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Smoother UI animations on 13" vs 15"? (2016)

P

PalacePlayers

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 5, 2011
106
3
I've read several places that you can expect smoother UI animations on the 13" because the integrated graphics on the 13" is better than on the 15".

Is there really any merit to this? Is really the integrated card the bottleneck of UI animations on newer Mac models? In that case the 12" MacBook should be a laggy mess, but my girlfriends is smooth like butter.

On my 13" TB iTunes has some laggy animations when opening an album folder in album view. I've presumed that is caused by bad code, not by limitations on the graphics.
 
Not really because the newer Intel chips are sufficiently powerful to handle interfaces and utilise Metal acceselrarion. But some apps are using their own guidelines so they will always be less smoother than Apple's own apps. Discreet GPU won't be any better in those cases, maybe not even active.
 
PalacePlayers said:
I've read several places that you can expect smoother UI animations on the 13" because the integrated graphics on the 13" is better than on the 15".

Is there really any merit to this? Is really the integrated card the bottleneck of UI animations on newer Mac models? In that case the 12" MacBook should be a laggy mess, but my girlfriends is smooth like butter.

On my 13" TB iTunes has some laggy animations when opening an album folder in album view. I've presumed that is caused by bad code, not by limitations on the graphics.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry but this is getting ridiculous. How many more unfounded theories can this forum take?

To answer your question - no. Both machines offer very fluid UI experiences. I have the 15" and it's lightening fast.
 
GeorgeVes said:
I made a comparison slow motion video between the integrated and the external GPU on the new 2016 15" MBP in a simple UI animation - https://gfycat.com/GreenLegitimateElephantseal
You be the judge of the smoothness of the HD530 :p
Click to expand...

Are you serious? I did not expect such a huge difference. How is this in realtime though? Does this mean that you need to run dedicated graphics to achieve smooth UI animations, thus draining the battery much faster?
 
It's not realtime. I took the video using the slow-motion mode on my phone. It's not as apparent in real time but it is hugely annoying for a machine that costs $3000+
 
GeorgeVes said:
It's not realtime. I took the video using the slow-motion mode on my phone. It's not as apparent in real time but it is hugely annoying for a machine that costs $3000+
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd be annoyed as well! However, this should be possible to fix with software updates? Care to share a realtime video?
 
PalacePlayers said:
I've read several places that you can expect smoother UI animations on the 13" because the integrated graphics on the 13" is better than on the 15".

Is there really any merit to this? Is really the integrated card the bottleneck of UI animations on newer Mac models? In that case the 12" MacBook should be a laggy mess, but my girlfriends is smooth like butter.

On my 13" TB iTunes has some laggy animations when opening an album folder in album view. I've presumed that is caused by bad code, not by limitations on the graphics.
Click to expand...

Both the 15 and the 13 have integrated graphics. And to answer your question directly I've had both the 13 and the 15 in my home at the same time testing both and there is ZERO difference in the UI or experience with either.
 
PalacePlayers said:
Yeah, I'd be annoyed as well! However, this should be possible to fix with software updates? Care to share a realtime video?
Click to expand...

This comment has been echoed since the the first retina 15" came out -- must be a software thing. Of course OS/software optimizations may come along, but please keep in mind that pushing this many pixels in HiDPI is hugely taxing.

It's all relative -- the 2016 15" iGPU (HD 530) is slower than the 2015 (Iris Pro 5200) by a considerable amount (see: http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compar...-vs-Intel-HD-530-Mobile-Skylake/m8190vsm34955).

When I got my 2014 13" I thought it was pretty smooth, though quite laggy in Chrome which I typically use for development (think it was v37 at the time). Somewhere a few versions later Chrome pretty much doubled in speed. OS updates seemed to make things faster overall, etc. As of a few weeks ago I actually felt it was pretty smooth. Then I got a base 2016 13". The difference is huge -- much smoother. It's enough alone to justify the upgrade. And I know the next 13" MBP I get in 2-3 years is going to make this one seem laggy in comparison.
 
Last edited:
I played with a 15" on Friday, and in my opinion, while it was fairly smooth, it wasn't perfectly smooth when using Finder and moving windows around. I think it's a question of insufficiently optimised software though.
 
GeorgeVes said:
I made a comparison slow motion video between the integrated and the external GPU on the new 2016 15" MBP in a simple UI animation - https://gfycat.com/GreenLegitimateElephantseal
You be the judge of the smoothness of the HD530 :p
Click to expand...

Ignore the naysayers, they may not notice the jitters.

I am experiencing the same lag on my 15" in several places including Safari, Photos app, Mission Control and many more. On Chrome the scrolling/animations are far worse. If I switch to the dGPU using gfxCardStatus it's buttery smooth. When I switch back to the iGPU I can easily make out the jitter.

While I think the MBP TB 15" is very well made and I like many things about it, my intent is to keep this laptop for the next 5 years. Since I know it's already laggy in today's OS, I can only imagine how worse it would be in an OS 5 years from now even if they can improve/optimize today's OS performance with an update.

I'm still on the fence whether I can place that much of a gamble on a system that costs over 3.5K just yet specifically when I can't replace anything (battery being the main thing).

For some this may not matter, but for others it may. Go give it a try before you buy is what I would recommend.
 
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A 30fps video cannot convey the experience you would have in real life. I'm sure it is noticeable in real life but that is most likely just bad optimization. Probably most of the UI works perfectly fine.
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dashwin said:
Ignore the naysayers, they may not notice the jitters.

I am experiencing the same lag on my 15" in several places including Safari, Photos app, Mission Control and many more. On Chrome the scrolling/animations are far worse. If I switch to the dGPU using gfxCardStatus it's buttery smooth. When I switch back to the iGPU I can easily make out the jitter.

While I think the MBP TB 15" is very well made and I like many things about it, my intent is to keep this laptop for the next 5 years. Since I know it's already laggy in today's OS, I can only imagine how worse it would be in an OS 5 years from now even if they can improve/optimize today's OS performance with an update.

I'm still on the fence whether I can place that much of a gamble on a system that costs over 3.5K just yet specifically when I can't replace anything (battery being the main thing).

For some this may not matter, but for others it may. Go give it a try before you buy is what I would recommend.
Click to expand...
I hope it is just a graphics driver issue. The HD 530 should be able to drive 4k resolution comfortably so I don't think it is really that bad.
 
viljamip said:
I hope it is just a graphics driver issue. The HD 530 should be able to drive 4k resolution comfortably so I don't think it is really that bad.
Click to expand...

I hope so too. But 4K video may be using more hardware optimized instructions than the custom animations we see in Mac OS today.

I know when they brought out the initial MacBook (not PRO) I noticed similar jitter. With time the OS updates did improve the jitter, but it didn't totally eliminate it.
 
dashwin said:
Ignore the naysayers, they may not notice the jitters.

I am experiencing the same lag on my 15" in several places including Safari, Photos app, Mission Control and many more. On Chrome the scrolling/animations are far worse. If I switch to the dGPU using gfxCardStatus it's buttery smooth. When I switch back to the iGPU I can easily make out the jitter.

While I think the MBP TB 15" is very well made and I like many things about it, my intent is to keep this laptop for the next 5 years. Since I know it's already laggy in today's OS, I can only imagine how worse it would be in an OS 5 years from now even if they can improve/optimize today's OS performance with an update.

I'm still on the fence whether I can place that much of a gamble on a system that costs over 3.5K just yet specifically when I can't replace anything (battery being the main thing).

For some this may not matter, but for others it may. Go give it a try before you buy is what I would recommend.
Click to expand...
Thats strange, how come there arent more people complaining about this? I asked a lot of people here and on reddit and most of them say its extremely smooth
 
dashwin said:
I hope so too. But 4K video may be using more hardware optimized instructions than the custom animations we see in Mac OS today.

I know when they brought out the initial MacBook (not PRO) I noticed similar jitter. With time the OS updates did improve the jitter, but it didn't totally eliminate it.
Click to expand...
Yes, I think Skylake has hardware support for 4K video. It certainly helps quite a bit:
 
dk808 said:
Thats strange, how come there arent more people complaining about this? I asked a lot of people here and on reddit and most of them say its extremely smooth
Click to expand...
They're the lucky ones. Most people cannot tell the difference between 75 and 85Hz on a CRT monitor either.

Go check for yourself. Scroll quickly the applications folder (grid view), it's not perfectly smooth. I tried it on two different 15" machines. It didn't occur to me to make a slow-motion video to check the frame drops, but I know they're there.
 
symphara said:
They're the lucky ones. Most people cannot tell the difference between 75 and 85Hz on a CRT monitor either.

Go check for yourself. Scroll quickly the applications folder (grid view), it's not perfectly smooth. I tried it on two different 15" machines. It didn't occur to me to make a slow-motion video to check the frame drops, but I know they're there.
Click to expand...
I dont have mine yet but i played with one at the apple store and saw no problems
 
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