Q: Mountain Lion UI Lag on rMBP !!! (Let's Make this thread serious and hope for a fix)

Made no difference to me.

I opened Quartz Debug, went to Window -> UI Resolution and unticked the 'Enable HiDPI'. It then prompted me to logout, which I did, and then when I log back in again, it's already ticked...

Any ideas?

OK, went to the Apple Store today and now becasue of some slight display issues I was offered a THIRD replacement (I replaced the first one in hope of smooth UI). The Genius technician agreed that Mountain Lion is pretty buggy and we should wait for the summer update.

Is that how things work at Apple these days? Really thinking about returning it now and waiting till the next OS X. If that doesn't work, then the old non-retina will do.

Wow, is THAT what the Apple Genius told you? "...Mountain Lion is pretty buggy.." I never heard that from any Apple technician or advisor. From what I understand Apple is pretty strict on their own personal opinions of products. In fact, they're not even supposed to correct a customer if a product name was pronounced incorrectly.

Anyhow, after reading these past several posts today, I feel we are getting nowhere. The senior advisor has hung me out to dry, I was disallowed to have a third unit replacement, until I can prove to them that there is something really wrong with my machine.

In the meantime, as I have stated earlier, I've disabled Dashboard, Mission Control AND Time Machine local backups...that all seems to improve overall performance, but it's far from improving the lag. I can't reiterate any more, everytime I run Quartz Debug the computer runs fine for a little while, then goes all **** when you run Safari and watch like YouTube or something. SMC reset works too, until you start Calendar and try to skim through hundreds of appointments.

The story is too familiar, people. We either hope that the next OS will fix this, or we just sit and grovel with a $3000 machine. Plain and simple.

Yes he did. Maybe he didn't use the word "pretty", but he did say it is buggy - even on his computer. I know I care a lot about tiny things but I can't uderstand how anybody can tolerate something like this on a machine with this price tag and tech specs. Personally speaking, it distracts me from the actual work and we can't talk about joy of using the computer. It feels like the computer has a great potential, but I cannot fully use it. And that's just sad. I am going to return mine and perhaps get it later.

Hi, roberto_sc.

Please be so kind and share with video (make it with help phone or camera) how your Mac is working when you select many emails in Mail.app or list months in calendar etc ... show us please.

Tell us when your mac as build ? you can get it from your serial number. etc ...

Thanks.

Ok guys this is what I did;

After more than 7 months I changed my Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch: 2.6 ghz 16 gig, 512gb ram for:

- Macbook Air i7 256gb SSD, 8 gig ram

- Ipad 4 16 gb

- Logitech ultrathin keyboard

- Timecapsule 2 TB

- Apple TV

- WD elements external HDD 1 TB

- Carcharging cable for iphone 5

I should have done this WAY earlier!! The Macbook Air is a blast! Much faster experience as my 'old' beloved Retina. Retina came out too early if you ask me.  Good luck everyone! I hope a update will come eventually for you all!

For weeks I've contemplated on selling my rMBP as well. After seeing how MacRumor sites have knocked more than $500 off the retail price of a Retina Mac, I'm guessing Apple is trying to get rid of the first generation MacBooks and sweep this problem under the rugs...AGAIN!

I'm wondering how well the i7 MacBook Air will run Photoshop CS6...considering I will be saving a substantial amount of money. BTW Sharky, do you mind telling us how much you sold your MacBook Pro Retina for?

Hi Wayne and the rest,

I just went to the Apple store and started arguing about this faulty machine. Mine had pixelproblems (Samsung screen) and a lot lag as all the other rMBPs in the store. I am an orthopedic surgeon and bought the rMBP for managing intense 3D graphics in trauma cases. It didn't work out as I had hoped while changing screens sometimes even locked up the machine.

The rMBP was sent for repair first. When it returned only the screen was replaced. Nothing done at the lag of course.

After a long discussion with the employee agreed with me; the rMBP line is just a gimmick and an underwhelming experience. They took it back for the full retail price and I couldn't be happier!

I don't use Photoshop CS6, but the 3D graphics software at the hospital is so much faster than the rMBP. I think you will see similar results with CS6.

Good luck guys!

I can't belive it. Someone is selling his rMBP because scrolling iCal pages is just smooth, not butter smooth. Ridicolous.

If it were only because of scrolling in iCal pages...

You try running every app in the book, from Safari, to iPhoto, to Photoshop, and yes, iCal. Why do I want to spend $3000 on a laptop that performs slower than a $900 Macbook Air???

@Sharky - So Apple was able to exchange your rMBP for all the stuff you listed? Mine is built to order, so I don't think they're gonna do that for me

Hi poidet

I don't use Calendar nor Mail.app. My lag problem is scrolling with safari. It get's impossible to use facebook or gmail: scrolling is too laggy and typing in gmail is so lagged that one can type faster than the characters appear in screen.

The lag got back yesterday and I did the trick now and it's gone again. I'm sure it will come back some day, though.

Maybe it's not the trick, but just the action of logging out. I need to test more.

by the way, this is my mac:

I own a Macbook Pro Retina i7 16GB early 2013 and a Macbook Air i5 4GB late 2012

The Air runs buttersmooth ofcourse and the Retina extreme laggy, choppy especialy when scaling windows or scrolling in finder windows. With really heavy apps like Photoshop, After Effects its even worse and almost unusable.

I have tried about everything on the forums with no succes,

- Patched SMC latest version

- Quartz Debug
- SMC Reset
- PRAM Reset
- Cleaned multiple caches
- Cleaned log files
- Forced Nvidia card
- Total reinstall 1.8.3

If i missed a possible solution your welcome to tell me

I hope Apple will work on a patch fix for this, In my opinion the hardware should be more then sufficient to handle the UI animations. I like to play some games and here the macbook does not disapoint me even in Retina resolution i can play Starcraft on half high and medium settings. Sounds to me like a case of bad UI/Video driver programming.

btw, roberto_sc, try to remove completely Flash from you Mac, will you see improvements in Safari ?