16'' MacBook Pro M3 Max stutters just scrolling web pages and PDF documents

Consider downloading and running this little "discovery" Utility, Etrecheck. If fixes NOTHING. its only reason to exist is to look at your Mac from the inside and create a report of where your resources are going. It has sub-reports on memory utilization, processor Utilization, Energy usage, Drive performance, and many other areas.

Use Etrecheck Pro for free

If you follow the directions faithfully, it will "Share" a pre-laundered (or all personally-identifiable information) version of its report to the System ClipBoard, and you can PASTE that into a reply on the forums using the additional text icon in the reply footer:

Found the fix. Everything works as expected now.

Make sure the "Use hardware acceleration when available" is turned ON in Chrome Settings.

Hip Hip Horray! 🥳

Same here. I got the almost maxxed out 16 inch M3 Max MBP 128GB Ram and 4TB ssd and scrolling on Chrome is so much worse than on my old 16 inch 2019 Intel i9 MBP. It feels kinda laggy. On other stuff too. It's like it stutters a bit. Do all of them have this issue or is it just some of the new Macs? Is it Sonoma? This feels like a 2000s PC when scrolling through certain web pages, especially this one we're posting on.

Sptz,

Please start a new topic thread here with the results from Etrecheck as earlier suggested.

Fellow readers, someone on Facebook has already used this thread as an excuse to say the latest Macs are slow. Far from it. Speed issues as indicated are due to:

• Optimizers that should never be used.
• VPNs are slow because the the site hosting the VPN has limited shared bandwidth.
• Torrent software is slow because it makes your machine into one big internet server.
• Automated backup like iCloud and Time Machine running simultaneously to process intensive tasks. Understand the true speed of your internet. Hard wired with no wireless, even Gbps internet is still 128 MB/second. 1024 GB, or 1 TB is going to take 10000 seconds to transfer (2 hours). Cable internet is still less than 1 MB second upstream. Fiberoptic both ways is better upstream, but don't expect large Picture libraries or DV movie libraries to speedily backup to the cloud!
• Filling up any disk more than 85% results in a lot of memory swapping and wasted resources.
• Automated malware removal packages are not worth their salt. Apple already has one built-in you normally can't access directly called XProtect. Both Malwarebytes and Avast offer manual checks, and there are tools to remove redirect rewrites of Google Chrome such as weknow.ac, and a verify of extensions on browser preferences, plugins, and user settings for Login Items for unwanted software helps.
• File sharing with too many computers, or pairing with too many Bluetooth devices can create a maelstrom of issues.

In short, the K.I.S.S. principle. Don't make your computer a "jalopy." My parents rightfully taught me that. If you fill a machine to the gills, it will slow down, no matter how fast it is on the whole. Backup to external hard drives large file libraries with tools such as Superduper and Carbon Copy Cloner when you are not using it. Use your sleep time to make sure the machine is backed up.

If you are still slow, please make a new thread, if you aren't rust_engineer, and if you are, and you need further help identifying what's wrong, please let us know.

rust_engineer wrote:

Ok, so I bought into Apple marketing and splurged for maxed out 16'' MacBook Pro M3 Max with 128 GB and 8 TB SSD, only to be utterly shocked by how poorly this machine performs on mundane things like scrolling text and images. Opening any web page (does not have to be complex like Youtube) and just scrolling up down makes this machine stutter, miss frames and exhibit choppy page rendering.

Scrolling PDF documents up/down renders black strip artifacts (space between pages is ghosting). This is really disappointing. I didn't see something like this since early 2010.

Not sure if this is hardware issue (I haven't gone to Apple store to check out another machine), but wondering if anyone else has seen this as well?

Wow— never heard this before.

I would trust you did not install garbage apps on this machine...

this would include third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/Anti-Virus/VPN

all known to cause issues on the macOS—and advised to uninstall.

Obviously something is not right here—

You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it.

you have a limited 14 days for an exchange or refund for any reason—see Returns & Refunds Order status

Only items that have been purchased directly from Apple, either online or at an Apple Retail Store

Returns & Refunds - Shopping Help - Apple

Its on for me but I'm still experiencing the concern raised.

I have the exact same issue. Detailed here:https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m3-max-ui-stuttering-choppy.2416356/#post-32854572

I haven't owned a mac for over a decade and making a comeback to it has left me sorely disappointed. Yes, it's an incredible machine but I can't believe opening a stupid widget pane stutters and drops frames... Simple minimising and restoring windows do NOT feel fluid at all. An old cheap laptop I have lying around never skils a beat on UI interactions in win11.

I even formatted and reinstalled from scratch, same thing. As soon as I hit the desktop swiped the widget pane boom.

I have the same issue on 16" MacBook Pro M3 Pro 36 GB 512 GB. And it's just happening on Safari. I don't install any app rather than the Sonoma defaults. I don't think this is related with chip set, it seems related with Display or macOS issue.

<<. Both Malwarebytes and Avast offer manual checks. >>

I am not sure Avast is something you want anywhere near your Macintosh computer.

FTC fines cybersecurity company AVAST $16.5 million for tracking and selling user data

.

<< No garbage software, clean OS install, only third party browser.>>

¿Which?

Chrome?, the biggest resource hog on the planet?

¿running a VPN you installed yourself?

I've also tested this page on Safari and it flies. Way better. So Idk if it's the M3 Max's fault or something on Chrome's side or some incompatibility... Dunno.

Your issue is not what the OP talked about. It was just related to Chrome's HW accel. Which is a basic setting on any kind of PC.