MacOS Scaling & Performance Hit?

[Cubical Slave]

For background, my wife is getting into video editing on her 2017 MacBook Pro, and I'm shopping for a monitor for her.  I was leaning towards a 27" 4K Asus ProArt monitor, but then came across the video below.  Seems like this guy bought the same one, but then ran into issues with the performance hit from MacOS scaling.  I'm mostly a Windows guy, so I'm not up on what I should watch out for in the Mac world.

 

My questions for the hive mind:

• Is this guy correct?  Is this something, I should worry about?
• If he is correct, should I only consider either 5K or 1440P at 27"?

 

Thanks for reading.  Let me know what you think.

 

 

[Senzelian]

Whether this is true or not I won't debate, but it should be mentioned that the screen size and pixels per inch do not influence the performance.

 

What will influence the performance is the scaling to a different resolution. How MacOS handles this, I don't know, but a 2017 Macbook Pro with its aging CPU and GPU might be more prone to issues than a modern macbook.

[Roswell]

His video is so convoluted... Please ignore it.

 

Basically, macOS has two scaling options to prevent super tiny UI elements:

 

1. supersampling
2. UI scaling

macOS will use supersampling in cases where you don't have a clean 1:4 ratio from desired scale (say you want UI to be at a 1080p scale on a 1440p monitor) and it will use basic UI scaling when you do have a clean 1:4 ratio (say you want 1440p scaling on a 2880p (5k) display).

 

Supersampling is resource intensive, just like in gaming. UI scaling is virtually free resource wise. If you end up using one of those non 1:4 ratio scaling options, your system is internally running a much higher resolution than normal to get to your desired scale. That means any acceleration needed for stuff like 3D elements will tax your GPU much more than it would at native resolution.

 

Why can't Apple just use UI scaling in all scenarios? Some app developers, just like in Windows, refuse to implement the UI standards that Apple lays out in documentation. Their app's UI elements would end up looking super tiny or way too big. Why isn't this an issue when you're on a 1:4 resolution? Because macOS will trick the non conforming app into thinking it's running on a lower resolution display, which is only possible when you're on a monitor that would play nice with 1:4 scaling, otherwise said app would look blurry after it's fooled to run at another resolution.

 

In closing... just buy a 1440p or 5k monitor if you want something in the 27+ range. 4K if you're at 24 inches or below. 1080p (and run it native) if you're at 20 inches or under.

 

 

[saintlouisbagels]

5 hours ago, Roswell said:

In closing... just buy a 1440p or 5k monitor if you want something in the 27+ range. 4K if you're at 24 inches or below. 1080p (and run it native) if you're at 20 inches or under.

6 hours ago, Cubical Slave said:

For background, my wife is getting into video editing on her 2017 MacBook Pro, and I'm shopping for a monitor for her.  I was leaning towards a 27" 4K Asus ProArt monitor, but then came across the video below.  Seems like this guy bought the same one, but then ran into issues with the performance hit from MacOS scaling.

 

I'm running a MacBook 16" M1 Pro right now, but I don't have any personal experience with intensive programs. But I will add that I'm using a 32" 4K monitor at home and a 27" 4K monitor at work. It looks okay, but sometimes if I'm paying close attention, I can tell that text and typical UI elements are not as crisp as I would like due to the weird scaling. Since I already dropped cash for a 32" 4K, I'm not going to just drop more money for a proper 5k monitor. Maybe I'll reconsider when there's something better between LG's olddd 5K UltraFine and the new overpriced Studio Display, sigh.

[ahmadfiroz]

On 7/5/2022 at 12:54 PM, saint_louis_bagels said:

 

I'm running a MacBook 16" M1 Pro right now, but I don't have any personal experience with intensive programs. But I will add that I'm using a 32" 4K monitor at home and a 27" 4K monitor at work. It looks okay, but sometimes if I'm paying close attention, I can tell that text and typical UI elements are not as crisp as I would like due to the weird scaling. Since I already dropped cash for a 32" 4K, I'm not going to just drop more money for a proper 5k monitor. Maybe I'll reconsider when there's something better between LG's olddd 5K UltraFine and the new overpriced Studio Display, sigh.

I am running a 32 inch + m1 pro, SInce m1 pro has beefy gpu. the calculation seems negligible. I have a fairly heavy workload. Though I don't do 3D.