Does El Capitan fix GUI/WindowsServer lag, freezes and memory issues?

[Edgar Spayce]

I'm not a stupid blind customer, so I've known for a long time that Apple products are becoming crap (especially since I've been using them for 15 years and can tell the evolution).

But when I recently broke my Macbook Air screen (which of course there's not point in fixing given the replacement price), I just went ahead and bought an a new rMBP 13" from 2015...

...and I was both negatively surprised and also not surprised that a brand new expensive computer worked very bad and was slower than my old Macbook Air! It's notable in the finder which is constantly lagging and having freezes, in Outlook and other contextual options that are slow to fetch informations and propositions, or overall tasks and performances of which WindowServer takes a lot of CPU.

I'm about to make my whole company change system (which has been suggested many times by other colleagues) after because the abusive greed and scam Apple has become is off-the-hook, but I'm giving El Capitan a chance...
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So my question is, from the many betas that are already out: does El Capitan fixes these performances, CPU, memory and graphic issues? Or is it the same, or in fact new, pre-planned obsolescence BS?

 

[PurrBall]

It's much faster, no doubt. I would try it out if I were you.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

The GUI is faster but the technology used by Finder remains largely unchanged. Yes, it's still slow and unresponsive at certain operations. The whole Finder and associated plugins would need to be rewritten to become properly modernised for handling large files and heavy network traffic.

 

[nontroppo]

The whole Finder and associated plugins would need to be rewritten to become properly modernised for handling large files and heavy network traffic.

I'm certainly no fan of Finder (I use Forklift for all file management), but this smack of a biased statement. Do you have hard numbers for this? What exactly are "associated plugins", what does "properly modernised" mean?

 

[Shirasaki]

The GUI is faster but the technology used by Finder remains largely unchanged. Yes, it's still slow and unresponsive at certain operations. The whole Finder and associated plugins would need to be rewritten to become properly modernised for handling large files and heavy network traffic.

One thing I heavily criticise is super slow search in finder. This search is way slower than under Windows, even with index completed. On the contrary, spotlight search is super fast.

And deleting a large number of files in finder would literally take forever. I have a folder with over 10000 small files need to be deleted regularly. When under Windows, it is just only a matter of time, and it's often really fast. In finder, determine files need to be deleted would take quite a long time, and deleting process would take quite a long time too. I don't even enable secure delete.

El Capitan is about to come. When it comes, I will do a fresh install, and manually restore backup without using time machine. Let me see if things could go better.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

I'm certainly no fan of Finder (I use Forklift for all file management), but this smack of a biased statement. Do you have hard numbers for this? What exactly are "associated plugins", what does "properly modernised" mean?

Oh yes I posted a video and some hard numbers yesterday on the El Cap board. Unfortunately Dropbox didn't like the traffic. But everyone who saw the video were happy to admit the Finder is old, hasn't been updated for modern times, and Apple is slacking.

 

[patternjake]

It's much faster than Yosemite, by about 1.5x, but ONLY with Metal support. (My Mid 2012 Retina MacBook Pro supports it)

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Netkas has posted tests in his site that indicated Metal isn't being used to accelerate the GUI on the betas, although it is being used for weaker Intel graphics. I don't know if this has changed in the GM.

 

[patternjake]

Netkas has posted tests in his site that indicated Metal isn't being used to accelerate the GUI on the betas, although it is being used for weaker Intel graphics. I don't know if this has changed in the GM.

It must be using Metal because the OS is definitely faster at displaying the UI elements on screen.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

It must be using Metal because the OS is definitely faster at displaying the UI elements on screen.

You can speed up OpenGL based rendering if it wasn't performing well before.

Here's the test

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,11144.msg30972.html

 

[Blue Sun]

It must be using Metal because the OS is definitely faster at displaying the UI elements on screen.

The Core Graphics library files have been optimised, I believe. My old mid-2010 15" MBP with the Intel HD graphics (not compatible with Metal) pushes the UI around with ease now, no stuttering whatsoever (with reduced transparency enabled). This is in stark contrast to Yosemite. Mission Control for instance, which was almost unusable, is now fast and fluid. So Metal isn't necessary for improved performance on old Intel chips, the optimised library files alone make a huge difference.

 

[dandl]

With my rMBP mid 12 I can now enable the transparencies without any lag. It was impossible with Yosemite. I think the main reason is that they increased the VRAM to 1536 mb for the intel card.

 

[patternjake]

With my rMBP mid 12 I can now enable the transparencies without any lag. It was impossible with Yosemite. I think the main reason is that they increased the VRAM to 1536 mb for the intel card.

Same here, my intel chip is now using 1536mb instead of just 1024, which is going to make some difference.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

Does anyone know if El Capitan fixes the Safari freezes on multiple tabs? Luckily pin tabs are coming so that should help but once in a while I have around 10 tabs and Safari sometimes becomes unresponsive (I usually later out them as a bookmark anyway).

 

[kwokaaron]

With my rMBP mid 12 I can now enable the transparencies without any lag. It was impossible with Yosemite. I think the main reason is that they increased the VRAM to 1536 mb for the intel card.

Same here, my intel chip is now using 1536mb instead of just 1024, which is going to make some difference.

VRAM has nothing to do with the lag in Yosemite. In nearly all situations (apart from gaming etc.) the amount of VRAM actually being used is much less than the max amount of VRAM possible (which is what is shown). Not that it isn't good that Apple has increased its allocation amount. Code optimization is much more likely to do with the performance improvements.

 

[patternjake]

VRAM has nothing to do with the lag in Yosemite. In nearly all situations (apart from gaming etc.) the amount of VRAM actually being used is much less than the max amount of VRAM possible (which is what is shown). Not that it isn't good that Apple has increased its allocation amount. Code optimization is much more likely to do with the performance improvements.

I'm going to say the integration of Metal into the OpenGL components in OS X are what are playing here, but many here would probably burn me for that statement, but it makes sense. You don't create a new API that no one would use, you integrate it into the API that everyone uses, with complete compatibility. Didn't Apple even state that Quartz, CoreAnimation and CoreImage are using Metal? And what does Metal depend on? OpenGL. Fact.

 

[dandl]

VRAM has nothing to do with the lag in Yosemite. In nearly all situations (apart from gaming etc.) the amount of VRAM actually being used is much less than the max amount of VRAM possible (which is what is shown). Not that it isn't good that Apple has increased its allocation amount. Code optimization is much more likely to do with the performance improvements.

I wrote it because it happened the same when they increased it in Mavericks up to 1024mb. All the lags vanished. And my brother's newer rMBP which already had a VRAM of 1536mb in Yosemite didn't show any lag, as instead mine did. It might be a coincidence though, I'm not a software engineer.

 

[leman]

And what does Metal depend on? OpenGL. Fact.

It doesn't depend on OpenGL. These are two different APIs.

 

[Merode]

I'm going to say the integration of Metal into the OpenGL components in OS X are what are playing here, but many here would probably burn me for that statement, but it makes sense. You don't create a new API that no one would use, you integrate it into the API that everyone uses, with complete compatibility. Didn't Apple even state that Quartz, CoreAnimation and CoreImage are using Metal? And what does Metal depend on? OpenGL. Fact.

The whole reason Metal is suppoused to be fast is because it is not connected to OpenGL in any way.

 

[Samimac]

My macbook pro's system freezes was because of overheating. My wife had the same problem. Problem is that after el capitan the apples automatic fan control in os x does not work anymore. It doesn't keep the macbook pro's cool enough and it overheats and freezes after el cap. I needed to instal macs fan control app to keep my macbook pro little cooler and I haven't had any freezes in one week now. And before you ask I didn't have any fan controller software installed before.