Retina MacBook Pro Pushes the Limits of its Graphics Capabilities

[Sporaktu]

I'm not buying the whole "hardware isn't up to the task" thing. Mine (the 512GB version) works flawlessly in games, certain full screen apps and even Windows 8. In fact, simply due to the fact that Windows 8 runs smooth as glass while Lion, the OS I still think is one of the worst I have ever used (I vastly prefer Snow Leopard for many many reasons), struggles to do the simplest things. Windows 8, despite even less native HiDPI apps, seems to handle UI scaling even better than Lion, the new Metro tiles "start menu" never lags and, best of all, there is never any general interface lag. Heck, even in Lion it randomly decides to have absolutely no interface lag at all; I can't find a single reason why. I even disabled automatic graphics switching for a whole day (on battery and plugged in) just to see if it was when the GPU was kicking in, but no dice. Apple released hardware, not that wasn't ready, but with software that is not optimized on top of simply being poorly written.

In fact, the most telling thing to me is that demo everyone got so excited about with the rMBP driving 4 monitors easily. Every single problem I have had with my new laptop has been directly related to Lion. Apple needs to get their ducks in a row, fix their inefficient code and make their flagship computer run like it should.

Also, Apple please, make your mouse functionality not awful. End Lion rant.

 

[eric_n_dfw]

Exactly and with much better ssds than apple...

Well, to be fair, the 512GB storage on the rMBP performs at least as well a single one of OWC's SSD's (which should match these Vertex4's) - you just can't RAID-0 stripe a pair of them and it's unclear if 3rd party upgrades will be coming any time soon.

... that's why it's so infuriating the **** they are pulling with custom on board ssd and soldered ram

The soldered RAM isn't a big deal to me as 16GB is plenty for my needs for the 3-5 year lifespan of the machine. The ~$60 premium is what you pay for the thin-ness (which I don't really need)

I really am in a quandary as that screen is so nice. I think if I had to buy immediately, I'd go with the non-retina one I spec'ed in my blog post - but I could be swayed either way right now.

 

[Sporaktu]

I think the deal breaker for me with the Retina was that it still did not address the biggest, most important problem in the Macbook Pro line. Razor blade palm rests.

Actually, I notice a rather big difference between my old MBP and my rMBP in that regard. I don't think I have ever actually had the issue with it cutting into my arms. Apple definitely smoothed the edges, it just retains the look of sharpness.

 

[iBug2]

Well, to be fair, the 512GB storage on the rMBP performs at least as well a single one of OWC's SSD's (which should match these Vertex4's) - you just can't RAID-0 stripe a pair of them and it's unclear if 3rd party upgrades will be coming any time soon.

True but SSD with Raid 0 won't give you faster launch times or an overall speed increase. I actually tried that. I bought 2 Vertex 3's and Raid 0'd them as my boot disk, but then I tried the same with a single Vertex 3 and realised it's basically the same performance unless I'm using it as a scratch disk for some task. Raiding SSD's won't give you faster random access. It only gives faster sustained which is rare unless your job demands such tasks.

 

[Karl Berg]

I have just arrived back home from an Apple reseller because I wanted to put this issue to the test.

To be honest, yes there is a (noticable) lag when scrolling webpages and iphoto thumbnails, zooming in on webpages or iphotothumbnails and overal response. I found the lag pretty huge and very disturbing.

The store I went to had the rMBP right next to the upgraded, normal MBP so comparing was easy. I used both my hands to scroll simultaneously on both machines and the older MBP is by far more responsive and faster than the rMBP.

So far, this issue stated in the post is true. I leave in the middle the fact if it has something to do with the GPU or CPU, but the problem is definitely there. I wanted to get a retina macbook pro after the summer but now im not so sure anymore. I found it horrible to scroll even on macrumors using the rMBP, something that can't be accepted with a 2200 euro machine.

I heard mountain lion will be promising, so when it ships I'll try it out again with the new OS.

But again, what Anand says is true (read: the cons AND pro's ) and it's good Macrumors zoomed in on this issue because people need to be warned about this before buying a machine with this price tag.

 

[J53119]

I wonder if the drivers are written as well as they are on a Windows PC. On Windows, drivers are updated frequently for video, whereas on a Mac they MAYBE are updated with a service release, if even that. Even Intel video drivers are updated every few months. If a PC buyer upgrades their video card, you likely will not use the drivers in box because they are "old." On a Mac you are stuck.

 

[iBug2]

I wonder if the drivers are written as well as they are on a Windows PC. On Windows, drivers are updated frequently for video, whereas on a Mac they MAYBE are updated with a service release, if even that. Even Intel video drivers are updated every few months. If a PC buyer upgrades their video card, you likely will not use the drivers in box because they are "old." On a Mac you are stuck.

Video drivers are updated on each point update on OS X. Whether those update deal with the issues you are experiencing is another issue but they are always updated.

 

[derbothaus]

I like the GPU in my iMac. I don't see the issue with it. it does everything I need it to. Plays the games I play at reasonable fps (25+) and most importantly it is small and low power. It's not an ugly eyesore, large and with it's own dedicated fan.

Those are not reasonable FPS. You need over 30 and personally I need it doubled to 60FPS for perfect fluidity. Yes I know about the "human eyes can only distinguish...", spare me. I notice the glitches that only 30FPS brings. I also don't care about fans and "ugly" because my GPU in a case I never need to open. I don't care about power because my city is 95% hydro and 50ºC all the time so heat powered exhaust is a GOOD thing

 

[eric_n_dfw]

True but SSD with Raid 0 won't give you faster launch times or an overall speed increase. I actually tried that. I bought 2 Vertex 3's and Raid 0'd them as my boot disk, but then I tried the same with a single Vertex 3 and realised it's basically the same performance unless I'm using it as a scratch disk for some task. Raiding SSD's won't give you faster random access. It only gives faster sustained which is rare unless your job demands such tasks.

Very cool info - I've been wondering about that. If I do got with the non-retina model, I may do the 256 SSD and put the spinning drive in the DVD slot for slower, mass storage.

FWIW: I used to do a fair bit of video so that would probably benefit from the RAID'ed setup, but any more I'm doing software dev and occasional photo work. Code compilation is mostly CPU bound, so the faster the chip, cache and RAM, the better - of which these machines are identical.

 

[freudling]

Ok, no more denial.

The Retina MacBook Pro has 'poor' graphics performance. This is a fact. It's a fact because:

1. AnandTech did testing and found the fps to be much lower than new, non-retina MacBook Pros;
2. I've tested it using FPS on various tasks and it's SLOWER than my 2011 MacBook Pro (running latest Lion with 8 GB RAM).
3. I can see and feel the poor performance on my Retina MBP 2.3 GHz, 8 GB RAM always running the latest Mountain Lion DP. I also noticed it just running Lion.
4. My entire development staff tested it and could see and feel the sluggishness.
5. This 'issue' has been cropping up all over the Internet, and my Apple Business Contact all but confirmed the poor GPU performance.

I've got the dedicated (best) graphics chip running (turned off GPU cycling in energy saver). I notice everything is choppy. Scrolling, swiping into Dashboard, bringing up the Dock, some quicktime movies, on and on. You name it, it's choppyville. Stutter, stutter, sutter. Choppy, chop chop chop it up. Feels like my PowerBook Wallstreet did way back when OS X launched: there wasn't any GPUs support for it so it was slow and choppy in OS X.

It really struggles to redraw Windows... basically, any UI event and it's choking. It's trying to move too many pixels at one time. While this rig has 1 GB VRAM compared to my 2011 MBP that has 256 MB VRAM, the extra memory doesn't seem to matter at all. Neither does having GPU cycling on or not in Energy Saver. It's crap either way.

Now the drivers very well could still be crap with room for improvement. I'm crossing my fingers here. But Anandtech was pretty clear on the requirement to incorporate DRAM and other things for this to work well. Basically, they concluded that software wouldn't save this Version 1.0 lemon.

And my view not knowing a whole lot about the drivers is there's a major lag when you initiate UI events, particularly large UI events like swiping into Dashboard. I'm not sure having so much extra VRAM memory makes a whack of different. There's a bottleneck in terms of the amount of data that needs to be processed immediately after a user initiates a UI event. So many pixels to move now yet it needs to do it as fast or faster than the much lower resolution non-retina MBPs.

Sorry guys, rMBP has crap performance. Buyer and Developer, beware.

 

[magbarn]

Those are not reasonable FPS. You need over 30 and personally I need it doubled to 60FPS for perfect fluidity. Yes I know about the "human eyes can only distinguish...", spare me. I notice the glitches that only 30FPS brings. I also don't care about fans and "ugly" because my GPU in a case I never need to open. I don't care about power because my city is 95% hydro and 50ºC all the time so heat powered exhaust is a GOOD thing

Oh it's very noticeable to someone who's owned 5 different unibody MacBooks and Airs since 2008. This one is the laggiest of them all. My 4 previous MacBooks were super smooth. Either people just aren't bothered by it, or they're comparing it against a 2008 macbook air.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

This problem very likely would not exist on a new iMac. An iMac is plugged into AC power, Apple can put any GPU in their they like with little concern over power consumption. Higher end GPU's can and do cope with resolutions in excess of 4K fine on the desktop.

My GPU uses 1% at 1920x1080 on desktop use. Even at 10x the pixel count, it would likely never get above 15% usage.

Yah, but the iMac's have always had mobile (or integrated) gpus. As soon as they start putting real GPUs in their they start to lose their distinction from the pro line.

Maybe they'll put it in something like an iMac Pro.

 

[eyehop]

Hmmm, I'm so confused. But this post is moving me more towards the higher end 15" non retina MBP.

No worries. Forums are full of cynics and unfulfilled product lust which leads to jealousy, which leads to trashing what you don't have. I do have the MBPR, and it's powerful and runs cooler than you've probably been told, thanks in part to a wise choice for a GPU. Of course next year's model will be better, but today's is perfectly awesome.

 

[iBug2]

Oh it's very noticeable to someone who's owned 5 different unibody MacBooks and Airs since 2008. This one is the laggiest of them all. My 4 previous MacBooks were super smooth. Either people just aren't bothered by it, or they're comparing it against a 2008 macbook air.

I own a 2009 MBP and I tested the Retina in the store, it was smoother than my 2009 MBP for sure doing stuff like opening dashboard or expose. So no, it's not the laggiest of them all.

 

[Aodhan]

No worries. Forums are full of cynics and unfulfilled product lust which leads to jealousy, which leads to trashing what you don't have...

While I bet it feels really good to say that, a lot of us actually spent more on MBPs than MBPRs. I had ordered an MBPR on day one, but changed my mind after learning of the drawbacks. I ended up spending more money on the MBP I wanted. While I am not trashing the MBPR, I am certainly arguing that it is not without its drawbacks. I guess there must be another reason I am doing it apart from jealousy.

 

[tomtom2234]

DO you need one or just think you need one? Many colleges have dedicated computers and computer labs you can use for the applications the program/major requires.

I do NEED a dedicated GPU because I game a lot.

 

[airsks]

i'd really like to know what graphic applications you're currently using with your RMBP.

The graphic applications I am using are Maya, After Effects, Nuke, and Photoshop

 

[sambaphoto]

rMBP and CS6

I for one just got my rMBP 2.7ghz i7 with 16gbs of ram. No lag issues with scrolling. If your lagging on Facebook with the new rMBP or bought it to go on Facebook all the time you sir just bought the wrong mac for your needs. I use CS5 and Aperture 3 at the same time on it and it has cut my workflow down by half and have experienced no lags at all editing 30mb images.

Hi I'm thinking to purchase a rMBP. I'm using CS6 and LR4. With my current MBP mid 2007 it's simply a pain to work on a 30MB image / 16Bit and 5 or more layers in Photoshop CS6. When it comes to surface blur I can go for dinner. In LR4 the response is a disaster.... I know it's only a MBP 2007.

I'm interested in experiences with the new rMBP and CS6. And what's about the calibration of a Retina Display? Some experience?

Thanks for sharing.

 

[danrhiggins]

Comparing the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro R in Store

I was really trying to talk myself into an MBR. Some of you really need this machine and need it to run well. Fortunately I have a 2011 17" MBP w/ 8GB RAM and I replaced the HD with 256GB of SSD (all I needed.) So my interest was only about getting more screen real estate than my MacBook Air in a platform that is light and smaller then my 17" MBP.

But after reading this I took my MBA to the store with me. (Probably should have taken my MBP as well.) I put the MBA next to the MBR on display. Then I loaded up ESPN.com on both. And in a separate desktop loaded up a preinstalled Excel template on both. Then I scrolled up/down and swiped left/right between desktops at the same time on both machines. I made sure that graphics card was not disabled. And I tried different resolutions on the MBR.

And it was just too herky-jerky for me. I guess I've been spoiled by the smooth scrolling of the MBA (2012). It was simply no contest.

Now if I need the I/O ports or the quad-core of the MBR or more than 512GB SSD or more than 8GB RAM then I would need to accept the graphics jitters. But for me I'll wait until the next gen.

BTW, the screen looks great although the higher contrast on the MBR also looks a bit darker. This was confirmed in the AnandTech review where they showed that the blacks are blacker/darker than on the MBA but the whites are also a bit darker.

Looking forward to the day when they get this all worked out so I can replace (and sell) my 17" MBP. (Maybe there will be people disappointed that they have discontinued it and will be willing to buy a used one. ;-) )

 

[phyrexia]

Those are not reasonable FPS. You need over 30 and personally I need it doubled to 60FPS for perfect fluidity. Yes I know about the "human eyes can only distinguish...", spare me. I notice the glitches that only 30FPS brings. I also don't care about fans and "ugly" because my GPU in a case I never need to open. I don't care about power because my city is 95% hydro and 50ºC all the time so heat powered exhaust is a GOOD thing

human eyes can distinguish up to 80 or 90 fps, IIRC...id software did some research back in the quake 3 days, again IIRC. I know I can tell a difference in the progression 24/30 -> 60. I've never had hardware strong enough to do more than that

----------

Looking forward to the day when they get this all worked out so I can replace (and sell) my 17" MBP. (Maybe there will be people disappointed that they have discontinued it and will be willing to buy a used one. ;-) )

I am hoping for a revised 17" in a year or so (not holding my breath)

 

[blow45]

Ok, no more denial.

The Retina MacBook Pro has 'poor' graphics performance. This is a fact. It's a fact because:

1. AnandTech did testing and found the fps to be much lower than new, non-retina MacBook Pros;
2. I've tested it using FPS on various tasks and it's SLOWER than my 2011 MacBook Pro (running latest Lion with 8 GB RAM).
3. I can see and feel the poor performance on my Retina MBP 2.3 GHz, 8 GB RAM always running the latest Mountain Lion DP. I also noticed it just running Lion.
4. My entire development staff tested it and could see and feel the sluggishness.
5. This 'issue' has been cropping up all over the Internet, and my Apple Business Contact all but confirmed the poor GPU performance.

I've got the dedicated (best) graphics chip running (turned off GPU cycling in energy saver). I notice everything is choppy. Scrolling, swiping into Dashboard, bringing up the Dock, some quicktime movies, on and on. You name it, it's choppyville. Stutter, stutter, sutter. Choppy, chop chop chop it up. Feels like my PowerBook Wallstreet did way back when OS X launched: there wasn't any GPUs support for it so it was slow and choppy in OS X.

It really struggles to redraw Windows... basically, any UI event and it's choking. It's trying to move too many pixels at one time. While this rig has 1 GB VRAM compared to my 2011 MBP that has 256 MB VRAM, the extra memory doesn't seem to matter at all. Neither does having GPU cycling on or not in Energy Saver. It's crap either way.

Now the drivers very well could still be crap with room for improvement. I'm crossing my fingers here. But Anandtech was pretty clear on the requirement to incorporate DRAM and other things for this to work well. Basically, they concluded that software wouldn't save this Version 1.0 lemon.

And my view not knowing a whole lot about the drivers is there's a major lag when you initiate UI events, particularly large UI events like swiping into Dashboard. I'm not sure having so much extra VRAM memory makes a whack of different. There's a bottleneck in terms of the amount of data that needs to be processed immediately after a user initiates a UI event. So many pixels to move now yet it needs to do it as fast or faster than the much lower resolution non-retina MBPs.

Sorry guys, rMBP has crap performance. Buyer and Developer, beware.

Thanks for the heads up. Apple's obsession with thin crapped up another rev1 product, as with the MacBook air that was notoriously underclocking...the coolbook story etc. This is such a shame because I ve been waiting for the retina for so long, they could have just gone with a better gfx card and made it less thin... I really need a retina screen because of my eyesight but I am thinking very hard about paying o become a guinea pig for apple...

And Mansfield is leaving apple at 50...hmmm...

 

[kalsta]

I and many others do not care for this approach from Apple to pretend like they don't know what people are getting at and what they want to see in the settings.

This is a load of stinky, steaming, condescending horse poop ......

Image

Lets get real here ok ?

Worst and most asinine settings ever.

Not at all. It's succinct and at the same time descriptive of what's happening when you change the so-called 'resolution' (which technically you're not really doing since an LCD screen has a fixed resolution). The term 'Looks like 1920 x 1200' is giving you language you're familiar with, when in actual fact the Retina display is, and will always be, rendering to 2880 x1800 pixels—it's just a question of how big or small everything is getting scaled.

I know it's cooler in geekdom to see everything represented as a number, and that cute icons and words like 'Larger Text' are for the poor, uneducated proles—but in this case it makes little sense to think in terms of outdated screen resolutions and even more outdated concepts of displays which are capable of changing resolutions (i.e. CRT monitors). Apple got it right this time.

 

[DaveSM]

Ok, no more denial.

The Retina MacBook Pro has 'poor' graphics performance. This is a fact. It's a fact because:

1. AnandTech did testing and found the fps to be much lower than new, non-retina MacBook Pros;
2. I've tested it using FPS on various tasks and it's SLOWER than my 2011 MacBook Pro (running latest Lion with 8 GB RAM).
3. I can see and feel the poor performance on my Retina MBP 2.3 GHz, 8 GB RAM always running the latest Mountain Lion DP. I also noticed it just running Lion.
4. My entire development staff tested it and could see and feel the sluggishness.
5. This 'issue' has been cropping up all over the Internet, and my Apple Business Contact all but confirmed the poor GPU performance.

I've got the dedicated (best) graphics chip running (turned off GPU cycling in energy saver). I notice everything is choppy. Scrolling, swiping into Dashboard, bringing up the Dock, some quicktime movies, on and on. You name it, it's choppyville. Stutter, stutter, sutter. Choppy, chop chop chop it up. Feels like my PowerBook Wallstreet did way back when OS X launched: there wasn't any GPUs support for it so it was slow and choppy in OS X.

It really struggles to redraw Windows... basically, any UI event and it's choking. It's trying to move too many pixels at one time. While this rig has 1 GB VRAM compared to my 2011 MBP that has 256 MB VRAM, the extra memory doesn't seem to matter at all. Neither does having GPU cycling on or not in Energy Saver. It's crap either way.

Now the drivers very well could still be crap with room for improvement. I'm crossing my fingers here. But Anandtech was pretty clear on the requirement to incorporate DRAM and other things for this to work well. Basically, they concluded that software wouldn't save this Version 1.0 lemon.

And my view not knowing a whole lot about the drivers is there's a major lag when you initiate UI events, particularly large UI events like swiping into Dashboard. I'm not sure having so much extra VRAM memory makes a whack of different. There's a bottleneck in terms of the amount of data that needs to be processed immediately after a user initiates a UI event. So many pixels to move now yet it needs to do it as fast or faster than the much lower resolution non-retina MBPs.

Sorry guys, rMBP has crap performance. Buyer and Developer, beware.

The old saying still apply. Don't buy a first gen apple product.

Here is short reminder list just up my head.

1st gen Ipod battery that lasted only 18 months
Recent recal for 1st gen Ipod nano for battery/unit replacement
First gen MBP overheating due to bad application of thermal compound
First gen polycarbonate MB palm rest chipping
First gen unibody MB poor screen quality

 

[freudling]

Oh it's very noticeable to someone who's owned 5 different unibody MacBooks and Airs since 2008. This one is the laggiest of them all. My 4 previous MacBooks were super smooth. Either people just aren't bothered by it, or they're comparing it against a 2008 macbook air.

This.

 

[MEgaMacMan]

All I know is I seen someone load Bf3 using bootcamp to run windows 7 and it looked great. He was able to play the game at full resolution 2880x1800 at high settings and achieve a respectable 30-40fps averaging at around 34fps. Now although 30 odd is not groundbreaking, at that resolution it's not bad at all. Of course switching the graphics to ultra dropped the fps really low between 15-20 fps which in a first person shooter is rubbish but hey, what do you expect at that high a res.

My point being, if it can run a fps like bf3 at over 30Fps at 2880x1800 then it proves it's a very capable machine. Plus in windows at the highest resolution it works very smooth and no drop in fps when scrolling through any pages including FB. So I think it really is software problems with lion. Everybody keeps saying it has to be the hardware. If that's true how come windows 7 works just as good as it does on my my iMac without any lag. I prefer lion so I hope they solve this problem soon. Hate going into windows, if it weren't for the odd game and 3ds max I would never even enter windows.


Someone will no daught shoot my findings out of the water about how wrong I am and my opinion is wrong but I don't care.


And as for people saying it will take ages for third party program's outside of apple to adapt to the retina display. Well it looks like they are already catching on. VLC player one of the most used video players ever has updated to support the retina display. So great to see them supporting it. I love abit of VLC. Now for the rest to catch up.