Macbook Pro - does lightroom benefit from the dedicated graphics card?

markrichardson

markrichardson

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As I mentioned in another thread I've just bought a Macbook Pro. It has two graphics cards which I can switch between by deciding to run in power saving mode or best performance mode.

Clearly I could invest some time to test both modes but I suspect that a good few on here will have been through this already.

So, two questions:
  1. Does the power mode only change the graphics card used, or the effectiveness of other components too? In windows the power profiles can be customised so you can see exactly what's going on but I can't see such options in OSX.
  2. How significant would the increased performance in Lightroom? Is it worth the extra heat and shorter battery life if I'm away from a power supply?
 
I use a MBP and to be honest there isn't much difference when using Lightroom between the two modes. From my understanding the main advantage is with graphic intensive programmes such as games etc.. Mine is usually set to "Better battery life".

The most significant visual difference is that the screen brightness automatically dims when you go onto battery ( It happens in both modes). This is particularly annoying when you have the screen calibrated. But then it no problem to use the brightness controls to bring it back to the correct position. ( in my case 5 points below max).

Personally I prefer the longer battery life as I can see no real difference in image quality or overall processing speed .

You can customise the settings such as Computer sleep and display sleep , and other parameters is you go to System Prefs and Energy Saver ( it's on the "Hardware" section)
 
I wouldn't have thought there would be a difference. A photo is a Flat 2D image, so does not take a lot of processing power to display it.

Any image editing/processing would be handled by the main processor not the graphics processor.
 
Chappers said:
The most significant visual difference is that the screen brightness automatically dims when you go onto battery ( It happens in both modes). This is particularly annoying when you have the screen calibrated. But then it no problem to use the brightness controls to bring it back to the correct position. ( in my case 5 points below max).
Click to expand...

Theres a check box you need to un tick in the Energy Savers Prefs, this will stop the screen from dimming.
 
Thanks guys!

So the consensus is that better battery life mode mostly affects the graphics card and not general processing speed. I was concerned it might underclock the processor etc.
 
Sorry forgot to mention, don't think it does affect Lightroom but CS4 & 5 take advantage on the graphics card. I pretty much always have it set to higher performance anyway as i'm usually running of the mains rather than battery.
 
I doubt there is much difference between the two power modes.

To see if there is any difference in CPU speed between the modes you could add a widget such as Istat Pro

I would prefer to keep the Macbook in the powersaving mode when using the battery.
 
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