Macbook Pro with Retina, Mountain Lion graphic jitters

Thank you Jeremy for this Solution. It worked for me on my 2013 2.7Ghz 16GB Ram 512SSD 15" Macbook Pro Retina.

I had also installed ML from a back up from my Prev Gen Macbook Pro and was wondering if this was the cause of the problem.

I was beginning to get a little disheartened with this issue and I am now a very happy Bunny.

Thanks again.

27" Imac 2013 here with same problem, did step 1 , step 2 wasnt available, but it worked for me, scrolling goes smooth again.

Thank you very much🙂🙂

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grudgnor's solution worked for me also, however, all I had to do was delete the User and System windowserver files. Thanks for the post.

Removing the files effectively returns the display resolution setting to "Best for Retina display" instead of user selected "Scaled". And reducing resolution will of course significantly speed up the graphics.

Reactivating "Scaled" and selecting for example resolution of 1680 x 1050 will again result in slow graphics and stuttering. Hence this "fix" actually fixes nothing.

Also it seems a bit silly to delete system files and reboot in order to set lower display resolution. Lower resolution can be activated much faster by going to Systems Preferences --> Displays and clicking "Best for Retina display" option.

Fact remains that Apple messed up the Retina MacBook's hardware design - it seems that 2012 and early 2013 rMBPs will never work properly with higher display resolutions. Very disappointing mistake - I really thought Apple engineers and management would know better. It's also very sad to see their cover up strategy - they have opted to play deaf and dumb for over a year now. Just long enough to launch new hardware designs which might actually work with Retina displays. Customers who bought 2012 and early 2013 models were basically scammed of their money and will have to use stuttering slow machines or spend yet another >2000$ on a new MBP.

Thank you, this solution worked for me, too.

Running a Retina MacBook Pro 13.3 and OSX 10.9 Mavericks. I migrated via Time Machine copy from latest Snow Leopard and MBA.

I'm running my retina display scaled up a bit from "Best for display". Switching this setting back and forth had no effect, even after reboots. But as said above, grudgnor's solution took care of the problem, even on Mavericks.

Thank You!! I had the jittery scrolling and jittery dockbar problem too. Was driving me crazy -- no solution to be found anywhere. Yours worked!

- Jon

I love you man grudgnor. I had this problem serveral times, each time doing a fresh reinstall of everything, This is awesome. I cannot thank you enough. I wish I knew some way to thank you even more but I hope the apple gods may give you everything you wish for.

Ps apple step up your support. Wanting to replace my logic board when it was clearly software. Think about it, If I reintsall my os and it works again, THEN IT IS SOFTWARE. Worse it's just preferences.

grudgnor I wish you the best in life and I thank you again

grudgnor wrote:

My retina MacBook Pro has had terrible graphics performance problems for a couple of weeks. I searched all over various forums and tried everything: resetting SCM, manually selecting discrete/integrated graphics card, deleting graphics kexts, etc. Nothing helped until I found this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4391500

Now my rMBP has silky smooth graphics again!

The directions in that post are a little hard to understand so I cleaned them up here:

Step 1: Delete system windowserver preferences

1. In the Finder, from the menu bar, select "Go -> Go to Folder..."
2. Enter: /Library/Preferences/
3. Delete the file called com.apple.windowserver.plist

Step 2: Delete user windowserver preferences

1. In the Finder, from the menu bar, select "Go -> Go to Folder..."
2. Enter: ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/
3. Delete all files that start with com.apple.windowserver (On my rMBP, there was one file called com.apple.windowserver.12AFB147-95D6-5C70-8F62-C1E4F2BE81BE)

Step 3: Reset the PRAM

(These instructions are from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379)

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

Hopefully this helps others with bad graphics performance on retina MacBook Pros.

For anyone that wants to check out the problematic plists from my rMBP, here are the files:

http://jherrman.com/slow-rmbp-2012/com.apple.windowserver.plist

http://jherrman.com/slow-rmbp-2012/com.apple.windowserver.12AFB147-95D6-5C70-8F6 2-C1E4F2BE81BE.plist

Jeremy Herrman

This solution have solved my problem with jittering dock as well. I did not perform PRAM reset. After restart problem did not return.

Hope this will not bring any problems for Windows installed under BOOTCAMP.

If this is a OS X bug, hope Apple Support team will escalate it to developers and release a propoer patch.

Thank you!

Daniil

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Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1

Processor Name: Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2,7 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 4

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 8 MB

Memory: 16 GB

Boot ROM Version: MBP101.00EE.B02

SMC Version (system): 2.3f36

Message was edited by: Daniil_xXx, added MacBook configuration.

Thanks for this!

Cleared up the scroll induced jitter / tearing with my late 2013 rMBP on Mavericks 10.9.1 experiencing the same issue.

Guys I have the mbpr (2.6ghz,8gb,gt650m) and while the machine was sharp and healthy one day it started having the lags...Mission control, safari even the little pop on when you place the mouse above an app...I'm posting this because I believe I found the solution while searching on another forum...I downloaded xbench and run solely a gpu test and an interface test. The lag is vanished really...Try it!

Hope I helped!!

This worked for me too! Thanks!

This was super easy, I was kind of sceptical but it only took me 5 seconds to google it, 1 second to download it, and 1 second to run it. After that I SMOOTHLY swiped over to my other desktops!
The tool can be found at http://xbench.com and can be run straight from it's mounted .dmg
I hopefully won't need to do this ever again
Cheers

The xbench trick fixed this most annoying problem on my 2014 Mac Pro. Thanks so much for the post as nothing else worked.

This is amazing, your fix works. Tried several supposed remedies over the last months. Now it works.

Had to remove both files, restart, and it works as it should! All jitter/flickering of the screen is gone. In Ssafari, HTML5 content, web apps, slow opening of the dock etc.

😍