The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2012 4:14 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- MacBook Pro
- Laptops
- Notebooks
Achieving Retina
To make the MacBook Pro’s Retina Display a reality Apple had to work with panel vendors to build the panels it wanted at a reasonable cost, as well as deliver the software necessary to support insanely high resolutions. There was another problem Apple faced in making the rMBP a reality: the display pipeline of the GPUs Apple wanted to use didn't officially support scaling to the resolution Apple demanded of them. Let me explain.
All modern GPUs have fixed function scaling hardware that is used to efficiently scale between resolutions. A scaler either in your GPU or in your display panel is what lets you run non-native resolutions at full screen on your LCD (e.g. running 1680 x 1050 on a 1920 x 1080 panel). None of the GPUs used in the Retina Display MacBook Pro officially support fixed-function scaling of 3840 x 2400 or 3360 x 2100 to 2880 x 1800 however. Modern day GPUs are tested against 2560 x 1440 and 2560 x 1600, but not this particular 5MP resolution. Even 4K resolution support isn’t widespread among what’s available today. Rather than wait for updated hardware and/or validation, Apple took matters into its own hands and built its own GPU accelerated scaling routines for these higher resolutions. Fixed function hardware is almost always more efficient from a performance and power standpoint, which is why there’s some additional performance loss in these scaled resolution modes.
What’s even crazier is Apple wasn’t pleased with the difference in baseline filtering quality between the Intel HD 4000 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPUs. As the Retina Display MacBook Pro would have to regularly switch between GPUs, Apple wanted to ensure a consistently good experience regardless of which GPU was active. There are a lot of filtering operations at work when doing all of this resolution scaling, so rather than compromise user experience Apple simply wrote its own default filtering routines. Since you want your upscale and downscale quality to be identical, Apple had to roll its own implementation on both. Apple’s obsessive attention to detail really made it possible to pull all of this off. It’s just insane to think about.
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KoolAidMan1 - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
Please, MBAs have always had good CPUs, and what is happening now with Ivy Bridge is nothing new.I get it, in your world, Ivy Bridge is magically low when it is in an Apple laptop, got it.
Your argument is undermined because you have none, and your name calling only nails down how desperate you are.
Spunjji - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Idiot.KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
16:9 display, who cares?Ohhmaagawd - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
"Rubbish, there are plenty of other companies who are far more innovative than Apple whose machines look basic in comparison - Sony's older Z series had a very high resolution 13.1in 1080p screen, blu-ray writer, quad SSDs in RAID 0, integrated and discrete graphics card and the fastest of te dual core i7's while still smaller and lighter than Apple's 13in machines and that was a couple of years ago. Apple aren't even close to touching most of its technology and probably never will."how is any of that innovative? Quad SSDs/RAID 0 is pretty cool - i'll get them that. But other than that? I looked at these things. They have freaking VGA ports. They look like decent machines with above average designs, but that's about it.
So what's innovative about apple laptops? mag safe. glass trackpads that don't suck (no one else makes a useable trackpad IMO). unibody aluminum case. magnetic latch system is unmatched. event the little prongs on the small power supply are nicer than anything else I've see. ability to sleep and wake up :) (I still haven't used a Windows laptop that consistently can do this). backlit keyboard. thunderbolt connector (first on mac) allows you to realistically use only two connections - thunderbolt for display/data and power. first to have ultra thin laptops (Air). and now the retina display.
OCedHrt - Sunday, June 24, 2012 - link
As others answered, the VGA ports is because many projects use VGA still and the target is upper management and enthusiasts. This comes from Japan's management hierarchy. Except Sony to refresh with a dongle of some kind in the future now that Apple doesn't have an exclusive on thunderbolt.Ohhmaagawd - Sunday, June 24, 2012 - link
Thunderbolt was never mac exclusive: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380954,00.as...And any company could have used display port as apple did previously.
Answer to the projector prob is a dongle (that's what I do). Or buy a decent projector. Or better yet - just get an HDTV.
Spunjji - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Oh sure, buy a decent projector for every client you're visiting on your business trips. Problem solved!Dumbass.
vegemeister - Monday, July 2, 2012 - link
>They have freaking VGA ports.Er, how is this a problem?
kmmatney - Sunday, June 24, 2012 - link
Too bad Sony doesn't have the balls to make a 16:10 display.ramb0 - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
yeah sure. The Finger Swipe security feature is probably the best innovation outside of Apple. I mean, that feature totally took off. It's amazing Apple hasn't caught on yet. I guess they're too busy innovating features that people actually give a fuck about. And by "people" i'm talking about the majority, not little nit pick wankers like you.