what drives the rmbp display?

[flipnap]

After reading the millionth posts about "my screen stutters" VS. "my screen is smooth as silk", im curious as to the technical aspects of what exactly is driving the screen. After a few weeks of research i have not been able to come up with a firm answer. Unlike most systems, it doesnt seem to me that the graphics card alone is responsible for pushing the pixels, and im wondering if this is the reason for such varying reports of stuttering.

I know that apple is doing a LOT of under the hood magic tricks on this display and im wondering if there is a lot of shared tasks between resources and is dependant on the amount of available RAM, SSD, and processor speed. Again, if this is the case, is it possible all the different reports are due to the many different configurations of these machines? Theres so much bickering and claims of subjectivity on the "stuttering", but could it be that everyone is correct and each machine runs a little differently?

So exactly what part of this machine is responsible for driving this display?

 

[stevelam]

It has nothing to do with ram or SSD. The display is obviously powered by the gpu, but the scaling is done through software which is why it's slow and laggy.

 

[flipnap]

It has nothing to do with ram or SSD. The display is obviously powered by the gpu, but the scaling is done through software which is why it's slow and laggy.

I saw major lag on them at apple store when first released. I switched between graphics cards and saw no difference at all in performance on OS stutter. I do visual effects work for a living and i get paid to notice things like this, and i can tell you without a doubt it made no difference in what i saw. This was pre ML. If its "obviously the graphics card" why is the processor so heavily taxed at times and why are there such widely varying reports from machine to machine? I simply dont understand.

 

[Ddyracer]

I saw major lag on them at apple store when first released. I switched between graphics cards and saw no difference at all in performance on OS stutter. I do visual effects work for a living and i get paid to notice things like this, and i can tell you without a doubt it made no difference in what i saw. This was pre ML. If its "obviously the graphics card" why is the processor so heavily taxed at times and why are there such widely varying reports from machine to machine? I simply dont understand.

The GPU struggles because of the high res it has to drive.

 

[stevelam]

I saw major lag on them at apple store when first released. I switched between graphics cards and saw no difference at all in performance on OS stutter. I do visual effects work for a living and i get paid to notice things like this, and i can tell you without a doubt it made no difference in what i saw. This was pre ML. If its "obviously the graphics card" why is the processor so heavily taxed at times and why are there such widely varying reports from machine to machine? I simply dont understand.

didn't you just read what i said? the scaling is done by software.

 

[flipnap]

Yes, thanks for the input. I guess the key word i was looking at is performance. Technically i suppose the GPU drives the pixels, but if the cpu handles scaling, which can bog the performance of the screen, and the gpu can bog the performance, and if RAM being full bogs the performance (hence people with 16 vs 8 get better "performance") then the overall "performance" of the retina display will always vary. I guess i answered my own question. That was easy.

 

[playsontheleft]

If it really is the GPU which is having trouble driving the display then how's it able to play games with very decent frame rates? Surely a game is more intensive on the GPU than OS X is. I'm not saying that I'm right here but... doesn't the idea that the GPU performs well when gaming kinda suggest that it's a software issue not limited by the GPU? Maybe the CPU limits it but again, it can still do more intensive tasks at fine frame rates.

 

[stevelam]

If it really is the GPU which is having trouble driving the display then how's it able to play games with very decent frame rates? Surely a game is more intensive on the GPU than OS X is. I'm not saying that I'm right here but... doesn't the idea that the GPU performs well when gaming kinda suggest that it's a software issue not limited by the GPU? Maybe the CPU limits it but again, it can still do more intensive tasks at fine frame rates.

no it doesn't suggest that at all. you are talking about two completely different things. what does gaming have to do with retina display?

 

[playsontheleft]

no it doesn't suggest that at all. you are talking about two completely different things. what does gaming have to do with retina display?

Well, the games are being played on a computer with a Retina display and the OS is being run on a computer with a Retina display. The point I'm making is that the GPU can do more intensive things than just animations in OS X on this display pretty smoothly so it doesn't make much sense to me to say that it's unable to do something as simple as switch between spaces.

 

[PCWebbJR]

Well, the games are being played on a computer with a Retina display and the OS is being run on a computer with a Retina display. The point I'm making is that the GPU can do more intensive things than just animations in OS X on this display pretty smoothly so it doesn't make much sense to me to say that it's unable to do something as simple as switch between spaces.

again, points to software. and it's probably due to the upscaling algorithm that os x is using.