One of the first people to try Windows 10 on the new Retina MacBook says that it actually runs more smoothly than OS X. The comment was made by Computer Science major Alex King, who tried upgrading his Boot Camp installation of Windows 8.1 to the preview of Windows 10.
If you’re fortunate enough to have taken delivery of your own Retina MacBook and want to try the experiment for yourself, be prepared for a few glitches along the way. King said that not all of the Boot Camp drivers automatically installed, there’s no Bluetooth support and some Windows apps (like Steam) look blurry because they don’t support the full resolution of the Retina display. But overall, the experience sounds like a good one.Here’s the real kicker: it’s fast. It’s smooth. It renders at 60FPS unless you have a lot going on. It’s unequivocally better than performance on OS X, further leading me to believe that Apple really needs to overhaul how animations are done. Even when I turn Transparency off in OS X, Mission Control isn’t completely smooth. Here, even after some Aero Glass transparency has been added in, everything is smooth. It’s remarkable, and it makes me believe in the 12-inch MacBook more than ever before.
If you’re still not sure whether you’re the target market for the new lower-powered, ultra-portable machine, you can check out our own in-depth review and one-month-in video of just what it can and can’t do.
12-inch MacBook month review: A great new Mac if you manage your expectations (Video)
Review: Can you actually use the new 12-inch MacBook for work?
3rd party addons can be uninstalled. Applications can be removed… but the registry is rarely cleaned up properly upon application removal, and even then the size of the database doesn’t tend to shrink. When tons and tons of keys are added to the registry (eg, when Office is installed) Windows gets noticeably more sluggish, because the registry becomes slower to traverse for *everything* installed.
Even when Office isn’t actually running, the registry has still ballooned as a result of its installation, and therefore any program asking windows for its own settings has to wait just a little bit longer.
For the most part, if you terminate extra processes in OSX, performance will improve, but in windows you have to make the registry smaller, and the only practical way of doing that is a fresh installation.
I concede that it’s not all 100% hugs and roses â€" like the battery, even a brand new one, can’t keep the system running for more than 45 minutes before dying. Although I can text from iMessage I don’t have AirDrop or Handoff. Otherwise my 17″ MBP runs beautifully.
I keep my expectations in check but even with the handful of snags I face a couple times per month I still prefer OS X over ANY iteration of Windows.
Exposé, Spaces, Launch Pad, Spotlight, the Dock, the super-smooth two-finger scrolling, navigation and pinch-to-zoom action of Safari â€" also Safari’s tabs view â€" the built-in Dictionary, tabs in Finder, the elegance of the icons, consistent aesthetics across all native apps, the translucency; I could go on and on about how many features OS X has that even Windows 10 doesn’t have that just make OS X a better operating system. Period.
I’m not the least bit impressed with Windows 10, more specifically the color palette that’s garish and loud as well as the butt-ugly icons for both “modern apps†and traditional apps. And those folder icons…yuck!!!
you think we haven’t done fresh installs ? :D :D
AND even IF fresh install would make things OKAY ……you think it’s okay for general population like working people who care ’bout different stuff to do this every time they upgrade their OS X?
You gotta be shittin’ me mate, it’s supposed to work flawlessly after upgrading directly from Mac App Store, no more work should be needed. period.
Whatever you’re doing to your Windows installs, do something different.
Much windows software is coded with little respect for the system. The developer does whatever the hell they want. The installer explodes files all over the system, bloats the registry. The registry grows over time and pretty much any application can spew all over it. It’s an exceptionally different design from OS X having an app bundle in /Applications, a human readable plist preference file in ~/Library/Preferences and any other data require located in ~/Library/Application Support/App Name.
I support both platforms and troubleshoot for many users, the holes that otherwise intelligent people dig themselves into whilst using Microsoft Windows simply boggle the mind.
Or simple upgrades: Buy a new computer. On Mac, keep your programs and settings and files. On windows, keep your files, reload all your software.
Need to wipe for a fresh start? When you recover a windows machine it goes back to the day you bought it. No updates. Years later it might take a day or two to fully update a Windows 7 machine to the current level. Internet recovery on a Mac? Comes back to the current version of the OS with all updates done.
Microsoft need to fix some underlying foundation issues before I would use a windows machine as my primary computer again.
I am the poop related spelling policeman
If you have OS X and it’s running sluggish, maybe you need to clean up a bunch of cached files. I ran Clean My Mac 3 and it did wonders and it sped things up.
That being said, I wish Apple would quit focusing on globbing on more features onto OS X and put some of that engineering talent on two things: 1) Known bugs that need to get fixed, and 2) Fine tuning and speed ups.
Now, if I do something wrong, you let me know cuz I’m sick of it. I never thought to really enjoy going back to work on windows. But I really enjoy the office functionality and the system reliability (say finder vs. win explorer, etc..)
What resolution was he running at? If he picked 1440×900 (obvious choice, only selectable resolution higher than the paltry 1366×768 my 11″ has) then that poor integrated GPU is rendering at 2880×1800, rescaling down to 2304×1440. That HAS to have a performance hit.
Install something like SwitchResX and run natively at 2304×1440: less work for GPU, more space. This is how windows will be running anyway.
I’m sure OS XI will be better optimised for this beastie. (And no, it won’t be called that)
I badly want this machine. It’s 100% silent. Like my SSD upgraded G4 Cube. It feels fast and snappy. Unfortunately by day job requires near constant connection of thunderbolt multi drive enclosure, which is entirely impossible even with adapters. Doh.