External camera laggy - low frame rate

Two options: 1) Logitech webcam (works great) or 2) get the M1 book. Apple is offering reasonable trade-in values on Intel books.

It was over support chat (so take with a grain of salt), but the guy effectively said "yes, pretty sure there's a software update coming". No time frame unfortunately.

I feel like this has got to be affecting a lot of people. That said, I Google'd for AGES to find this thread (I'm like - surely someone else is having this issue!!!).

Same issues. LG UtraFine 5K monitor display camera lagging and low frame rate when connected to new MBP 2020, four Thunderbolt 3 ports. Issue in any app using external display camera. Display camera worked fine with late 2016 MBP. I have swapped out connecting between the two MBPs and without fail the 2020 has issues.

On similar note, I too have had issues with display flickering or not connecting or problems with volume tight my 2016 MBP. Those issues have been reported often. Very intermittent so hard to troubleshoot. But I lived with it. The new problem with the display camera is very frustrating given the increased use of camera during remote work and teaching.

Sent bug report.

Same exact issue. The FrameRate of FaceTime camera with LG ultra fine 5k is laggy. One frame every 5-7 seconds. I've submitted a bug report as well to help raise awareness. I do also get the occasional blackout of of the external monitor. I'm running in clamshell mode. Frustrating. My 2019 MBP still works great with this monitor. But my wife uses that now. But makes me sure it's not the LG - definitely the new machine.

I just returned the machine (within the window) and will try a 16 inch MBP instead which I suspect will fix the issue. It’s a PITA but I don’t hold out much hope that this will get fixed; it’s an EOL laptop (with ARM coming) and an EOLed display.

That's disappointing for you, but actually very useful as an additional data point.

If there is a GPU accelerated application which can use the LG's camera and have the AMD GPU handle it, we can conclusively rule out the issue being specific to the Intel integrated graphics on the CPU, which would actually be a very good thing; it would prove that the issue is software rather than hardware related and therefore no recall is required, only a bug fix.

My husband and I both bought the new 16” MBP about 2 weeks ago and my Logitech C920 lags on both of them in a Zoom meeting (I’m an online teacher so I can’t even use my new MBP for my classes currently because of it). It works perfectly fine with no lagging on my old 2018 13” MBP, though. So strange.

Previously I owned a MBP 13" Late 2016 and irregularly I was having issues with USB devices not being recognized that I would connect through the LG 5K Display. Now I own a MBP 13" 2020 and I also had the issue with the lagging web cam. Since the last macOS update (10.15.6) I also have the issue that I have to reboot my mac everyday before I start my working day and I connect it to the LG 5K Display. If I don't it won't recognize any of the USB devices plugged into the display or macOS even crashes. This is a terrible experience :-(

Was able to talk to a senior today. He first said he had never heard about the issue but checked some internal system and confirmed that this is elevated to apple engineers. The only other thing he could do was to offer a refund on my mac.

Same issue for me. I can confirm a laggy and unusable experience on both the 2020 Macbook Pro 13 AND the 2020 Macbook Air.

I was using a 2018 MBP 15 with the LG 5k Ultrafine without problem. Wanting the new keyboard and a lighter computer, I tried the 2020 MBA, but the video feed from LG was laggy. I returned the MBA thinking the lag was due to the MBA's weaker specs and bought the 2020 13" MBP. Then when I got the MBP this week the video feed from the LG to the 13" 2020 MBP is also laggy.

I have filed a report.

I feel like I might be making progress as well. Hard to say. I have a very engaged specialist that really wants to help. They had me download an app that retrieves a bunch of information from my macbook 13 (Open Capture Data that created an ACCD file). I have taken 2 videos with my iPhone, one of the 2018 MBP 15 with the LG monitor camera working fine and another of the 2020 MBP 13 with the LG monitor camera not working. I took the opportunity in both videos to add some additional color verbally ;-) and bring to screen this thread, URL and a focus on @danpalmer 's helpful debugging.

So that felt like progress. However, their immediate reply was "update to 10.15.6 and try again." Ugh, what a punt. I just finished the upgrade, OF COURSE it's still a problem, so I have submitted that info as well. We'll see.

Sean1234 Said:

"TheLittes doesn't know what he's talking about. DO NOT follow the steps he recommends.[...]"

-------

Its a way to get the driver's you need. If it is not working - then reinstall it - you get the drivers you need - elsewise it's the camera.

OK, some more data points to add.

Yesterday I picked up a Blackmagic eGPU (for other reasons, but this was nonetheless part of the decision to get one).

Unfortunately the issue persists even with a dedicated GPU. Anecdotally, Photo Booth, which is GPU optimised seems to be better - though still not great - despite throwing the same volume of errors as when run without a dedicated GPU. If this perception is accurate it's probably down to the pace at which the GPU can error out and move onto rendering the next frame.

QuickTime Player performance was still terrible, as (surprisingly, to me at least) it does not appear to be GPU optimised and so used the Intel iGPU only.

Zoom, sadly, despite being optimised to use the GPU as required, was still pretty unusable.