Slow Graphics Performance MacOS High Sierra

Hi ilCerbero

Cool, thank you so much. I just disabled hardware acceleration on chrome, and my computer went from barely usable to a bit sluggish but ok. Let's see in the long term, I may be able to work correctly again, until apple maybe react. Sorry, I can't run the tests you mention.

Since I'm here, I would confirm that most people who have this issue may not remark it:

On my home user account (just mail, safari, and evernote) it's fine. Same machine but on my work account (development work, phpstorm), it's barely usable after one day of work.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)

2,3 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

Although it may be annoying to see the "I am not having any such problems" postings, it adds a little healthy skepticism to all the negativity on the issue. It SHOULD make readers think about what might the difference be between "my system with problems" and that guy's that seem to have none.

The "boilerplate" recommendation to re-install, produces an undamaged version of MacOS. That is a good first step toward debugging an intractable problem.

A good second step in a routine debugging process for a difficult problem would then be to Erase the drive first, then re-Install. This rewrites all the Bad Blocks on the drive, eliminates all third-party add-ons, and provides an new, undamaged system in place of one that may have been clobbered. But it requires you to HAVE a Trusted backup, and to restore from Backup, and that is a more complex procedure that requires a bit more explanation. This is a standard step the Genius Bar will ask you to complete while debugging an intractable problem.

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I continue to maintain what I have always said: Apple does not pay analysts to read the forums and looking for deep technical issues.

The analytical outlook required to read the many divergent posts here and filter and compile the useful signal from the huge amount noise is very high. In many cases, getting reliable complete background information is difficult. Readers here sometimes do some of that detective work, and sometimes a clear picture emerges that the next User can take to Apple (or elsewhere if the problem lies elsewhere) a a summary of the problem.

Apple relies on what parts come back in through the Genius Bar and other Service providers. Apple relies on reports of intractable problems that come in through second-level telephone support, the Genius Bar and National Support organizations. And they rely on Bug Reports filed by Users who have developer credentials. All of these produce thoughtful, written reports with enough background to attempt to replicate the problem.

In my opinion, the sources I listed provide a much clearer signal, and I believe these are what Apple uses as a basis to act upon.

Tried this, just as all the other stupid "how to fix your slow mac" trivial stuff. Nothing works, not even an OS reinstall. Just tried the latest 10.13.4 beta.. still nothing. And I don't think it is a GPU hardware issue. We see these problems across the board, with old hardware using Nvidia, but also new stuff with AMD and integrated. I have a Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB of memory for "peep" sake, and I can barely even use the Slack app: typing is so unbearably slow, it lags almost a second behind. Atom is even worse... Actually all Electronjs based apps are far worse than other apps. The way to make it better is to start them with --disable-gpu as a command line option.

I really don't get this. People are complaining all over the place, this is not the only topic about this issue. High Sierra is out for almost 6 months now, and we've had several updates already. One would think that they would have solved this by now..

Apple support does NOT monitor these forums looking for trends and outstanding issues.

No, Apple does not. And I will not make the assumption that everyone that has lodged complaints here has also sent it through the proper channels.

Dear Reader - if you've made it this far, go to this link and select "Bug" as the Feedback Type: Feedback - macOS - Apple

1. Make sure to include your hardware, you can find the basics by clicking the  icon in the top lefthand corner of your screen and selecting "About This Mac".
2. INCLUDE A LINK TO THIS THREAD.

Thanks Eli. Could you list what hardware you're using for extra clarity? I'm sure you've done this in another message but it will help others who won't know where to find that.

I've been using the Nvidia web drivers for a few months after similar advice on a mid-2014 macbook pro with an Nvidia 750m. For the first day I certainly noticed that it had an effect of some sort. The familiar patterns that would cause UI stutters wouldn't cause them as easily but it seemed that, besides a little improvement, it mostly just changed what caused the stutters. The last release of Safari caused them so badly to the point it got unusable and I had to move to Chrome. If I do anything too taxing on the 750m it will occasionally just hard reset the entire laptop with a GPU error and this continued with the web drivers. Some of the work is an area where others mightn't push the laptop, so they may have never experienced the same resets on the same hardware.

@Vector: See if this mirrors your experience after a few weeks of trying it.

This issue is frustrating. I'm mid-2015 MBP Retina (built in Intel Iris 6100 GPU) and just purchased Dell P2715Q 4K monitor. I'm running MAC OS 10.13.6 and the lag performance is terrible!! I'm connected to Dell monitor via mini display port at 60hz. Appears if I choose default resolution (non scaled) 1920x1080 performance improves significantly. If I switch to any scaled resolution performance tanks on most simple operations (screen shifts, browser performance, scrolling windows etc.) making any scaling other then default unusable. So, scaling is key contributor to whatever the issue is here.

This is ridiculous that hardware is stated to support these scaled resolutions on 4K monitors but not usable once you actually connect it. Searching the internet there are hundreds of complaints around this same issue in High Sierra.

Apple - what's the fix here????

Just use https://gfx.io/ then switch it to Integrated Only, first time it switches to nvidia/discrete, but once you do it secondly, it switch to it, but still it keep checked Discrete Only, but it works:-)

But be careful to plug-in an external display, then it freezes:-)

Im on 12.4 Mojave with a MacBook Pro Mid 2012 with a GT650 and I found the performance to be much improved. Maybe not as good as the last Sierra build, but it is getting really close in my opinion. Anyone on Sierra should make a backup and then try Mojave for them self.

Should we all report this issue to Apple formally to ensure it gets looked at and eventually fixed?

I guess we should all submit this form:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

10.13.3 released very recently (at this writing) may contain improvements.

I second that, it's back to Sierra if you had issues.

Of course when reverting back, APFS suddenly turns into something like a virus that spread on your harddrive that you need to get rid of.

So sorry for a hope ... it is back after 3days of no problem the whole computer became very slow while using external monitor. Disconnecting it, forcing intel graphics card and works just fine.

I have to say Sierra runs pretty **** smoothly, if you can live with Siri. Not sure if that solves your problem though. Other than that...maybe try resetting the PRAM/SMC?

No dice for me, slightly newer mbp, slightly newer version too, same issue. After more than 6 months the only fixes in sight seem to be a downgrade to sierra or a new mbp with an AMD graphics card.