Stories about users experiencing poorer-than-expected battery life in the new Pros-particularly in the Touch Bar models, which have smaller batteries and more power-hungry components than the non-Touch Bar model-have gotten some traction since the laptops were released.
Alerts for the related Optimized Storage feature, which deletes local files that are safely backed up to iCloud when you’re running low on local disk space, have also been tweaked.įurther Reading Review: Touch Bar MacBook Pros give an expensive glimpse at the Mac’s future In many cases, it was hard to know what exactly the feature was doing to your stuff, especially when enabling it on multiple Macs with existing files and folders on their desktops and in their Documents folders. It could sometimes take a try or two to make the feature work, but this inconsistency should be minimized or eliminated post-update.Īpple also tells us it has tweaked the setup and notifications for the iCloud Desktop and Documents feature, something we complained about a bit in our Sierra review. For those 2013-and-later models that support unlocking via the Apple Watch, setting up and using the feature has been made more reliable. Let’s cover the general improvements first.
#GFXCARDSTATUS EL CAPITAN UPDATE#
Like yesterday’s iOS 10.2 update, 10.12.2 includes support for new and redesigned emoji, but unlike the iOS update it focuses almost entirely on fixes and under-the-hood improvements instead of big, user-visible features. but it's like it can't see the nVidia hardware if the guest OS isn't booted with it running.Further Reading macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica reviewĪpple has released the final version of the macOS 10.12.2 update to the public today, the second major update to macOS Sierra since its September launch. So the VM can handle the actual switching events between graphics hardware just fine.
switching back and forth between nVidia and Intel gives repeatable expected results. it is able to make use of the hardware switch. under this scenario (booted with nVidia), the VM behaves how I would expect. switching to Intel graphics makes performance drop (framerates around 30~40). Gfxcardstatus V2.0.1However, if I boot the XP VM with nVidia graphics, I get excellent performance under nVidia hardware (game framerate is >100). within that same boot of the VM, if I switch my graphics hardware through the host OS (with gfxCardStatus) to nVidia, I still see poor results. I'm not sure if this is a problem with gfxCardStatus v1.8.1 (a small OS X program used to switch between graphics hardwares) or Virtualbox necessarily, but when I boot the VM using Intel graphics, and load up an old game inside WinXP, I get very poor frame rates.
In case you're unfamiliar, Apple made these laptops with ability to switch between integrated Intel graphics or the onboard nVidia graphics hardware. depending on whether I boot the VM using Intel graphics, or nVidia graphics (using a 2010 MBP).
#GFXCARDSTATUS EL CAPITAN MAC OS#
And it’s sort of fun to watch OS X’s menubar battery indicator increase its charge and time estimates when my MacBook Pro settles into integrated graphics.I am seeing different performance results when running a WinXP SP3 VM inside a Mac OS 10.6.5 host. The battery gains from using only integrated graphics depend on which applications you use, but I estimate I get about 20 percent longer battery life on my MacBook Pro by closing dependent apps when working off battery power.