Anyone else noticed stuttery scrolling using MacOS Sierra? I'm using Magic Trackpad and when scrolling in Finder or Safari it's visible that smooth 60fps isn't present, there is microstutter and small pauses.
I know everyone don't notice small changes in framerate but hated this in iOS8 and 9, until iOS 10 came and fixed scrolling.
From http://www.anandtech.com/show/10611/the-ios-10-review/6
"Scrolling Performance
Something iOS has typically been known for is smooth scrolling performance. Apple's own standard is that views should animate at 60fps, which makes sense given the fact that iOS devices all use 60hz displays. There was a time where you really could expect near-constant 60fps animations throughout the system, barring really poorly designed applications. However, in recent years with increasing resolutions, greater pressure on the hardware, and more advanced visual effects, the smoothness of iOS has definitely degraded. Much of this has to do with the greater complexity of modern UIs, particularly ones that make heavy use of translucent views with blur.
In iOS 10 Apple has recognized that problems in their own APIs have played a part in dropping scrolling performance on iOS. This again goes back to the fact that views have become more complex on iOS in recent years. In the past, Apple's TableView and CollectionView APIs have prepared cells for rendering right before they are about to be displayed on the screen, and are removed right when they exit the screen. This doesn't pose a problem for something basic like a table cell with a couple of labels, but with complicated cells that use translucency, load high res images, and even have animated subviews, this method of rendering simply doesn't cut it. You can even have cases with CollectionViews like the iOS Photos app where you have to bring on many cells at the same time, all of which need to be set up individually. It's important to remember that there's only a ~16ms interval between frames, and the work to set up the UI for the next frame has to be completed in an even smaller period of time than that to manage a constant frame rate of 60fps.
To improving scroll performance Apple has changed the cell lifecycle in CollectionView and TableView APIs. As I mentioned before, the previous API essentially did everything relating to cell creation right before it was to be displayed on the screen, and cell removal right after it exited the screen. This caused two key issues. The first is that in the case of a CollectionView with many columns, every cell is rendered at once at that moment. This is a big cause of frame drops, as the hardware simply cannot render all the cells in time for the next frame. The second issue was the situation where a cell would exit one side of the screen and quickly be brought back on. This situation occurs frequently when a user accidentally scrolls past the item they were looking for in a list. In this case, the cell would have to be recreated from scratch despite having been on the screen only a moment before.
The iOS 10 APIs now spread out the work done during the lifecycle of a cell. Cells are now setup well before they need to be rendered, and the display process is spread out so a row of many cells doesn't need to be rendered at the exact same time right before they need to be shown on the screen. Cells are also kept for longer after they exit the screen, which means if the user quickly scrolls back the cell display method can simply be called again rather than having to get a new cell from the reuse queue, set it up, and draw it.
It honestly surprises me that Apple didn't make these changes sooner, because the impact on performance is dramatic. The iPhone 5s on iOS 10 has better scrolling performance than it ever has in the previous three years. This sort of thing is difficult to profile well even with XCode and Instruments, but I think it'll be immediately obvious to users that performance is improved, especially for users of older iOS devices that haven't had such a good time after being updated to iOS 8 and iOS 9."
Do you think we'll get similar update to MacOS to get smooth scrolling? Scrolling performance isn't on par currently compared to iOS 10.
I know everyone don't notice small changes in framerate but hated this in iOS8 and 9, until iOS 10 came and fixed scrolling.
From http://www.anandtech.com/show/10611/the-ios-10-review/6
"Scrolling Performance
Something iOS has typically been known for is smooth scrolling performance. Apple's own standard is that views should animate at 60fps, which makes sense given the fact that iOS devices all use 60hz displays. There was a time where you really could expect near-constant 60fps animations throughout the system, barring really poorly designed applications. However, in recent years with increasing resolutions, greater pressure on the hardware, and more advanced visual effects, the smoothness of iOS has definitely degraded. Much of this has to do with the greater complexity of modern UIs, particularly ones that make heavy use of translucent views with blur.
In iOS 10 Apple has recognized that problems in their own APIs have played a part in dropping scrolling performance on iOS. This again goes back to the fact that views have become more complex on iOS in recent years. In the past, Apple's TableView and CollectionView APIs have prepared cells for rendering right before they are about to be displayed on the screen, and are removed right when they exit the screen. This doesn't pose a problem for something basic like a table cell with a couple of labels, but with complicated cells that use translucency, load high res images, and even have animated subviews, this method of rendering simply doesn't cut it. You can even have cases with CollectionViews like the iOS Photos app where you have to bring on many cells at the same time, all of which need to be set up individually. It's important to remember that there's only a ~16ms interval between frames, and the work to set up the UI for the next frame has to be completed in an even smaller period of time than that to manage a constant frame rate of 60fps.
To improving scroll performance Apple has changed the cell lifecycle in CollectionView and TableView APIs. As I mentioned before, the previous API essentially did everything relating to cell creation right before it was to be displayed on the screen, and cell removal right after it exited the screen. This caused two key issues. The first is that in the case of a CollectionView with many columns, every cell is rendered at once at that moment. This is a big cause of frame drops, as the hardware simply cannot render all the cells in time for the next frame. The second issue was the situation where a cell would exit one side of the screen and quickly be brought back on. This situation occurs frequently when a user accidentally scrolls past the item they were looking for in a list. In this case, the cell would have to be recreated from scratch despite having been on the screen only a moment before.
The iOS 10 APIs now spread out the work done during the lifecycle of a cell. Cells are now setup well before they need to be rendered, and the display process is spread out so a row of many cells doesn't need to be rendered at the exact same time right before they need to be shown on the screen. Cells are also kept for longer after they exit the screen, which means if the user quickly scrolls back the cell display method can simply be called again rather than having to get a new cell from the reuse queue, set it up, and draw it.
It honestly surprises me that Apple didn't make these changes sooner, because the impact on performance is dramatic. The iPhone 5s on iOS 10 has better scrolling performance than it ever has in the previous three years. This sort of thing is difficult to profile well even with XCode and Instruments, but I think it'll be immediately obvious to users that performance is improved, especially for users of older iOS devices that haven't had such a good time after being updated to iOS 8 and iOS 9."
Do you think we'll get similar update to MacOS to get smooth scrolling? Scrolling performance isn't on par currently compared to iOS 10.
