Posted on Saturday, April 24 2010 @ 19:10 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Engadget
reports the automated switchable graphics technology on the new MacBook Pro laptops isn't perfect, and that the system makes a lot of questionable decisions. Here's an example of some complaints:
Lucky for us, a MacRumors forum member noticed that you can figure out which chipset's currently in use by looking at the display list in the Graphics / Displays section of your MacBook's System Profiler, so we did a quick survey -- and it ain't pretty. Photoshop and iMovie understandably put you into discrete territory, but Lightroom 3 beta 2, strangely, does not. Oh, and iPhoto '09 is more than happy to sip upon that sweet NVIDIA nectar. Core Image is probably to blame, but it's still an odd requirement for such a "consumery" app.
But it gets worse. Viewing QuickTime movie trailers on Apple's site in Chrome (a buggy experience, by the way) bumps you up to discrete, but doesn't bump you back down after you're done -- only closing the browser and opening it up again seems to reset it. Firefox and Safari keep you on integrated graphics the whole time -- as does downloading 480p or 720p content to your local QuickTime player -- but pulling up 1080p video locally kicks you into high gear (this sounds closer to the correct behavior, at least).
