2011 Mini with HD3000: Yosemite seems much smoother

[CausticPuppy]

Anybody notice that the GUI animations and scrolling seem smoother with Yosemite on the older HD3000 integrated graphics?

With prior versions of OS X, my 2011 server was having trouble driving the 27" Dell monitor smoothly. Now it seems much improved for browser scrolling, Mission Control, etc. I don't do any gaming on this system but I no longer have complaints about the laggy UI.

Nice that newer OS versions are improving performance on older systems because I'm not getting a 2014 edition....

 

[frank4]

I'd say it is about the same as Mavericks which was pretty good, I've had this 2011 Mini for 3 years and it's never been sluggish, except in loading big programs and that's probably the hard drive. It's never been as snappy as an iMac though - understandable since they have better graphics systems and usually faster HD.

When I first got Yosemite running a few days ago it seemed sluggish and I was worried. My Bluetooth mouse acted a little unresponsive. But after a while, including a reboot, it is back to normal responsiveness and I have no complaints.

Is your 27" monitor 2560x1440 or 1920x1080?

I have 2 1920x1080 monitors connected, one direct HDMI, the other with a miniDisplayPort to HDMI adapter, they are equally responsive. I just tried out AirPlay (over wired network) to a TV hooked to a Apple TV box and the display acts a bit sluggish there, same as with Mavericks.

 

[Albert Siegel]

I just bought a 2011 mini and was worried about the GPU being good enough for dual display. I'm happy to say that with Yosemite, my 1920x1080(main) and 1280x960 monitors work very smooth.

One question though... on your dual setup, which monitor is the one that shows the boot screen? The one plugged in by HDMI or Thunderbolt port?

 

[Kebabselector]

I thought it appeared a bit sluggish on my 2011 mini - maybe it'll settle down after a few reboots - I think Mavericks behaved much the same after that update.

 

[frank4]

I just bought a 2011 mini and was worried about the GPU being good enough for dual display. I'm happy to say that with Yosemite, my 1920x1080(main) and 1280x960 monitors work very smooth.

One question though... on your dual setup, which monitor is the one that shows the boot screen? The one plugged in by HDMI or Thunderbolt port?

It likes to show the boot screen on the monitor connected to Thunderbolt/miniDisplayport connector, even though in System Preferences/Display I set the other monitor (on HDMI connector) to be the primary one.

This means the boot monitor should be turned on at boot time. I just tried a boot with the Thunderbolt connected monitor turned off and the other monitor just showed a blurred colour image and no text. Then I turned on the Thunderbolt connected monitor and the login display then showed on both monitors and they were temporarily in mirror mode.

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About CausticPuppy's original question - after using Yosemite Safari more, the scrolling speed is definitely good, and smooth, although I'm not sure if it is better than Mavericks. I test-switched back to a Magic Mouse which likes to scroll smoother than my normal mouse which has a traditional scroll wheel, and the MM scrolling is smooth.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Yes, I notice this as well. Much smoother scrolling web pages, etc. I have the 2011 mini, with HD3000 graphics.

 

[CausticPuppy]

I'd say it is about the same as Mavericks which was pretty good, I've had this 2011 Mini for 3 years and it's never been sluggish, except in loading big programs and that's probably the hard drive. It's never been as snappy as an iMac though - understandable since they have better graphics systems and usually faster HD.

When I first got Yosemite running a few days ago it seemed sluggish and I was worried. My Bluetooth mouse acted a little unresponsive. But after a while, including a reboot, it is back to normal responsiveness and I have no complaints.

Is your 27" monitor 2560x1440 or 1920x1080?

I have 2 1920x1080 monitors connected, one direct HDMI, the other with a miniDisplayPort to HDMI adapter, they are equally responsive. I just tried out AirPlay (over wired network) to a TV hooked to a Apple TV box and the display acts a bit sluggish there, same as with Mavericks.

I have the dell monitor which is 2560x1440. I swapped the boot drive with an SSD and have my data on the remaining 7200rpm drive (unique to the 2011 server) so the system overall is very snappy, with the exception of GPU related stuff.