macOS High Sierra 10.13 slow graphics after battery sleep

After another week of testing, I have found that when I change my macbooks sleep mode to "sleep" instead of the default "safe sleep", this problem does not occur anymore...

Use this command to check your current sleep mode...

pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

Default is 3. I set mine to 0.

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 - to set the desired sleep mode.

0 - Old style sleep mode, with RAM powered on while sleeping, safe sleep disabled, and super-fast wake.

1 - Hibernation mode, with RAM contents written to disk, system totally shut down while “sleeping,” and slower wake up, due to reading the contents of RAM off the hard drive.

3 - The default mode on machines introduced since about fall 2005. RAM is powered on while sleeping, but RAM contents are also written to disk before sleeping. In the event of total power loss, the system enters hibernation mode automatically.

5 - This is the same as mode 1, but it’s for those using secure virtual memory (in System Preferences -> Security).

7 - This is the same as mode 3, but it’s for those using secure virtual memory.

Guys, I have just found a solution and it worked perfect for me. You just need to reset NVRAM on your MacBook.

Here is the instructions I have found on the Internet:

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R.
3. Turn on your Mac.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys immediately after you hear the startup sound.
5. Hold these keys until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for a second time.
6. Release the keys.

Only this solution worked for me, after formatting my SSD, after reinstalling, after upgrading to macOS BETA, after trying to solve the problem with browsers (some people say that Chrome works bad with the latest macOS). But in the end only resetting NVRAM really solved the problem.

Try it! Hope it will help you.

If the GPU has gone south and is running slow then merely unchecking Automatic switching does not immediately fix anything.

But if you Shutdown / Reboot, with Automatic switching already unchecked for both Battery and Power, - then after that reboot it’ll go fast as expected -

And any subsequent sleep / un-sleeps will retain the fast performance.

I did one Shutdown / Reboot and 10 sleeps of various lengths - in all cases it continued to run fast after waking up.

I don’t now if this is a full workaround for all people for all the time but it looks promising.

The length of sleep can be anything from 5 minutes or 5 hours, battery or power ... it doesn't matter.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the battery life was not noticebly affected if you don't run any graphics intense apps.

( 2017 MacBook Pro 15" Radeon 555, High Sierra 10.13.1 )

Aloha from Honolulu Hawaii per this thread I unchecked the put hard drive to sleep when possible and have not had any slow downs at all both plugged in and in battery I get 70 to 100 FPS while playing WOW where as before I’d get 17 to 26 FPS after waking up the MacBook Pro from sleep. I have a 2017 15” MBP Touch Bar AMD 560 4gigs GDDR5.

Hello!

Try to turn on/off "Automatic graphics switching" in the "Energy Saver" section of system options.

That helps me to restore graphics performance without rebooting laptop.

The Apple person I spoke with was brilliant they are the one who put me onto this thread, no denial there. Hopefully the one you spoke with will get up to speed. This problem is real.

I have 4 MacBook Pros of various sizes and ages, one is brand new. It happens on all 3 machines with High Sierra, including the new one. The 4th laptop is still on Sierra - bingo - no problem there.

Fresh install? Mine was a brand new latest model machine, after purchase I immediately upgraded to High Sierra, updated all the Apple apps, installed Xcode and opened a well known project, so far all okay. But after its first long sleep / hibernate - bang - SLO MO.

Once it goes into the slow mood turning “Automatic graphics switching ...” off does not bring it back up to speed for me. It’s too late. Only a full shutdown reboot fixes it once it has gone south.

I‘m testing out another workaround: if you put the machine to sleep with the Radeon engaged then after a long sleep it seems to retain its fast mood. To engage the graphics use a game, graphics program or Energy Saver “Automatic switching” unchecked ... So far this hasn’t failed but it’s early days.

Thanks,

Just to clarify for other readers.

If you have Automatic switching checked it'll force the 2nd GPU to run constantly - then when you sleep/wake I don't expect you'll see the issue. It seems to retain the fast mood all the time at the expense of short battery life.

But if you don't have the 2nd GPU engaged then sleep/wake for me it'll go slow about 56% of the time. Once it's going slow if you uncheck Automatic switching it'll be too late. Once it goes slow nothing, we found so far, can bring it back to speed except a full shutdown.

Just a quick update from my side on this topic... after downgrading to Sierra I have a wonderful uptime of 13 days without any reboots and used the MacBook every day, opening/closing the lid all the time and GPU performance is still a charm. So surely it must be an issue with High Sierra, right Apple? Let's see what my support contact is saying to that after he comes back from his vacation.

Oh and EDIT to describe my workload: I am using GPU intensive tasks like rendering stuff with Blender or doing stuff with Photoshop every day. Games work fine, too.

It looks like it's fixed for AMD with 13.3 beta1 (at least geekbench gives me the same score before and after sleep)

Macbook Pro 15" 2017

I had the same problem. Since the current beta update 10.13.3 Beta (17D34a) the issue is gone.

Hi everybody

I'm also experiencing this issue.

I'm now busy testing a few things to see if it makes any difference.

Is anybody using Google Chrome??

As soon as I start Chrome I can see graphics performance deteriorating. Chrome is also not playing nicely with the Magnet app.

I've now done a SMC reset, NVRAM reset. Booted without using Chrome and no graphics issues so far.

System has slept twice and still working great.

It does start of a little laggy after the wakeup, but that goes away after a few seconds....

hi ho_ax / all,

have you tried engaging the discrete graphics card and then putting machine to sleep?

I've been using a simple "hello triangle" graphics app to do this, the Radeon engages, I shut the lid ... Later on awake the FPS is still in fast mood.

I could be wrong but I'm 99% sure this works.

I reckon any app which forces the discrete card to activate will do the job (google chrome forces it on but due to bloat I removed chrome so I can't test it for this).

--ak

That works!

Thank you, I got temporary stable dGPU work:

- I run World of Warcraft as intensive GPU using game;

- log off to the title screen (fullscreen);

- close the lid;

- then we both went to sleep;

- voila! After waking up dGPU runs on its actual speeds!

This is definitely not a final and absolute solution, but it's a huge progress 😉

This is High Sierra release is a mess.

I am one of the «lucky ones» that have an Nvidia dGPU, and installing the Nvidia Web driver fixed it. And I can confirm that reverting back to the native driver brought the sluggishness back.

The Nvidia Web driver always checks the OS Build number and reverts back to Mac OS X's native driver if the OS Build is not listed as supported.

This is exactly what happened this morning after installing the latest security update.

I had to reboot my MBP for another reason, and after that I was stuck working an entire day with the native driver until Nvidia released an updated driver. After more than a week of my MBP running flawlessly and not even having to reboot it for 7days, it was laggy again.

Safari was slow and choppy while browsing and scrolling.

Scrolling in MS word on my 4k external monitor was painful. I did not experience the usual freeze after lunch break sleep, since I did not take a break today. No doubt it would have.

Seeing how many of us are having the issue, with or without Nvidia graphics cards, this indeed cannot be an Nvidia hardware issue, but there must be something that Nvidia are doing with their web driver that fixes the issue.

If Apple support staff/devs were were to acknowledge all our feedback on this thread and the one below, they might actually be able to find a fix for everyone.

Re: High Sierra macOS freezing and stops

It is very frustrating that this issue doesn't seem to be acknowledged by Apple support and that our pricey Apple laptop/desktop does not receive better tested OS upgrades.

I did not choose Apple and paid such a high price to deal with this kind of crap.

I've reported this countless times to Apple since 10.13.0 was released.
I've also referenced several other gaming-related forums where a lot of people experience the same.

The issue is super-simple to re-produce: Put your computer to sleep for a couple of hours, and try to use it in a way that stresses the GPU: Game, Final Cut Pro X video rendering, etc. You will get about 70% LESS performance CONSISTENTLY ALL THE TIME until the computer is Rebooted.

I never had this issue in Sierra. I have had this issue in 10.13.0, 10.13.1 and now 10.13.2, on a MBP 2017 i7/2.9, AMD 560 Pro and 512GB SSD.

It's unacceptable to have to reboot the computer every time I want to edit pictures, video, game, and in other ways use the GPU. Most of my workloads revolves around GPU usage.