Level 1

9 points

Submarining text on scrollling?

Hello,

On my shiny new MacBook, I'm noticing that when I scroll webpages, text virtually disappears until the scroll stops. It's really noticeable on Apple Discussions pages, actually.

My cinema display doesn't do it, but I haven't had a laptop since my PowerBook 160 -- which did it because of the ol' passive matrix display. Should the MacBook? Do you see the same thing?

Thanks for any advice

MacBook 1.8ghz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 25, 2006 4:43 PM

33 replies

Venin

Level 1

10 points

Jun 1, 2006 1:53 PM in response to bonaldi

Does everyone have this problem? I saw two in store today, both having that issue and they both had 512mb ram. Please reply if you have / dont have this problem and how much ram u got.

bonaldi Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 1, 2006 3:26 PM in response to Venin

Ok I (obviously) see it. I can't see how memory would be related if it works externally, but I have 2gb of memory.

bonaldi Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 2, 2006 8:36 PM in response to bonaldi

Oooh, this is interesting: It doesn't happen in Firefox, just Safari. This is because Safari uses smooth scrolling no matter what's set in preferences, but Safari doesn't.

If you shake a Firefox window you'll get the ghosting effect (which must just be the cheap screen) but if you scroll it's fine.

Venin

Level 1

10 points

Jun 3, 2006 1:02 AM in response to bonaldi

I was actually thinking about that, that it might be caused by the browser. Im not sure what you mean by ghosting effect though.

Jun 3, 2006 5:18 AM in response to Venin

You may look at the video that I've done with the iSight of an iMac.
Go to th Public folder of merdalor 's account on .mac.

the 6.1 Mo video, while of "low" quality shows that the google search box and
thumb images of desktop preference pane have their respective ghosts.

The details are somewhat blurred and therefore dimmed due to the limitations of the iSight, but they are present and are not an artifact of the capture process.

Venin

Level 1

10 points

Jun 4, 2006 3:12 PM in response to Not a Number

I really don't know how to access that page, hehe.

Jun 4, 2006 3:54 PM in response to Venin

in the "Go" menu of the finder, select iDisk > Public Directory of another user

type merdalor in member name

Venin

Level 1

10 points

Jun 5, 2006 12:32 AM in response to Not a Number

Im sorry, but i dont have a macintosh yet. 🙂

Yozza

Level 1

25 points

Jun 16, 2006 1:32 AM in response to r0d

I was seeing a similar problem with text submarining/fading when scrolling on a new MacBook

I was able to reduce the effect by opening the Appearance preferance pane and setting "Font smoothing style" to Strong

Jim R

Level 2

467 points

Jun 17, 2006 3:36 PM in response to bonaldi

I don't have any problems with color, and no problems playing videos or video iChats. No hiccups at all with video iChats or movie/DVD playback. The MacBook does video just great, and I'm very satisfied with the graphics performance.

I also had a MacBook Pro and I noticed the same ghosting, text disappearing while scrolling. It has been mentioned that this doesn't happen or not as much while using Firefox. I would really attribute these artifacts to the way Safari renders pages rather than a problem with the MacBook.

MacBook/2.0/1GB/CTO (white); PowerBook G4 12/1.33 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Airport Express, iPod mini, iPod nano

bonaldi Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 17, 2006 3:46 PM in response to Jim R

Hi Jim,

Thanks for that. I do suspect, though, that you aren't looking at color in the same way as some of us. Color casts can actually be very difficult to notice unless you know what you're looking for: our eyes are designed to ignore them. But for people for whom color fidelity matters, the pink tint is very, very evident.

The amount of reports I've seen about it now suggest that it's across all the stock MacBook screens: ie, it is not a fault with a batch, it's all of them.

I would really attribute
these artifacts to the way Safari renders pages
rather than a problem with the MacBook.

This is wrong, however. Yes, Safari's smooth scrolling makes the problem much more evident, but you can see the same thing just by moving a Firefox window around the screen. I compared it to a couple of MacBook Pros' screens yesterday, and they show the problem far, far less, and entirely without color ghosting.

LCDs ghost by their nature, but the level of it on the MacBook amazes me. Move the pointer quickly across the screen and watch it with your eyes. You'll see it shimmer and turn green at the edges. Do it fast enough and you could have Mouse Trails turned on! In 2006!

bonaldi Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 17, 2006 3:47 PM in response to bonaldi

(Er, for the pointer test you have to do it across a white background)

Jim R

Level 2

467 points

Jun 17, 2006 4:24 PM in response to bonaldi

Really though, the whole point of my post wasn't about color cast, it was about the scrolling/ghosting. And I did notice it as much on the MacBook Pro (owned one).

As far as color cast though, one can calibrate the screen to their liking I suppose. I feel that this may all be due to the difference in the traditional matte Mac screen compared to the new glossy screen. I think it's all subjective.

Jun 19, 2006 6:05 AM in response to bonaldi

Hi guys! I Think that what is happening is something related to the graphics chipset.
I have OSX and Windows through bootcamp. and the ghosting and scrolling stuff is a reality in both OS's.

This could be related to the lack of memory in our systems. I currently have 512Mb of RAM, when i run windows or mac OS, i only have 400.. and something MB's. This could be causing this side effects. I will install 2Gb this week, and i wil post later if it as solved our issue.

Thanks!
Paulo Lemos

Jun 19, 2006 8:42 AM in response to PauloLemos

I recently installed 2Gb of memory and nothing goes better (with respect to the display 😉 )

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Submarining text on scrollling?