Retina MacBook Pro Pushes the Limits of its Graphics Capabilities

[juminoz]

No Issue So Far with 1920 x 1200

Not sure what the fuzz is about. I have been using it with 1920 x 1200 resolution for a couple weeks now on multiple monitors and never saw any lag. I have tried running multiple movies at the same time as working on other things. Is the issue only related to gaming potentially? I don't play games on my Mac so I wouldn't know.

Other than that, I don't see any reason at all to wait for the next generation. This has been the sweetest Mac I have used in the past 7 years. No complaint so far besides the fact that I would love it to be as light as Macbook Air, which we all know isn't possible.

 

[clmo]

most likely a software issue

users running the screen at 2880x1800 using the hack are not seeing any lag or issues. It's likely a software issue.

 

[kemo]

This is why I feel like waiting for the 2nd revision really is a good idea.

Cannot be said better. Thats why I rather chosen MBP late 2011 top config for a great price + Apple Thunderbolt Display + upgrade with SSD and extra RAM.

 

[pmau]

users running the screen at 2880x1800 using the hack are not seeing any lag or issues. It's likely a software issue.

Ah, .... no. If you run it at native 2880x1800 there's no scaling down.
And if there's no scaling, it's only one drawing path.

With scaling, integral factor or not, there's alway two drawing operations.
One into the larger texture and the second one on the screen itself.

So, with the native retina hack, there's no overdraw...

 

[Daws001]

Yeah, I figured it'd be best to wait for a 2nd or 3rd iteration before jumping on board. No regrets getting a MBA instead, though. Best computer I've ever owned

 

[JohnDoe98]

No, that's life.


A rMBP for college. *ROTFLMAO*

Makes sense to me. He/she is probably going to be doing a lot of writing and reading on the computer so might as well have a nice crisp display to do your research on, but which is portable enough to bring to class to record lectures, and that has a strong enough battery to last all day, so that you do not need to carry the power brick around. Added bonus, being a higher end model, it is also likely to last a very long time, always running the latest updates without a hitch, for several years into the future. Strikes me as a good long-term investment.

 

[terraphantm]

So single threaded performance is an excuse for insufficient CPU? Dude, get serious. Apple made patch work. A real solution would leverage everything the hardware has to offer, which it doesn't.

Choking happens somewhere due to insufficient multi-threaded solutions. GPU is being choked on dumb patch work. The CPU is not struggling, never does Anand say the CPU (all four threads) is being stressed 100% during page views and scrolling.

He does say a single core is stressed:



However, this just shows the patch work Apple did to sell.

How does that make the GPU the choke point? The CPU (more specifically a single core of the CPU) is the part that's choking. Ultimately that boils down to Apple's laziness; a multithreaded browser would probably make a big difference. I wonder if Windows is any better in this regard, I've always found my MBA (rev B) is much faster in Windows than in OSX.

No, that's life.


A rMBP for college. *ROTFLMAO*

What's wrong with that? I'm a college student and am planning on buying one as well. I need a laptop, and I can afford the rMBP... so why the hell not?

 

[notyourattorney]

I'm not surprised. In the notebook market the 650m is considered a mid-range card. I'm somewhat disappointed they didn't outfit it with a more higher end GPU, especially with the price they charge.

It's only a midrange card if you are contemplating a laptop that weighs 8 pounds and has fans that sound like hair dryers. The 650M is a screaming beast considering its heat and power consumption profile--it can run modern games at high settings at 1440x900, which is very solid. People can't get their heads around the fact that at 2880x1800, the rMBP has more pixels than a 30 inch monitor, and notebooks, except giant gaming monsters, just don't go huge graphics heavy lifting on 30 inch monitors.

 

[treellama]

Choosing the "Open in Low Resolution" checkbox in the Finder speeds up Safari's web page scrolling on slow pages dramatically. Of course, it makes web pages blurry. You might find it OK at 1920x1200 though.

 

[stevelam]

Makes sense to me. He/she is probably going to be doing a lot of writing and reading on the computer so might as well have a nice crisp display to do your research on, but which is portable enough to bring to class to record lectures, and that has a strong enough battery to last all day, so that you do not need to carry the power brick around. Added bonus, being a higher end model, it is also likely to last a very long time, always running the latest updates without a hitch, for several years into the future. Strikes me as a good long-term investment.

It's not really a higher end model unless you max out all upgrades. It's exactly the same (minus form factor obviously) as the non-retina version minus the ability to actually upgrade yourself. That's hardly a good long term investment.

A lot of reading and writing? Are you kidding me? So every laptop before the RMBP couldn't be used for simple reading and writing?

The battery life is pretty much the same as the non retina version.

Performance will pretty much be slower on the RMBP since it has the overhead of having to use resources just to power the retina display properly.

Sorry but trying to justify the RMBP as a need for college is the dumbest thing I've read today.

 

[MrXiro]

I would have been sold on a rMBP sans Retina. I like all the specs and feature of the rMBP but don't care for the Retina screen.

What you'd get without a Retina screen.
-Cheaper entry level price (that's subjective to Apple)
-Longer battery life.
-Higher performing graphics card (if it's not busting it's ass to run the screen it can run your games/programs faster)
-Cooler screen (though this one is moot)

 

[Krevnik]

The native screen is 2880x1800, that is where you will get the best quality picture. Trying to go higher or lower will result in image distortion. So whatever image you send to the display, it should be at 2880x1800 to get the best possible image.

Now, given that the typical screen real estate on the 15" is 1440x900, Apple figured it could just double the pixels in each direction and that'll achieve your 2880x1800. So everything there is rosy.

Now, with the 1920x1200 real estate, you have two options. You can either just bump it up to 2880x1800, which gives you a multiples of 1.5x which are not rounded numbers, or you can double the pixels in each direction to achieve 3840x2400 and then downscale it to the 2880x1800. Upscaling with non-rounded numbers causes more distortion in your final image than does downscaling with non-rounded numbers, so Apple figured since it always wants to run the display at 2880x1800, it might as well upscale with rounded numbers and then downscale with the non-rounded numbers to achieve the best final solution.

With screen real estates of less than 1440x900, it'll upscale as much as possible with rounded numbers and do the rest with non-rounded numbers to hit the 2880x1800 again. I hope this helps, I tried to present it as accurate as I could in simple terms.

There is a key bit of wrong information in this explanation. There is no upscaling going on. The OS is actually drawing everything in that higher resolution. So it will draw into a 3480x2400 'image', and then scale the 'image' down to 2880x1800.

Upscaling + Downscaling doesn't actually work any better, as you still get the same distortions of the image (fuzziness/etc). To keep it tack sharp, you have to actually produce the image at 2880x1800 or higher so that you are sampling 100% of the detail.

 

[Aco Strkalj]

Nothing wrong with this. We need a first generation of sales and users. This just makes it better for the folks that buy the 2nd generation. And the 3rd...

Just how the game works.

 

[kiljoy616]

I guess the next generation GPU is going to be need for the kind of frames people really want.

----------

This is why I feel like waiting for the 2nd revision really is a good idea.

It normally is. That is after all a lot of pixels a whole lot.

 

[pmau]

There is a key bit of wrong information in this explanation. There is no upscaling going on. The OS is actually drawing everything in that higher resolution.

Images on web pages are scaled up before being drawn on the 3840x2400 texture (for 19200x1200).

Every content that is using "normal" DPI will be upscaled and the whole texture is downscaled while being drawn on the physical LCD.

 

[Rocketman]

Which is what makes it so hard to come to terms with. You are talking to people with more concerns on 3D rendering than web page rendering which is on the CPU majority side of things.

Since webkit is everywhere, why isn't this a webkit thing?

When Apple released OSX I remember the presentation that resembled the NeXT one, where they had a flowchart that showed the CPU, GPU OS, etc., where the CPU could be any one of theee options to have it compiled for.

Why can't that massive OSX legacy code of threaded and multiple protocol code, be brought into the browser for supporting as many threads as the CPU has? I see when I look at processes running on the mac it tends to have one micro-app per process. I don't use Maya or other multi-threaded apps much but why couldn't the browser also treat packets as threads?

Rocketman

 

[eron]

My 17" 2011 MBP can only display about 30FPS on my FB page, so I don't see an issue there.

 

[2IS]

I like the hater's reasoning. So because of a tiny bit of lag on a few exceptional websites, it is best to avoid buying this product entirely?

Also, to everyone complaining about the GPU, it is the fastest one for it's power foot print, so unless you want 3 hour battery life, this is as good as it gets on a laptop with decent battery.

Finally, the scrolling lag is entirely a limit of the CPU and has nothing to do with the GPU, so again for everyone saying Apple should have done more, please explain, did you expect them to build a CPU better than what Intel has to offer?

Is Safari not GPU accelerated like IE is in windows? If it is then scrolling not entirely CPU bound and if it isn't then Apple is behind MS in this regard.

 

[doelcm82]

By deluded I meant I was not caught up in the hype, I was able to look at the practical benefits and drawbacks to the Retina. Drawbacks which included an overtaxed graphics card and the inability to repair or upgrade the machine. I don't see how that is being vociferous, but whatever.

The external monitor I am using is 1920x1080, which while it does put an additional strain on the 650M, nowhere near meets the demands placed upon the 650M in the Retina.

I would not warn anyone off the Retina, it is a great machine, sorry if you felt I was attacking your decision. I simply advocate really looking at what you need or want from a machine. The Retina is not the answer to every question.

I agree the Retina is not the answer to every question. It was the answer to my question, though.

You flinched when I used the word vociferous, which was my intent. It's the kind of word you only use when talking about someone else. Like: I'm thrifty, you're a bit of a tightwad, he's stingy. You will usually get a bad reaction when you use it.

 

[Asclepio]

this is why bob mansfield was fired. retina mcbook sucks.

 

[jouster]

...A rMBP for college. *ROTFLMAO*

Why not? College is four years. Doesn't seem so unusual to me.

I got a TiBook which was new and shiny (to me anyway) my freshman year, and pretty old but still fine by the time I graduated.

 

[Lvivske]

users running the screen at 2880x1800 using the hack are not seeing any lag or issues. It's likely a software issue.

thats because native res is easier on the GPU

normally it has to take that 2880x1800, scale it up 2x, then scale it down to 1400x900 "DPI" to keep the aspect ratio in check

much easier running 2880x1800 than the default setting

 

[G5isAlive]

It's not really a higher end model unless you max out all upgrades. It's exactly the same (minus form factor obviously) as the non-retina version minus the ability to actually upgrade yourself. That's hardly a good long term investment.

A lot of reading and writing? Are you kidding me? So every laptop before the RMBP couldn't be used for simple reading and writing?

The battery life is pretty much the same as the non retina version.

Performance will pretty much be slower on the RMBP since it has the overhead of having to use resources just to power the retina display properly.

Sorry but trying to justify the RMBP as a need for college is the dumbest thing I've read today.

I wasn't going to comment until you tossed a grenade.

Anyone who uses the current iPhones with retina display, versus the older ones, or people who use the new iPad versus the older ones know that yes you could of course read the older ones, but reading the retina is a joy. It does make things better. Its not a black and white matter of work or not work, but work or works better. The retina is better for reading. Nothing to argue about.

And the computer is plenty fast enough even with the retina display. And as software comes out to take advantage of it, even better. So yes it does give it legs into the future over older technology.

You don't have to max out the processor and storage to have a computer that will in fact run updates for several years.

If someone wants the rMBP, whats it to you?

 

[wiz329]

Is Safari not GPU accelerated like IE is in windows? If it is then scrolling not entirely CPU bound and if it isn't then Apple is behind MS in this regard.

It is, but there are many operations (I assume) that currently have to use the CPU. As I understand, this is particularly an issue on facbook.

"Facebook is still a challenge because of the mixture of CPU decoded images and a standard web page, but the experience is a bit better. Repeating the same test as above I measured anywhere from 20 - 30 fps while scrolling through Facebook on ML’s Safari."

 

[EthanNixon]

Project Butter!