NEW MacBook Pro 13": iPhoto VERY sluggish?

[cmurder]

I just got my brand new MacBook pro 13" on Friday (2.4GHz, 4GB RAM). I am obviously running the newest version of Snow Leopard and iPhoto.

One of the first things I did was import 180 photos from my camera into iPhoto. The images are not huge (3.4MB each).

After upgrading from a 2008 MBP, I was excited to play around with gestures on the new trackpad, and I was immediately very concerned with the severe lag I experienced in iPhoto.

When I double-click an image in iPhoto (enter full screen) and pinch to zoom, and then use two fingers to pan over the image while zoomed in, I experience a lag of several seconds. So, for example, if I zoom on an image, I watch the screen do a choppy zoom for the next couple seconds. Similarly, when I use two fingers to pan over the zoomed image, I watch the screen do a choppy pan for the next 5-6 seconds before finishing the operation.

Is this normal?

I would understand if these images were huge, but these are from a standard Canon PowerShot SD camera (6 megapixels), so I would certainly expect the user interface to be smooth, especially considering that on my old computer running on Leopard (10.5.8) with iPhoto (7.1.5), I am able to perform the same functions with the same photos will no lag whatsoever (albeit without using a gesture trackpad).

I did find a thread on this (from Sept. '09), which This suggests that Snow Leopard may be the culprit, but it doesn't seem too many are people experiencing this:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2166089&start=0&tstart=0

Can anyone please tell me if you are experiencing similar lag in iPhoto, or if something is wrong with my machine.

Thanks!

 

[Cali3350]

Your 2008 MBP had a discrete GPU with local ram, your new 13" has a integrated GPU that uses system memory. All graphical effects that OSX uses will be slower because of this. Open up a lot of Expose windows and you will notice the same thing.

Now, whether or not the extent your seeing the issue is normal I cannot say. The general idea of it being more choppy though is expected.

 

[Pikkoz]

Your 2008 MBP had a discrete GPU with local ram, your new 13" has a integrated GPU that uses system memory. All graphical effects that OSX uses will be slower because of this. Open up a lot of Expose windows and you will notice the same thing.

Now, whether or not the extent your seeing the issue is normal I cannot say. The general idea of it being more choppy though is expected.

Not all 2008 MBP had a discrete gpu, 9400m is a integrated gpu like the 320m but slower.

 

[Inside_line]

Not sure what drive you had in the 15", but 5400 RPM drive in 13" vs 7200 RPM in 15" could explain a big difference.

 

[cmurder]

Not sure what drive you had in the 15", but 5400 RPM drive in 13" vs 7200 RPM in 15" could explain a big difference.

Well, that's interesting. My old computer did have a 7200rpm drive, and I ordered my new one with the the baseline 250GB 5400rpm.

I'm planning on installing a new hard drive on my own (either 7200RPM or maybe SSD, if/when I can afford it), but I wanted to make sure my machine is behaving normally before I go replacing the hard drive.

The new machine seems very fast, except in the aforementioned situations in iPhoto when it is intolerably slow.

I find it hard to believe that this choppy, several second lag should be "expected" on a brand new machine, even if it is the base model. I actually can't tolerate it.

Should I assume that getting the faster 7200rpm HD will solve the problem?

Does anyone else with the new 13" MBP experience similar problems in iPhoto?

Many thanks for any advice.

 

[grain]

I noticed that lag too and it's annoying. But seriously: There is absolutely no way this could be a hardware problem. My four and a half year old 1,73 GHz Pentium M Notebook with 2 GB ram and an Intel GMA 910 GPU (!!!) handled my 10mpix jpgs in picasa without lags like these.
And I don't see how this could be connected to harddisk rpm. That lag is seconds long. How long could it take for even a 5400rpm drive to load a 5-6 MByte file? Obviously this is some kind of software bug. Maybe that new inertial scrolling feature messes with iPhoto.

 

[Fuchal]

iPhoto has always been slow for me since iPhoto 08 + 09, so I use Aperture.

 

[cmurder]

I noticed that lag too and it's annoying. But seriously: There is absolutely no way this could be a hardware problem. My four and a half year old 1,73 GHz Pentium M Notebook with 2 GB ram and an Intel GMA 910 GPU (!!!) handled my 10mpix jpgs in picasa without lags like these.
And I don't see how this could be connected to harddisk rpm. That lag is seconds long. How long could it take for even a 5400rpm drive to load a 5-6 MByte file? Obviously this is some kind of software bug. Maybe that new inertial scrolling feature messes with iPhoto.

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem. I agree with you - it's hard for me to believe it's a hardware problem. I've found other threads in which users reported started experiencing the same type of lag after upgrading to Snow Leopard, so it seems more likely to be a software bug:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11176457&#11176457

I'm just surprised there aren't more people talking about this. It's frustrating to get a brand new machine and experience such a choppy, delayed reaction in a program like iPhoto.