Slow Graphics Performance MacOS High Sierra

Hi Luis,

I am now intruiged that your machine is not seeing the issue.

I presume it has a 2nd graphics chip, either Radeon or Nvidia.

You routinelin put the machine to sleep (any length of time will do, doesn’t have to be hours) not full shutdown/reboot?

When it sleeps you are definitely on integrated Intel graphic (this means all intense graphics apps are closed, games, chrome, all are closed right?

You can use gfxCardStatus to tell you which GPU is running or look in the Console search for AGC it’ll say PEG powerup and PEG powerdown

You have Automatic switching ... checked. (To allow integrated chip to run).

You might need something like 5 or more sleep/wake cycles. Sometimes happens 1st time, sometimes it might take 5.

Please let us know, after so many sleeps, if your graphics is going slow or not.

I test mine with a little game, it shows FPS.

Thanks.

Thaidax wrote:

Another victim here, High sierra, late 13 MBP with Nvidia 750m, I patiently wait for updates but every time there is no fix.

I think I have to find some time to roll back to Sierra, what a waste of time! Seems Apple is doing what they always have done with their phones and this is really sad.

I have followed this and other discussions, tried everything, Nvidia drivers, Nvidia CUDA but nothing, as soon as I connect my external monitor the fans starts spinning and I'm back in the 90s with a computer that seems to be running a 486 CPU, this planned obsolescenty game from apple is a shame, for the first time I'm actually considering not to buy a Mac next time, I really feel swindled by Apple.

Two questions:

1) Did you update to 10.13.3?

2) Did you at any point in time try a clean install of High Sierra?

I have a machine with the same Nvidia GPU and use external monitors and projectors just about every day without a second thought.

It's definitely true that High Sierra handles scaling slower than Sierra, but even if you run either "Default for display" or native 1:1 resolution High Sierra is considerably slower than Sierra. It's just not as noticeable as it is with scaling enabled unless you push the display adapter a little. I got so annoyed in the end that I ended up attaching an external 2560x1440 monitor rather than a 4K monitor because "Default for display" was too large while native 3840x2160 was too small.

Does someone need a cheap 4K LG monitor? 🙂

Hmm, sorry to say a new MBP with AMD is not the answer - I have one - not good with High Sierra.

Only solution I know is shutdown / reboot until your fingers bleed or run with Sierra.

I have some older MBP's as well, I just can't see them running High Sierra no matter how much they patch it.

I've learned the hard way each Mac should only be upgraded so much then it must be left as-as.

@brendymullan

I have the same issue on the same machine as your specs. The nvidia 750m has been incredibly laggy with High Sierra to the point of being almost unusable. The UI stutters throughout the day and occasionally freezes for short bouts of time. If I check the console it spouts lots of GPU errors after having freezes. I'm not sure if the hardware is flawed and Apple is struggling to write code that bypasses the problems rather than risk a recall or if Apple and nvidia just have awful drivers for harware that was manufactured fine.

There was a very long thread a year or two ago on this forum from a few of us with the 750m who were having major issues with El Capitan involving embedded Safari videos causing the laptop to completely freeze up and require a hard reset. The console presented GPU errors when reviewed. This was quietly addressed in a later release but High Sierra has reintroduced issues for the 750m, making me wonder if the hardware itself is being bandaged through software and it's a massive ordeal to do so.

I do hope 10.13.4 addresses the issue.

voodooless

If you post your own thread, Readers can help you run analyses, such as an etreceheck report, to look at other reasons why you may be having performance problems.

The consensus of most posters and readers on this thread is that the graphics drivers provided in High Sierra for older Macs, especially with NVIDIA graphics, are not up to the task.

If you prefer to sit in the dark on this now 22-page thread, and suffer for reasons that cannot possibly be the same as most posting here, I do not know what to do to change your mind.

@ wolan,

I'm using an early 2013 15" MacBook Pro with the nVidia GT650m discreet GPU, I'm glad to hear the performance of the discreet GPU is getting better, it is encouraging to say the least.

Over Christmas I took the plunge and went back to 10.12, Sierra, the performance improvement was stunning, maybe by the next update, it'll be an effective upgrade to move to 10.13, High Sierra, rather than a huge jump backwards.

Thanks for posting your results.

I'm on 650m and 10.13.4 and i had to rollback to previous driver since the latest Nvidia driver don't work at all on my machine. Each time switch occurs i have a back screen. When i force to use Nvidia gpu then all goes black and i have to power down my mac. I'm on MBPr early 2013

Sorry to say in my experience Apple don't provide updates on issues, I wish they would.

I was just hoping for a fix with a brand new MBP 15" + Radeon 555, finally it was fixed with 10.13.4. No real mention or details in the release notes or anywhere. I just had to sit in limbo for nearly 6 months. Not a great user experience.

As for older MacBook Pro's, I have a few, I'm not holding my breath. My "solution" for them is to just keep them on older operating systems.

I'm experiencing exactly the same on the MacBook Pro Late 2013 model with GeForce 750M. Doubting I'd I should go back to Sierra although it could be an updated firmware problem...

I'm looking forward to see if high Sierra will be finally usable, I have a 750m and I needed to downgrade back to 10.12

You can try this GitHub - mayankk2308/purge-nvda: A simple script to disable discrete NVIDIA graphics on macOS and enable native AMD eGPU…

There is new beta 17E182a, that was released yesterday.

terrible news ... I want to upgrade, but in the high sierra my macbook was terrible to use ... today I'm using the macOs Sierra after making a painful downgrade ...

Further to my previous post, I've tried to run some GPU-related benchmarks. Looks like the on-board graphics (Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB) is out-performing the GPU (NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB).

Has anyone else tried to run GPU benchmarks or come up with another way of measuring this?

For ref:

Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1358920

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1358929