UI lag - default spec 5k iMac

[theSeb]

Yes, I am late to the party, but now that the Apple watch has completely destroyed the atmosphere at the Apple Regent Street store in London and left the place feeling a bit "tombish" I finally had a chance to actually spend some time playing around with the 5K iMac at the store. (usually there is somebody doing their facebook or whatever for a few hours and it's impossible to actually try it out)

The lag in mission control is shocking. I opened a few apps, moved them into different spaces and then flipped between them. I also hold shift when going into mission which slows the animations down so you can really see how smooth (or not) they are. I was shocked that the R9 M290X cannot handle basic animations and everything is very jumpy and laggy. Perhaps the display model has not been updated, but I hope that my experience does not match the real world, or that the M295X makes things a bit more bearable. My 2012 rMBP is much smoother when subjected to the same test and it is hardly cutting edge considering how old the internals are.

 

[aevan]

Yes, I am late to the party, but now that the Apple watch has completely destroyed the atmosphere at the Apple Regent Street store in London and left the place feeling a bit "tombish" I finally had a chance to actually spend some time playing around with the 5K iMac at the store. (usually there is somebody doing their facebook or whatever for a few hours and it's impossible to actually try it out)

The lag in mission control is shocking. I opened a few apps, moved them into different spaces and then flipped between them. I also hold shift when going into mission which slows the animations down so you can really see how smooth (or not) they are. I was shocked that the R9 M290X cannot handle basic animations and everything is very jumpy and laggy. Perhaps the display model has not been updated, but I hope that my experience does not match the real world, or that the M295X makes things a bit more bearable. My 2012 rMBP is much smoother when subjected to the same test and it is hardly cutting edge considering how old the internals are.

While it's a bit better in 10.10.3 - the Mission Control lags, yeah. I haven't noticed much lag elsewhere, in fact the rest of the UI is quite the same as on my MacBook Pro Retina. If the Mission Control lag is a deal breaker for you, then you should skip this generation. Users report that the M295X doesn't have lag in Mission Control (although I've seen a few posts claiming otherwise).

 

[theSeb]

While it's a bit better in 10.10.3 - the Mission Control lags, yeah. I haven't noticed much lag elsewhere, in fact the rest of the UI is quite the same as on my MacBook Pro Retina. If the Mission Control lag is a deal breaker for you, then you should skip this generation. Users report that the M295X doesn't have lag in Mission Control (although I've seen a few posts claiming otherwise).

Thanks for the reply. I have seen posts here complaining about lag, but I didn't realise just how bad it is until I tried it out myself. Perhaps the display iMac is just an extreme example. Regardless, I'll be skipping this generation.

 

[AlexJoda]

Thanks for the reply. I have seen posts here complaining about lag, but I didn't realise just how bad it is until I tried it out myself. Perhaps the display iMac is just an extreme example. Regardless, I'll be skipping this generation.

I don't have any problems with my M290X RiMac with the performance of Mission Control after I upgraded to all the latest upgrades. For me the performance of Mission Control is not even a deal a deal breaker because MC does not play an important role in my workflow. To me it looks like this has more to do with Yosemite than with the hardware. It should not matter if you have 2 or 4 GB of vRAM to zoom some windows in and out...

 

[dkerov07]

Can you do us a favor and set up a brief test

Open about 20-40 windows for different applications then press F3 (MC).
How fast MC shows up? Less than a second?

Thank you.
DK

 

[parkp81]

I have the base model iMac Retina and noticed the MC lag issue to be pretty bad as well. I did a search on Google and the temporary fix was to go to: Preferences -> Accessibility -> "Increase Contrast". This does indeed correct the issue for me.

 

[cycledance]

I have the base model iMac Retina and noticed the MC lag issue to be pretty bad as well. I did a search on Google and the temporary fix was to go to: Preferences -> Accessibility -> "Increase Contrast". This does indeed correct the issue for me.

are u sure u don't mean reduce transparency? (should be the first thing on everyones todo list when they have a mac with yosemite.)

 

[aevan]

Open about 20-40 windows for different applications then press F3 (MC).
How fast MC shows up? Less than a second?

Thank you.
DK

It always takes less than a second, it's just a matter of skipping frames or not. For me, when I have really a lot of windows and apps open, it still opens quickly, I just don't see the animation

Anyway, I checked youtube a bit and almost all newer Retina Macs have some issue with Mission Control. MacBook can struggle, Retina 13" can struggle, etc. iMac 5K maybe has it most pronounced, but it's definitely something Apple should take a long look at. I just feel like they can fix it by tweaking the effect. Just like they fixed the Search animation in iOS just by changing the type of background from transparency to blur (or something like that). I'm hoping 10.11 fixes the whole MC thing in a major way. But who knows.

 

[parkp81]

are u sure u don't mean reduce transparency? (should be the first thing on everyones todo list when they have a mac with yosemite.)

I tried reduce transparency first and it only fixed it for a few minutes, and it went straight back to the lag.

When you select increase contrast it also enables reduce transparency, which does indeed fix the issue for me, but I hate the way the UI looks after doing this

 

[JayInNJ]

I tried reduce transparency first and it only fixed it for a few minutes, and it went straight back to the lag.

When you select increase contrast it also enables reduce transparency, which does indeed fix the issue for me, but I hate the way the UI looks after doing this

My Late 2009 behaves exactly the same way. So not much has changed. I turn on increase contrast and smooth during the animations. However I'd rather keep UI the way it is with transparencies on. I could care less about the animations.