I guess never buy high PPI laptop with Intel graphics.

[Thinker_145]

So I bought a Dell 4K laptop for my dad with Skylake i7 CPU, 8GB ram and SSD. You would think it would perform great in day to day tasks? Well not really. Chrome is a complete disaster and the general animations are just not as smooth as I'll expect.

But if I switch to 1080p everything becomes better. This thing lags even with Facebook board games which IS something I expect a computer meant for casual users to accomplish.

I just don't understand this bloody crazy of PPI without having the proper horsepower to drive it. Intel graphics are clearly underpowered for even general 4K usage as far as I am concerned. And ofcourse the screen looks much worse at 1080p than what a real 1080p screen would.

To be fair Microsoft Edge really does save the day as I have asked my dad to start using that and he isn't someone who will be too bothered by that.

 

[Bacon1]

Thats sad, was it using GPU for rendering chrome or trying to do it with CPU? Glad to hear that Edge made it better but makes me wonder if chrome wasn't messed up somehow. Make sure to install ublock origin https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/app/9nblggh444l4

 

[Bouowmx]

Surely 403 GFLOPS can handle 4K 2D.

Settings, Advanced, Use hardware acceleration when available
chrome://gpu
chrome://flags/#enable-gpu-rasterization

 

[tential]

I had the model before the full 4K screens and I never had an issue.

I would fresh install and try again yourself before another user has had access to the machine. If you're saying you were the first touch, then... SAD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm having no trouble with 4K UHD desktop resolution, with a G4600 Kaby Lake dual-core w/HT, and HD630 graphics.

Not sure how that compares to your laptop chip. Maybe it needs better cooling, so that the GPU can turbo more often?

Edit: With Waterfox.

 

[pj-]

I have a 2048x1536 res tablet with the lowest end cherry trail SoC that chokes with chrome but is perfectly fine with edge.

I think its more of a problem with chrome than anything else

Edit: Also 1080p on a 4k screen should look fine unless the "4k" screen isn't actually 4k. Some quick googling shows that dell has a 3200x1800 screen that they call 4k.

 

[daxzy]

This is a problem with Chrome.

Google has absolutely zero incentive to optimize Chrome on Windows, as they want you to use Chromebooks and for some magical reason, everything runs silky smooth. Depending on Chromium version, I've also had issues with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as well.

 

[misuspita]

This is a problem with Chrome.

Google has absolutely zero incentive to optimize Chrome on Windows, as they want you to use Chromebooks and for some magical reason, everything runs silky smooth. Depending on Chromium version, I've also had issues with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as well.

That sounds silly. Why would they make a 4k browser experience look bad? I do have a desktop and use Chrome on a 1080 monitor, but if I would be interested in buying a new 4k monitor, it would not make me switch to a chrome book, just lose me as a browser client. So I don't see the point in not optimizing for higher resolutions, as they become more popular.

 

[MrTeal]

That sounds silly. Why would they make a 4k browser experience look bad? I do have a desktop and use Chrome on a 1080 monitor, but if I would be interested in buying a new 4k monitor, it would not make me switch to a chrome book, just lose me as a browser client. So I don't see the point in not optimizing for higher resolutions, as they become more popular.

I'd agree there. I don't imagine there's a whole lot of overlap in the Chromebook and 4k Venn diagram. In fact, if you look at Newegg they have 0 4k Chromebooks and 75% of the models listed are 1366x768. I could see pushing a Chromebox connected to a 4k TV as an HTPC setup, but gimping 4k on Windows to push people to Chromebooks makes no sense.

 

[Mondozei]

Google has absolutely zero incentive to optimize Chrome on Windows, as they want you to use Chromebooks and for some magical reason, everything runs silky smooth. Depending on Chromium version, I've also had issues with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as well.

Not buying it. Google has an incentive for as many people as possible to use Chrome so they can gather data about them. Chrome OS is a niche area.

It might be a problem with Chrome, but then it's incompetence, not malice.

 

[Phynaz]

This is a problem with Chrome.

Google has absolutely zero incentive to optimize Chrome on Windows, as they want you to use Chromebooks and for some magical reason, everything runs silky smooth. Depending on Chromium version, I've also had issues with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as well.

You know the vast majority of Chrome is open source, right?

 

[daxzy]

I'd agree there. I don't imagine there's a whole lot of overlap in the Chromebook and 4k Venn diagram. In fact, if you look at Newegg they have 0 4k Chromebooks and 75% of the models listed are 1366x768. I could see pushing a Chromebox connected to a 4k TV as an HTPC setup, but gimping 4k on Windows to push people to Chromebooks makes no sense.

Chrome-cast is built for UHD TV's. There are also several QHD+ Chromebooks available.

It might be a problem with Chrome, but then it's incompetence, not malice.

Malice and incompetence are often the two motives that go side by side, as they are impossible to differentiate. Obviously you speculate on Google's incompetence. From my experience (I'm involved on data-center open source projects, and Google pops up sometimes), I speculate its malice. I haven't met a Google PM/PTL THAT grossly incompetent.

You know the vast majority of Chrome is open source, right?

Ah yes, because it pulls the majority of the code from an open-source project, it is somehow vindicated? Who do you think maintains the Chromium project?

 

[tamz_msc]

How's Chrome's font rendering on 4K? Last time I checked it made my eyes bleed at 1440p on Linux. Firefox still has the best font rendering for me, especially on Linux.

 

[poofyhairguy]

This is exactly why I refused to recommend Intel-GPU Retina Macbook until very recently. The way those first models stuttered were a disgrace.

 

[tential]

I'm using Chrome in 4K right now? I don't see any issues.

 

[sm625]

8GB ram

That 8GB wouldnt happen to be single channel, would it? If so, are you able to add another 8GB and make it run with double the bandwidth? It might help.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I just bought an XPS 15 (9650 model, 4K display, 1050 + IGP). Even when completely disabling the 1050 and using the IGP, there's no issues at all.

That being said, Chrome continues to be a hot mess on resource usage. Edge is far superior when it comes to resource usage.

 

[Thinker_145]

Play Facebook games at Fullscreen and see what happens. I even installed Facebook Gameroom to eliminate browser overhead but that heavily lags as well. Now you may say it's "games" so what was I thinking but I would expect these sort of games to play fine at the default settings of a laptop.

I am not saying the general usage is terrible at 4K but it's just not what I'll expect. As far as Chrome is concerned I think the dual core i7 is just not good enough for it.

It really sucks how MS can't make a 4K display look good at 1080p when Apple can.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Play Facebook games at Fullscreen and see what happens. I even installed Facebook Gameroom to eliminate browser overhead but that heavily lags as well. Now you may say it's "games" so what was I thinking but I would expect these sort of games to play fine at the default settings of a laptop.

I am not saying the general usage is terrible at 4K but it's just not what I'll expect. As far as Chrome is concerned I think the dual core i7 is just not good enough for it.

It really sucks how MS can't make a 4K display look good at 1080p when Apple can.

They absolutely can. Spend all your time in the Windows Store apps and you'll see what Microsoft can do when it makes everyone else play in the walled garden like Apple does. Chrome being poorly optimized for HiDPI on Windows isn't just some random post. People are telling you because it fact. Even Anandtech wrote about this.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7939/scaling-windows-the-dpi-arms-race/3

And years later? These problems still come up.

https://support.google.com/chrome/forum/AAAAP1KN0B0Isd6srkA9_U/?hl=en

Microsoft has enough problem with its own legacy apps, and then even well known third party devs come along and make it even worse, *because they can*. Looking at you VLC.

OS X doesn't have the same issues that Windows has in supporting a huge array of legacy apps with Wild West standardization. To consider them equivalent is to be painfully ignorant of the two operating system's pasts.

Microsoft offers a suite of standards for app developers to get on board with and modernize in HIDPI. But app companies won't until it hurts them in the pocket book.

And for what its worth. The person who got the 9650 pretty much just plays wild tangent (ugh) games with it. Again, no issues.

And again, a better experience if you use a browser that actually tries to be a good browser on Windows, and I say that as an avid Chrome user.