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

Finally someone is paying attention.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/11/13/some_15_retina_macbook_pro_users_c omplain_of_graphics_issues_after_efi_update.html

I think I can confirm it's working better after installing AutoCad and running "Repair Disk Permissions".

I tried installing AutoCad first and just restarting running that but didn't seem to have any effect. At first I thought I just had to run "Repair Disk" which I did and no change. However running "Repair Disk Permissions" seemed to find a bunch of issues, lots of things rolling on the screen.

Looking at the calendar it is a slightly low frame rate when chaning month to month but no jittering. I think it's smoother. The Verge is still really slow and jittery with Safari and Chrome. I tried ign.com becuase it used to be an issue under Safari at first but has gotten better, it's still terrible with Chrome.

I tried the Blackboard site I have to maintain for my class and it's still really bad under Safari and Chrome but bareable with Firefox. So maybe will get better with browser optimisation.

I opened everything I could think of just to test Mission Control. It seems that there's still a little lag, but when running a regular amount of things it's smooth so far. I used to always be able to make Launchpad jitter when opening a folder, but nothing anymore.

The Mail app is still sluggish when you scroll the contents of emails.

So I guess for some odd reason it actually does do some good. Though I'm wondering if it's "Repair Disk Permissions" that does the most good?

Just received a 2.7, 16GB, 756GB rMBP and I am very dissapointed with the performance. The only reason I got this in the first place was to have a smoother experience than my mbAir, which ironically performs better than my new rMBP.

I must say that browsing and mission control is not that bad since the latest updates, however, Mail is simply unsusable, the content side of the client is extremely laggy.

The only way to reduce the lag is reduce the size of the window.

I really do hope its not a hardware issue and Apple will release an update soon.

I'm having one of those days where I'm surrounded with classmates with their 2008/2009 Macbooks and gutless Macbook Airs that scroll and perform more efficiently than my Macbook Retina junk. I can't even use GMail without extreme artifacts, and every update seems to fix my scrolling / UI problems for a day or two, and then they just come back. My fear is that if this laptop performs so poorly on simple tasks like checking email, what's going to happen three years down the road when this generation of retina isn't even on Apple's radar anymore? I'm having a great amount of buyers remorse. I was a PC guy for 15 years and after coveting my wife's 2009 Macbook Pro for years, I finally decided to invest deeply in Apple, and i feel like I got burned. Ugh. Sorry to vent, but I'm sure some of you know the pain.

I know the feeling, I worked all Summer to earn some money, and spent most of it on this laptop (for university). Gutted that is doesn't perform particularly well! I know it seems big headed but it is embarrassing checking my timetable (a huge pdf file) in lectures because it lags so badly! I know the hardware is easily capable, I've been playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution at 60fps on full settings! At least it seems to be getting some attention now.

I totally hear your frustration. Nothing is more disappointing than to drop $2.5 to $3K on a laptop that runs slower than your kid's MacBook Air or 2008 MBP. I think 10.8.2 along with the latest SMC/EFI updates killed it. I have collegues with the original EFI/SMC firmware from June 2012 and they can attest that they had no issues with their rMBP, all until they updated their firmwares, that's when the performance issues began to crop up.

I'm still reeling over the fact that I save up just enough money over the summer just to let something like this to happen on my BTO rMBP.

Apple are you listening??? Can we just revert our firmware back to the original????

Oh yeah thats another thing, I also have the EFI trouble where I have to reset the SMC every time I want to do something cpu intensive (bootcamp pc games!). Its a bit annoying, I hate seeing this brand new laptop as faulty.

I think it would help if we raised some more frustration with Apple Care support etc. If you have recently purchased your rMBP you get free phone support initiatlly. The forum is a good place to vent; but I highly doubt Apple is watching it extremely close. I called Apple Support last night and talked with their team to explain my frustration. I was just outside of my free phone support window; but I made sure to explain what was happening with my 16GB rMBP; and how dissatisfied I was. I also explained how it is most likely driver/firmware issues that would most likely be fixed if Apple would revert back the EFI/SMC update; or release a new one to enhance functionality.

The article that was published about this topic was good; but it may not be enough. Apple tracks the calls and types of issues that are submitted. The more calls and issues that are brough to their attention; the more likely they are to escalate a fix. I was hoping that the 13" release would raise even more concern with Apple; as the are only equiped with an Integrated card.

I highly doubt the graphics card's in our 15" are "underpowered" to run the standard ML UI smooth; considering you can play full resolution video games in OSX & Windows just fine on this. I also doubt Apple would rollout at 13" model with only an integrate graphics card if it truly was underpowered. We are all unhappy with our current laptops and support from Apple; but keep in mind this is a 1st gen product. If the hardware is solid (which I feel it is) a patch or update will ineveitably be coming.

Just my thoughts.

- The optimist.

I purchased my MBPr three weeks ago and I still have the same issue, after the last update (2.0) it worked well for a few days, but now is just as bad as before... So following your advice I just schedulled a call to Apple Support (it will be expensive since I'm not in the states anymore), at least they should tell me something about it. Is no fun that my 3K notebook is working worst than my previous MBP

- Regards

Thank you very much for your statement dude!

I worked all summer to have money to buy my MBPr and i'm not liking how it performs on scrolling trough xcode, websites
I'm waiting patiently for the fix! Go Apple! Make me Happy!

I still have apple care phone service so I'm just coming back from talking over the phone for two hours with a couple of guys over apple. They couldn't see the problem over the Remote Desktop sharing because of the Internet lag, however they couldn't figure out what is happening either. I have to send them a couple of log files so they could check them up

I told him several times of this thread, I think they actually read it now

Regards

Christopher

This is exactly what we all need to be doing. Apple support is generally great. If enough of us call in and complain/explain our issue; it only escalates a resolution.

Keep it up!

After update mine still *****.  Granted it's improved... but lag/stutter/freezing is still noticable and very annoying. My old half-priced MBA ran circles around this monster even after the update.   

If you use SetResX and set your resolution to any non-HiDPI mode; thigs run extremely smooth. I also ran XBench benchmarks at various resoultions and found that my scores were generally twice (2X) as good in non-HiDPI modes. I wonder if the issues is related more to the HiDPI rendering for our Retina units? The screen definitely isn't as crisp; but it proves a good point. It looks like a standard laptop in this mode.

Are you serious?

If you compare playing a game at 1440x900 and 2880x1800 you obviously will get more fps on 1440x900 than 2880x1800. So the score is based in that. If you have more fps in 1440x900 (non-hipdi), you socre will be better than 2880x1800.