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rMBP users on Mavericks- How is the lag?

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xdxdaustin said:
I haven't had any lag since 10.8.2 or slightly earlier
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Unlike xdxdaustin, my machine's performance was sup-par with 10.8.4. Safari wasn't terrible, but it did not meet my personal expectations (being a nerd and all), especially when using "smart zoom". I was "forced" to use daily webkit builds. Although the lag did lessen, it kind of sucked ... incessant updating ... disabled iCloud tabs.
Simlar stories with mission control and expose, even resizing windows left me annoyed. I don't want to compromise performance for screen resolution—I want both.

Using 10.9 I've concluded nomralization is inexorable. I'm as certain as one can be, using the 10.9 GM on retains will give the [same] performance as a similarly spec'd 1440x900 MacBook Pro. DP1 is rough, but the difference is palpable. It's (in a [really!] nerdy way) jarring the first few minutes.

I'm so happy the whole "Haswell chip set" conflict will deservingly be put to rest.
 
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rikscha said:
Well, Apple themselves confirmed to me more than twice that the GUI performance on a rmbp is not optimal and that this is the price for being the first company to bring out a laptop with such a high resolution.
Also, I tested at least 15 different rmbps in different Apple stores, do not believe what people are saying about this. The rmbp's GUI performance is ridiculous. They suggested to me escalating this with some manager at Apple to get a refund or a different Mac...
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2x is about right for rMBP. The quality is worth a little lag imo. Wow, go Blackhawks! 3OT Winner!
 
Noone should pay more then 200 dollars and have to put up with lag much less 2k.
 
bcaslis said:
Really? Like to see what Mac you get for $200.
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Exactly. I mean that if you pay over 200 dollars for any laptop (ok maybe that's low so we'll say 500) - anytime you pay over 500 dollars for a laptop, its ridiculous for it to lag for something simple such as browsing the internet. But when you're talking about a 2200 dollar machine, there is absolutely no way that there should be lag in those circumstances.
 
If there's another notebook out there with a 2880x1800 resolution display that doesn't lag at all, I'm all ears.

The rMBP is the at the breaking point of the hardware inside of it.

Running on an external monitor (even my 27" ACD at 2560x1440) is absolutely snappy with no lag to speak of.

Running on the internal display (2880x1800), there is a small amount of UI lag in certain scenarios due the resolution and this is using the "best for retina" default setting.

If you choose one of the other options "Looks like 1680x1050" or "Looks like 1920x1200", the display image is rendered at 3360x2100 and 3840x2400 respectively and then scales it down to 2880x1800.

In most cases, the machine runs well and doesn't have much lag, but the Nvidia 650m gpu inside of it can only push so many pixels and it has limits to how quickly it can do that.

They will need a more powerful gpu inside to push these pixel counts with absolutely 0 UI lag.

The quality of the retina display, in my opinion, is worth the slight UI performance hit that the machine has. If you're not ok with ANY hitching in the UI EVER under any circumstance, then this is not the machine for you, even with Mavericks, which does help somewhat with UI performance.
 
Andrmgic said:
If there's another notebook out there with a 2880x1800 resolution display that doesn't lag at all, I'm all ears.

The rMBP is the at the breaking point of the hardware inside of it.

Running on an external monitor (even my 27" ACD at 2560x1440) is absolutely snappy with no lag to speak of.

Running on the internal display (2880x1800), there is a small amount of UI lag in certain scenarios due the resolution and this is using the "best for retina" default setting.

If you choose one of the other options "Looks like 1680x1050" or "Looks like 1920x1200", the display image is rendered at 3360x2100 and 3840x2400 respectively and then scales it down to 2880x1800.

In most cases, the machine runs well and doesn't have much lag, but the Nvidia 650m gpu inside of it can only push so many pixels and it has limits to how quickly it can do that.

They will need a more powerful gpu inside to push these pixel counts with absolutely 0 UI lag.

The quality of the retina display, in my opinion, is worth the slight UI performance hit that the machine has. If you're not ok with ANY hitching in the UI EVER under any circumstance, then this is not the machine for you, even with Mavericks, which does help somewhat with UI performance.
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This is just BS and please do not believe the people who are blaming the hardware for the lag. The problem seems to be solved in Mavericks which clearly proves my point. Both GPUs are capable of running much higher resolutions in fact. Running Windows in the native resolution works like a charm.
 
bkribbs said:
Exactly. I mean that if you pay over 200 dollars for any laptop (ok maybe that's low so we'll say 500) - anytime you pay over 500 dollars for a laptop, its ridiculous for it to lag for something simple such as browsing the internet. But when you're talking about a 2200 dollar machine, there is absolutely no way that there should be lag in those circumstances.
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You're entitled to your opinion but I think it's B.S. When I use the rMBP the only time I see lag is when I'm doing something like opening Mission Control the first time after a reboot. But I would see that on a non-retina Mac also. I think may of those complaining aren't comparing the machines to reality, but expecting perfection all the time even when a non-retina Mac would show lag. I haven't seen any issue since 10.8.3.
 
rikscha said:
This is just BS and please do not believe the people who are blaming the hardware for the lag. The problem seems to be solved in Mavericks which clearly proves my point. Both GPUs are capable of running much higher resolutions in fact. Running Windows in the native resolution works like a charm.
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It's not solved in mavericks, though. I'm using it now and there is still UI lag and scrolling lag on places like Facebook that goes away when I move the window to an external display.

If they can solve it completely by the time Mavericks ships this fall, I'll gladly eat crow on this.
 
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It's really the way they implemented HiDPI in OS X.

Assuming you're not running in clamshell mode, shouldn't it still lag when you move the window to the external display when there's even more pixels to push than just running the main display. It's not a hardware problem.
 
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bcaslis said:
You're entitled to your opinion but I think it's B.S. When I use the rMBP the only time I see lag is when I'm doing something like opening Mission Control the first time after a reboot. But I would see that on a non-retina Mac also. I think may of those complaining aren't comparing the machines to reality, but expecting perfection all the time even when a non-retina Mac would show lag. I haven't seen any issue since 10.8.3.
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Please realize I haven't yet seen it myself (literally will within the next two hours though) so I am going off of others who have complained. I'll see how bad it truly is.
 
I can report that scrolling and mission control are 100 percent better in Mavericks. Seriously, its like my Mac was upgraded with better hardware or something. It turns out that it wasn't the hardware that couldn't push the retina pixels but the software instead which is and was not optimized with Mountain Lion. It's buttery smooth now on my 15" retina MBP. Can't wait until this thing is finished.
 
See these are the reports I like! I'll probably get one anyways since I have 14 days to return it if it really kills me.
 
open contacts. make the window relatively small. then click the green button to maximize it. is there lag on Mavericks?

This is always very laggy for me on 10.8.4 rMBP 15 (even with the discrete graphics card).
 
The lag I saw in ML when opening Mission Control or Launchpad seemed to be a caching issue. The first time I launched either there was a little big of lag - nothing major but noticeable. Each subsequent launch was buttery smooth. I believe this was all due to caching the HiDPI icons - first time they are loaded into RAM, subsequent launches they are already in RAM there for no delay/lag. This didn't happen before because the icons etc. were collectively smaller in file size and loaded much quicker and not visibly noticeable - all in theory of course.
This is all on a rMBP 13. This illustrates the GPU is more than up to the task, other wise this lag would be present on every launch.
 
Donka said:
The lag I saw in ML when opening Mission Control or Launchpad seemed to be a caching issue. The first time I launched either there was a little big of lag - nothing major but noticeable. Each subsequent launch was buttery smooth. I believe this was all due to caching the HiDPI icons - first time they are loaded into RAM, subsequent launches they are already in RAM there for no delay/lag. This didn't happen before because the icons etc. were collectively smaller in file size and loaded much quicker and not visibly noticeable - all in theory of course.
This is all on a rMBP 13. This illustrates the GPU is more than up to the task, other wise this lag would be present on every launch.
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I see this too. It's too bad that OS X can't load certain 'likely to be used' resources into RAM in the background before they are used. Of course OS X already does this but it seems more resources need to be loaded in RAM on retina Macs.
 
Ever scrolling on comp,instead sites like the verge?


How about Chrome/FF performance? Have they improved under Mavericks
 
I just installed 10.9 DP on my external USB 3.0 SSD and I am amazed by the scrolling....Zero lag on my 13" retina! I went to some websites that were RIDICULOUSLY laggy on 10.8.4 and rest assured they were perfect!

I would have to say that their is even less lag than my old cMBP which ran Snow Leopard.

Smooth as butter :D

(in case you couldn't tell by my post I am extremely pleased! lol)
 
shznit said:
Safari is very smooth, Chrome same as before. Mission Control zoom animation gets pretty choppy, especially with multiple monitors but independent spaces is worth it.
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I have no idea what I did to Chrome, but it scrolls just as smooth as Safari on my ML install. I've been trying to figure it out, but I have no clue.
 
Is Retina rendering performance improved already??

I hate how lousily the interface animates on (my) Retina MacBook Pro OS X. On first boot it's fast enough, but after you do some work, all mission control animations are jerky as hell. Did they improve it for OS X 10.9?
 
printz said:
I hate how lousily the interface animates on (my) Retina MacBook Pro OS X. On first boot it's fast enough, but after you do some work, all mission control animations are jerky as hell. Did they improve it for OS X 10.9?
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Everything is smooth as butter here. Mavericks is so much better. I only hope it gets less buggy soon, especially Finder.
 
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