Re:Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up
by kalleboo on Monday March 06, 2017 @12:20AM
(#13800854)
> and this gets laggy on bigger resolutions or on older devices or devices without dedicated GPU
I have the original 2012 rMBP, which by all accounts has far too wimpy a GPU for retina, and I've been running it in the max scaled resolution (the 1900x1200@2x mode) since the day I bought it.
On first few versions of OS X after it was released, yes, the graphics often got very choppy (especially stuff like Expose), but Apple has really optimized the hell out of those drivers, and by now on Sierra, I never run into any noticeable 2D graphic lag. I'm sure it's terrible for 3D though.
I have to interject here. Apple was the first one to have actually working and non-horrible implementation.
But the way they went about it has big performance cost. They can only render 2x versions. So if you use the physical resolution, the one that is "as big" as 1280x800 on 2560x1600 13" rMBP, they render it in 12802x800x2 and everything is fine.
But if you use scaled resolution, say "as big" as 1400x900 on 13" rMBP, they render it in 14402x9002 and rescale it to 25601600, and this gets laggy on bigger resolutions or on older devices or devices without dedicated GPU.
Meanwhile, other operating systems can do non-2x scaling and have no problem with resolutions like that.
(Personally I don't can what Windows can do - I'm not using that if I can help it. I just wanted to note that there's this issue with how Apple decided to do scaling.)