[NewbieCanada]

Ughh....your VM has a higher experience than my physical work windows 7 Dell laptop....

Also better than my Dell DESKTOP, which is admittedly a few years old now.

 

[notyourattorney]

Haven't run any games in my Parallels VM on the rMBP yet, but even on my 2011 Air, I could run older games like that. Ten year old games are child's play for modern hardware.

 

[leman]

Playing games through VMware is a horrible idea.

If its Warcraft III as OP wants than VMware/Parallels is the way to go actually.

 

[Fortimir]

Unscaled 2880 is unusable on a 15" screen.

I'd say that depends on your eyesight.

 

[psykick5]

If its Warcraft III as OP wants than VMware/Parallels is the way to go actually.

That's what I'm doing. It's not like WC3 is going to use all my RAM/processor/video card anyway.

 

[MRiOS]

If its Warcraft III as OP wants than VMware/Parallels is the way to go actually.

That's what I'm doing. It's not like WC3 is going to use all my RAM/processor/video card anyway.

ok, then I was correct in thinking that VMware will be the right way to go for what i want to do.

Unscaled native is 2880, not 1228 which doesn't even exist. Yes there will be performance change. Software scaling is just slow. Unscaled 2880 is unusable on a 15" screen.

Ok, so if I understand the gist of what you're saying, technically speaking from the computer's point of view, running unscaled 2880x1800 is less taxing on the GPU than running retina 1440x900. This would seem to me that if I were able to use 2880x1800 comfortably then I would be relieving some of the load from the GPU and be able to possibly get a little better performance from the MBPr?

 

[leman]

Ok, so if I understand the gist of what you're saying, technically speaking from the computer's point of view, running unscaled 2880x1800 is less taxing on the GPU than running retina 1440x900. This would seem to me that if I were able to use 2880x1800 comfortably then I would be relieving some of the load from the GPU and be able to possibly get a little better performance from the MBPr?

Unscaled 2880x1800 and scaled (HiDPI) 1440x900 are the same resolution. So the work done by the GPU is comparable. Actually, I'd expect the unscaled resolution to be slower. Reason: without scaling, the OS has to display more UI items. Drawing each separate item has some small overhead, in addition to the actual drawing costs. And there would be more items to draw on the unscaled screen, usually.

 

[doh123]

1. Is there any performance change between using the retina display in 1440x900 retina mode as opposed to unscaled native 1228x1800?

theoretically, yes, but I cannot see a difference between unscaled 2880x1800 and scaled "Best for Retina" with the "looks like" 1440x900

2 I plan on using windows solely for Microsoft office and older games like warcraft3 and Starcraft,not for anything intensive. Would installing in VMware have any detrimental affects to the performance of those applications, or would boot camping be a better option?

If you don't already own VMWare Fusion, I'd suggest Parallels 7. You can get free trials of each of them and test yourself, but when it comes to games and graphics performance, Parallels comes out on top.

You also have options like Crossover and Wineskin so that you don't even need to use Windows at all.

Software scaling is just slow. Unscaled 2880 is unusable on a 15" screen.

for some people it may be, but I've been using it at 2880x1800 unscaled for a few weeks with no issues. I do up some Font sizes and Icon sizes and such, but I think its great.

Ok, so if I understand the gist of what you're saying, technically speaking from the computer's point of view, running unscaled 2880x1800 is less taxing on the GPU than running retina 1440x900. This would seem to me that if I were able to use 2880x1800 comfortably then I would be relieving some of the load from the GPU and be able to possibly get a little better performance from the MBPr?

your not going to notice a performance difference... maybe if you are comparing it to the "looks like" 1920x1200 scaling, which is much more taxing. When you run a game in fullscreen mode or in a virtual machine, it won't be using scaling anyways... you'd have to be running it in a window on the normal scaled desktop.

Unscaled 2880x1800 and scaled (HiDPI) 1440x900 are the same resolution. So the work done by the GPU is comparable. Actually, I'd expect the unscaled resolution to be slower. Reason: without scaling, the OS has to display more UI items. Drawing each separate item has some small overhead, in addition to the actual drawing costs. And there would be more items to draw on the unscaled screen, usually.

its still handling all 2880x1800 pixels either way, but the extra scaling step does make more work for the computer, so no.. 2880x1800 is not slower at all.