milleron

Q: Boot Camp on iMac Retina 5K?

I think that Apple states that Windows may be installed on the Retina 5K, but will there be a problem with drivers?

More importantly, will Windows drivers be in conflict with Apple's proprietary Timing Controller they've announced for this computer?

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 7:45 PM

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Q: Boot Camp on iMac Retina 5K?

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  • by fredz85,

    fredz85 fredz85 Oct 23, 2014 7:26 AM in response to milleron
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    Oct 23, 2014 7:26 AM in response to milleron

    Sure, it probably is 5120x2880. But it's a pity y2kpc doesn't respond anymore... My 5K (with R9 M295X and 4.0 GHz) has been shipped from China and is arriving next week. So then I'll know for sure if Boot Camp works fine.

  • by y2kpc,

    y2kpc y2kpc Oct 23, 2014 11:58 AM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 23, 2014 11:58 AM in response to Loner T

    Loner T said:

    Please check what your 5K display reports for the following two commands.

     

    ioreg -lw0 | grep PixelCount

        | | | |   | |   |   "IOFBCurrentPixelCount" = 15639360

     

    ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

    xcode-select: note: no developer tools were found at '/Applications/Xcode.app', requesting install. Choose an option in the dialog to download the command line developer tools.

         (I then allowed the developer tools to download/install)

    ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

        (blank line of output each time this is run now)

     

    When I click the at the top left and pick about this Mac, it reports "Built-In Retina Display, 27-Inch" 5120x2880"

    millerron said:

    I can tell that you're very, very disappointed in your new iMac.

    I'm disappointed, but more in a curious/inquisitive way...   I agree that it's not a set-in-stone permanent issue.   Apple is delivering Retina 5K panels.    What bothers me is that they are restricting users from setting a 5K display resolution (to view twice the real-estate).    

     

    The Retina and Non Retina 27" iMacs both support 2560x1440 resolution.   They will 'fit' the exact same # of icons, the exact same # of lines in a spreadsheet, the exact same amount of internet content on a maximized internet window.       I bought the Retina iMac expecting to USE 5120x2880 pixels as my desktop, my workspace.    Some reports have super-imposed a 1920x1080 display over top of a retina display to show that the Retina 5K 'fits' nearly eight 1920x1080 displays worth of content into one, which is not true.   

     

    When I bought a 4K monitor with a resolution of 3840x2160, I could fit exactly four full 1920x1080 web pages (two across/two down).    If I hook up a 1920x1080 monitor next to my 4K pc, and pull up one of the same web pages, the exact same amount of info fits on 1/4th of my 4K monitor.   

     

    This iMac, in Yosemite, does not allow me to set even a 4K resolution, let alone 5K resolution, so I cannot see the same amount of content if I split it in four and open 4 internet windows.     It is more forgiving, thankfully, in Windows, as the ATI driver at least lets me set a 4K resolution.

     

    millerron said:

    On my 2560 x 1440 monitor on which I'm writing this, I can, indeed, make out individual pixels with the same spectacles.  Please look as closely as you can at the Retina display on an iPhone, an iPad, or a MacBook Pro to see if you can make out individual pixels in a gray or white area and then perform the same test on your 5K.

     

    You are 100% correct-through the use of more pixels, Apple makes the 2560x1440 resolution into a "Retina" display.  When they jump to a Retina version they don't double the usable resolution, as shown between the Retina and non-retina iPads, and now sadly (for me) the iMac.  

     

    1) when set to "retina" mode the iMac 27" 5K only allows 3.68 million pixels of content (2560 across x 1440 down)... identical to the non Retina 27" iMac

    2) when set to 'smaller text' it allows 5.78 million pixels of content (3200 across x 1800 down)

    3) when running in Windows/bootcamp, it allows 8.29 million pixels of content (3840 across x 2160 down).

    For all three scenarios above, since the underlying hardware (apple's LG panel), is 5K with 15.7 Million pixels, ALL of the above 3 modes look extremely clear.  Retina clear.

     

    The quality is perfect with no way to see a pixel-AT 2560x1440 resolution.        I just wanted to use the full 5120x2880 to fit more content on the same screen.

     

    In comparison to even my Dell P2815Q 4K, when I run this Retina display at 4K 2560x1440 in Windows, text and photos are better quality with less eye strain, due to the extra 7 or so million pixels behind the scenes....     I ordered this because of the "buy a 5k monitor, get a computer free" marketing...  but until an update changes something in Yosemite or the ATI driver, the Dell 5K monitor coming soon will let me use 5120x2880 without any scaling, up from the 3200x1800 that OS X Yosemite allows, which will yield an extra 1980 pixels of content horizontally and 1080 pixels of content vertically.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 23, 2014 12:19 PM in response to y2kpc
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    Oct 23, 2014 12:19 PM in response to y2kpc

    y2kpc wrote:

     

    Loner T said:

    Please check what your 5K display reports for the following two commands.

     

    ioreg -lw0 | grep PixelCount

        | | | |   | |   |   "IOFBCurrentPixelCount" = 15639360

     

    ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

    xcode-select: note: no developer tools were found at '/Applications/Xcode.app', requesting install. Choose an option in the dialog to download the command line developer tools.

         (I then allowed the developer tools to download/install)

    ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

        (blank line of output each time this is run now)

     

    When I click the at the top left and pick about this Mac, it reports "Built-In Retina Display, 27-Inch" 5120x2880"

    Apologies, xxd is part of the Xcode application Developer suite, but what you have posted shows a 15.7 Million Pixel Count Frame Buffer for your Retina5K.

     

    For the three displays I posted, Color LCD is 5.6M pixels (2013 Retina MBP), Dell and Apple TB monitor both are 4.0M pixels. 

  • by milleron,Helpful

    milleron milleron Oct 23, 2014 2:51 PM in response to y2kpc
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    Oct 23, 2014 2:51 PM in response to y2kpc

    y2kpc,  are you saying that when you drag a full-screen window from the 2160 x 1440 monitor onto the Retina 5K screen, it still takes up the full screen?  If so, then I understand where you're coming from.  If you drag a full-screen window from the 2160 x 1440 monitor onto the Retina 5K when the 5K is set to "smaller text," does that window shrink accordingly (measured in inches or cm, of course, not pixels) ?

  • by y2kpc,

    y2kpc y2kpc Oct 23, 2014 3:20 PM in response to milleron
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 23, 2014 3:20 PM in response to milleron

    millerron,

     

    y2kpc,  are you saying that when you drag a full-screen window from the 2160 x 1440 monitor onto the Retina 5K screen, it still takes up the full screen?  If so, then I understand where you're coming from.  If you drag a full-screen window from the 2160 x 1440 monitor onto the Retina 5K when the 5K is set to "smaller text," does that window shrink accordingly (measured in inches or cm, of course, not pixels) ?

     

    Good thinking...

     

    I hooked a my Dell P2815 4K monitor up using the Apple thunderbolt (mini display port) connector on the Retina 5k iMac....

     

    Yes, when I drag a full screen window from the Dell (set dell to 2560x1440), it takes up the entire iMac screen (set to Retina/optimal)!!

     

    OS X allows me to choose a manual scaling up to 3840x2160 on the Dell panel.   Still only 3200x1800 on the built in mac monitor, or 2560x1440 (retina/best).

     

    When I drag stuff to and from the Dell set at 2560x1440, and the iMac set at Retina 2560x1440, there is no change in window size (rather, less than 1/27th of a change due to the difference between the 27" and 28" displays).   So they are both displaying AT the same resolution. 

     

    If I set the Dell to its smallest text (3840x2160 native setting), and drag a window from the iMac to the Dell, the window occupies much less space on the Dell (since I am dragging items from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160).

     

  • by milleron,

    milleron milleron Oct 23, 2014 3:29 PM in response to y2kpc
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    Oct 23, 2014 3:29 PM in response to y2kpc

    Well, that would seem to cinch it.

    Does Tim Cook have some explaining to do or what?!?

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 23, 2014 3:32 PM in response to milleron
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    Oct 23, 2014 3:32 PM in response to milleron

    Schiller does. And there is a software update/firmware update somewhere in an Infinite Loop.

  • by milleron,

    milleron milleron Oct 23, 2014 4:20 PM in response to Loner T
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    Oct 23, 2014 4:20 PM in response to Loner T

    I made a new post on these forums about these findings, but Apple immediately censored it

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 23, 2014 5:16 PM in response to milleron
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    Oct 23, 2014 5:16 PM in response to milleron

    Everytime I mentioned Yosemite, before it went GA, my posts would get complained about and be removed if the article had the word anywhere. I started referring to it as Beta OS, and no one touched any of the discussions.

     

    You can try that. .

     

    The 5K is GA, so I am not sure why such discussions with your findings are being censored.

  • by houkouonchi2,

    houkouonchi2 houkouonchi2 Oct 23, 2014 5:16 PM in response to milleron
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2014 5:16 PM in response to milleron

    Retina macbooks had the same problem originally due to the stupid HiDPI modes. Does it not allow the full resolution using something like SetResX?

     

    http://osxdaily.com/2012/06/18/3-ways-to-run-a-retina-macbook-pro-at-2880x1800-n ative-resolution/

  • by y2kpc,

    y2kpc y2kpc Oct 23, 2014 6:11 PM in response to houkouonchi2
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 23, 2014 6:11 PM in response to houkouonchi2

    houkouonchi2 said:

    Retina macbooks had the same problem originally due to the stupid HiDPI modes. Does it not allow the full resolution using something like SetResX?

     

    houkouonchi2 FOR THE WIN!!  SetResX allowed me to quickly switch to 5120x2880.  Verified by my eyes and also by tracemyip.org.

     

    Text looks small but a native 5k photo looks AMAZING.   The sharpness of the photo is VASTLY superior when the monitor is running at 5k resolution.   I am very surprised that Apple is shipping them in Retina HiDPI mode, requiring a 3rd party utility to enable the native hardware mode (5120x2880@60Hz).

     

    http://wallpapers-start.com/view/Bridge-Golden-Gate_5120x2880.html

     

    It now counts individual pixels (instead of counting in pairs) as I drag a selection box over within the photo.   

     

    Now, I hope to be able to use 5120x2880 in Windows soon...   At 3840x2160, I can tell that the scaling should is off a bit since it's not 1:1 pixel mapping.

  • by houkouonchi2,

    houkouonchi2 houkouonchi2 Oct 23, 2014 6:33 PM in response to y2kpc
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    Oct 23, 2014 6:33 PM in response to y2kpc

    Glad that worked. The origina macbook pro retina (which I have) with the old 10.7.x (still running that) had the same issue where for whatever reason apple in their 'infinite wisdom' decided that users would not actually want to run the native 2880x1880 on their notebook. ********... Some of us like the extra desktop real-estate and bought it specifically for that reason. Also HiDPI is not supported on all apps and you are basically wasting pixels when you use an unsupported app. I remember even this being the case back in the day with google earth. It looked like *** in HiDPI mode and looked way better in the native resolution. Images should look the same if the app supports 'HiDPi" mode.

     

    I am not a heavy mac os X user. I mainly use linux. If they made the new macbook pro retina with an Nvidia card I probably would by one but I am on the fence. I would need to be able to run at native 5k under linux in order for it to be worth it for me.

  • by y2kpc,

    y2kpc y2kpc Oct 23, 2014 9:37 PM in response to houkouonchi2
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Oct 23, 2014 9:37 PM in response to houkouonchi2

    Some other observations:

     

    1) If you're going to hook up a 2nd monitor, BUY the R295 4gb video card upgrade!!   With the integrated iMac display + a Dell P2815Q both running at 4K 3840x2160 in screen mirroring mode, the 2nd monitor has a huge (1 second) lag.    Scrolling up a webpage or moving a window showed about a 1 second lag before the 2nd display caught up.

     

    2) With both displays hooked up, it forced the lower common denominator of the two monitors' refresh rates (30hz Dell P2815Q) to apply to both monitors.

     

    3) Power consumption jumps from 40 watts to 70 watts on the iMac when a 2nd monitor is plugged into the displayport/thunderbolt connector.   CPU/RAM usage as measured by the OS does not change. 

     

    4) A company on ebay is selling these Retina iMacs with a 1TB PCIe SSD + a 6TB 7200rpm hdd.   nice to know it is user-upgradable.  

  • by fredz85,

    fredz85 fredz85 Oct 24, 2014 3:23 AM in response to y2kpc
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 24, 2014 3:23 AM in response to y2kpc

    This is very interesting information. So Apple uses max. 3200x1800. This is odd, as they demo Final Cut Pro X with a 4K movie and additional timeline and toolbars. This would mean the 4K movie on the demo is not 1-to-1 pixel-to-pixel? What's the point then? Or am I missing something and do individual programs allow for 5120x2880 (which I doubt). Can you test this, y2kpc? See this picture

     

    On the other hand, most users want a retina screen, ie they don't want to see the pixels. Then it doesn't "really" matter that it's not a full 5K resolution. I'm buying mainly because I love the retina screens on iPad, iPhone and MacBook Pro so much, and since I'm looking at my desktop screens so many hours a day, this seems a great choice. But still, they call it "Retina 5K Display" and write "5120‑by‑2880 resolution with support for millions of colors".

     

    I am disappointed that not one reviewer cared to check/test the real pixel resolution on the display!

  • by milleron,

    milleron milleron Oct 24, 2014 6:48 AM in response to fredz85
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    Oct 24, 2014 6:48 AM in response to fredz85

    I was crucified when I mentioned y2kpc's predicament on Macrumors.com, declared the stupidest organism in the inner solar system, and laughed out of town. They did pause long enough to point out that this apparent lack of resolution is just HiDPI which Apple employs on every Retina device to prevent screen elements from becoming too small to see. Aficionados and the cognoscenti call it "pixel doubling," as well. They claim that when you drag an image or window from a monitor of lesser resolution onto the Retina display that HiDPI  keeps it the same size (in inches or cm) but increases the resolution within the image or window to full Retina.

     

    It does, admittedly, keep a window from becoming too small to read the text. That's its purpose, but it also keeps you from retaining a window's ful content when you make it small enough to fit another window, or windows, on the same display. For everyday use or  photo work, then, I'll leave my 5K at "Best for display." If I ever need to get multiple ful windows open on it, I'll pay US$17 for SwitchResX, which has benefits other than easily switching into 5120 x 2880.  However, I think that anyone who truly needs to keep four ful window open needs either a 32" 4K or simply extra monitors, because 27"may turn out to be a little small for full 5K

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