Slow Graphics Performance MacOS High Sierra

I use a 4K external display which must be driven by the NVIDIA GPU, and I'm seeing the performance degradation all the time on High Sierra. The whole OS is very jittery and laggy: resizing windows, switching tabs in web browser, etc... Having looked through a few forums, it seems like quite a number of people are also experiencing performance issues using the same or similar MacBook Pro (mid 2014) with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M GPU Card.

I realise that these benchmarks may be something of a gimmick but "my UI is jittery, youtube videos aren't playing as smoothly as before" is quite vague and there are quite number of explanations for those symptoms. I'm trying to find some repeatable way to demonstrate that the problem exists, and also hopefully some way of quantifying the effect on performance. That way it should be easy to get everyone with the same problem to file bug report/support requests that are actionable.

So... I've just taken the plunge and switched back to Sierra to run some tests. Graphics performance is back to normal, and everything is running smoothly - so it doesn't look like a hardware issue (at least not for me).

In the spirit of attempting to compare "like for like", I ran the same GPU benchmark on the same laptop on Sierra 10.12.6: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1359623. From a quick scan of the results:

* High Sierra gets better numbers for the tests that it can run (Metal2 is supposed to bring improvements over Metal).

* High Sierra can't run one of the tests (though Sierra can run it). Given that these tests are normally designed to cover a wide range of functionality between them, this could indicate that there is some feature implementation missing for this GPU on High Sierra, or the implementation isn't sufficient to run the test.

So not absolutely conclusive, but it does show the difference between the GPU performance on the two systems.

I'm interested if anyone has any other ideas of tests/benchmarks that might help narrow this down. Now that I can switch between 10.12.6 and 10.13 it's relatively easy for me to try things on both and compare. If we can find a definite way to show that it's an issue, it should be much easier for Apple to fix. My support requests and bug reports have not gotten me anywhere so far but I'm going to add this latest benchmark and hope for the best!

The performance shortcomings are similar to memory leaks (graphics memory leak?)

... there is said to be a memory leak problem in graphics, fixed in 10.13.1, available a few days ago.

NVIDIA is very proprietary about the detailed operation of their graphics processors, insists on doing the Drivers themselves, and are almost always so late that they cannot be included with the main MacOS releases.

NVIDIA Users have gotten in the habit of getting them direct from NVIDIA, when they eventually become available.

10.13 really turned me off to upgrading for the 1st time on Mac.

if you had asked Users here, they would tell you to wait for at least the nn.1 release, and then upgrade only when you need the features offered. Otherwise you are on the "bleeding" edge of new technology introduction.

Hi all,

just popped in to say I've also been fighting with this (or similar) problem ever since the first release of High Sierra. Late 2013 MBP, GeForce GT 750M. Usually everything works just fine and then BAM massive slowdown. I just finally called Apple support and they suggested reinstalling the OS. Judging from the posts here, it's probably not worth the trouble doing that.

I have actually found a "fix", though:

Change the screen resolution to something else and then back. If you have an external monitor, you can just open & close the laptop lid. I'm now using QuickRes to quickly change into some other resolution and back. This apparently somehow resets the driver (or something) and everything works fine... for a while.

Hi ParhamS,

Sorry to say you are not the only one having this issue.

I have 4 MBP's of various ages and sizes, the 3 with High Sierra are experiencing this. The one with Sierra is not.

Lots of people are seeing experiencing this issue, for example:

Re: macOS High Sierra 10.13 slow graphics after battery sleep

and

Bad graphic performance after sleep

If you Shutdown / Reboot it should run correctly, but if you sleep with only the integrated graphics running, wakeup then I'm seeing the issue about 60% of the time.

(If you put it to sleep with the 2nd card running then I don't believe you'll see the issue)

(MBP 15" 2017 model with Radeon 555 ...)

Safe mode does one pass of Disk repair before it loads, so it can add about five minutes to startup time.

The next Restart after Safe mode, it will rebuild a few system caches, so it will take a little bit longer that usual.

Safe mode loads defaults for everything it can, and loads the minimal set of Apple-only extensions (including NOT loading the display accelerator, which is why screen redraw is quirky and slow). Any changes to preferences you make from Safe Mode will 'stick' in regular mode.

It does not load any non-Apple extensions, so "works in Safe mode" but "not in regular mode" may indicate a conflict with non-Apple extensions.

If you would like a further analysis, run this little non-invasive Utility to discover more of what is going on inside your Mac:

User Tip: Using Etrecheck

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Just to follow up, the bug I filed with Apple detailing the slow-down of graphics in 10.13 on my 2014 MBP (specifically the Nvidia GT 750M card), has been now marked as "resolved in macOS 10.13.2".

I'm still running on Sierra, and unlikely to switch over to High Sierra until I see people reporting the issue has actually been fixed. If anyone is still experiencing this problem on a 2013/2014 MBP (NVidia GT 650/750 respectively), then I would recommend you report this to apple via customer support and bugreport.apple.com (if you have a developer account).

High Sierra is borderline useless to me with my 2015 non-TB MBP and my 4k Dell P21715Q monitor with "Scaled" resolution enabled. Using DP to MiniDP because if I use HDMI I'm stuck at 30hz.

If I use "Default Resolution", my 4k monitor only runs at 1080, which is unacceptable. No idea why "default resolution" chooses 1080.

If I change it to "Scaled Resolution", anything other than 1080 or the 4k resolution (which is too small for my tastes) my monitor shows me at 60hz but it's unbelievably slow on screen refreshes. Using programs like Premiere or Photoshop is a 15fps disaster. Minimizing a browser window is like a chug-chug-chug instead of a smooth slide down to the Dock.

Everything runs great and smooth when I'm only using my laptop screen. My guess is that Scaling is broken in High Sierra with Metal 2 or some other combination thereof. Activity Monitor shows windowserver with high CPU and memory usage which means it's Metal 2 and/or Scaling.

Everything worked perfectly fine in Sierra.

Tried everything, using the Nvidia Web Driver, turning off Hardware Accel in Chrome or Firefox, disabling graphics switching in power settings, even trying SwitchResX. It's a disaster unless I use either full 4k or 1080. I can't use any Scaled in between.

I can't use it and I can't downgrade back to Sierra so I have to reformat my whole system and reinstall Sierra which thankfully I still have on a bootable USB drive.

Sounds like the exact same issue, have you tried installing the same update as me at the moment? Would be interesting to see if it resolves the issue for you.(10.13.4 Beta (17E170c)

It's been about 3 days now and not one crash or slowdown. The difference is unbelievable.

You're right, it doesn't make any sense, but it's a bug.

Check the video I posted above. I can reproduce it 100% of the time. If I use any resolution on my external monitor other than Default or full 4k, it lags. At Default or full 4k, it does not lag.

I didn't program High Sierra so I don't know why it's happening, I can only speculate that it has to do with what High Sierra sees as a Scaled Resolution and how that interfaces with Metal 2.

Again my fix is to run at full 4k. It doesn't make sense why running at full 4k resolution works without lag when running it at say 1080 or 1440 lags, but that's the results I can duplicate 1005 of the time.

voodooless

If you are having graphics or other performance problems with a 2016 or 2017 MacBook Pro, your underlying issue has NOTHING to do with most posters on this thread. This thread is about Readers on OLDER Hardware left behind by the newest MacOS High Sierra versions, especially users of NVIDIA Graphics hardware.

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Please start a new thread and post your exact model of MacBook Pro and MacOS. Consider running this "visibility" Utility and posting its report as well:

User tip: Using etrecheck

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Just recently started using a mid 2012 MBP with a discrete 650m. High Sierra is literally unusable when using the 650. Only thing that helped was reverting back to Sierra. This is the first time I've ever used a mac and this doesnt bode well.

Mid-2014 15" Macbook Pro with Nvidia 750m.

With High Sierra 10.13 - 10.13.2 - symptoms:

• I was seeing constant UI judder in nearly any Application running in macOS, including macOS itself which would be evident when swiping between desktops. If not familiar with the aesthetic, I'd describe it as the interface looking like it's running at about 2 - 5 frames per second rather than 60+.
• Some Applications would present mouse cursor judder and my pointer would stop/start incrementally while performing actions. If I switched to different software the problem wouldn't be there until I returned to the original program. The problem would not always occur in the same software, nor would it be guaranteed to occur in the software each time I ran it. Sometimes switching software back and forth fixed it, other times it took a restart.
• Occasionally the entire UI, including pointer, would freeze for about ten seconds then return. Console logs would report GPU errors.
• Occasionally software would show triangulation glitches, usually coinciding with short, temporary freezes. I'd see triangle patterns flicker in the corner of the screen and could always fix it by swiping an exposé command and back, which would return everything to normal. This would happen most frequently in Applications using OpenGL and Safari.
• Very rarely, the freezes wouldn't return and the system would reboot itself.

Installed and used Nvidia Web Drivers around the release of macOS 10.13.2

This appeared to stop most of the mouse cursor judders but other UI judders and stutters remained. It was certainly more functional, overall, but not ok.

Upgraded to 10.13.3

• Problems remained but now Safari would become so unresponsive when scrolling that it moved far beyond the threshold of usable. I cleared out everything, removed extensions etc. to make sure it wasn't something peripheral. Scrolling would stop for up to five seconds at a time and I'd see no 'busy' cursor or anything. The system wasn't frozen as I could switch to other software but Safari was insisting on dragging its heels and I switched to Chrome, despite concerns about battery hogging.
• Using external monitor as a desktop extension so I know that I'm using the 750m discrete card 100% of the time now. There's no switching (it won't use the built-in GPU in this setup) and symptoms are exactly the same.

Upgraded to 10.13.4 5 days ago

Using regular mac driver for 750m as Nvidia haven't released their web driver yet. Most of the symptoms gone. The system is vastly smoother and I would say it's about 70% of the way to how it was in Sierra. Swiping between desktops still shows the slight judder remaining so I wouldn't call it smooth yet but it's certainly workable. I can't comment on the performance of the 750m under pressure vs Sierra yet.

Upgraded to Nvidia Web Driver for 10.13.4 2 days ago

No difference noticed between system drivers yet.

Note:

This same system (mid-2014 Macbook Pro with 750m) appeared to have crippling GPU driver related issues back in El Capitan also. An embedded YouTube HTML5 video in Safari would often cause the entire system to freeze indefinitely if a new tab was opened while playing. It was fixed (quietly, no release note mention) in 10.11.6 and appeared to only affect this system.

I had (crossing my fingers) this problem also. I just installed the NVIDIA alternate driver from https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/nvidia-releases-alternate-graphics-drivers-fo r-macos-high-sierra-10-13-4-387-10-10-10…

So far it appears to have fixed the problem (knock on wood).

Try reseting NVRAM and SMC. Let me know if this helps.