[Kalki]

Hello to all you courageous out there. Ready to read this ?

Here's my little story of my problem:
One year ago I bought a superb macbook pro 15" (early 2008), unfortunately I quickly noticed some problem with the display.

This is how what it looked like (activate the HQ mode to better see the problem):

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=XmlKNg79nQM
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=s-0dCONX6FY

Description : vertical objects are torn apart when panning horizontally

The symptoms appears right after start up, even when the mac is not warmed up yet. It happens during internet navigation when scrolling horizontally, also during youtube videos (or flash files), and all application using accelerated hardware. Graphic performance is not affected, but the results is ugly and realism takes a hit.

I have tried the following :

Clean install of leopard
Reset PRAM
Apple hardware test
Updated to 10.5.6

The problem is missing on my iMac (ATI Radeon 2400HD) or on Windows PCs : the display is clean.

I posted this issue in different forums and I received two interesting answers :

My problem could be linked to the famous problem of faulty nvidia chips (Geforce 8600m GT)
A developer of Aspyr told me that it could be a serious problem of vertical synchronization, probably du to not optimized drivers

Indeed, it's look like a strong tearing effect. Normally, the "vsync" option in games solves these types of problems, but it consumes a lot of FPS and this option is not available on OS X, or doesn't works with most games (DOOM 3 engine, Quake IV, Colin Mcrae Rally, UT2004 etc...). To have small problem of synchronization with frames is normal, but in my case, the magnitude is abnormally high.

I decided finally to go see a service center and presented my problem to a technician, who agreed to my problem. He thought that I had a faulty video memory and change the mother board. But the problem continued. He then changed the screen and the hard disk without success.

The technician then contacted Apple, and sent them a video of the problem.

After 4 weeks I'v got my mac back and was told that Apple will contact me directly and that the issue will be solved with a future update of OS X.
Apple remained vague about the solution and didn't contact me. I'm for sure not the only one who has this issue but so far I have not read anything about it on the internet. In view of the hight cost of a macbook pro, I would expect a clean display.

Any ideas ? Same problem ? it is "normal" ?


PS: it's not linked to the faulty graphic chip, the graphic card was changed !

[Janichsan]

It's what the guy from Aspyr said. As you noticed correctly, activating Vsync doesn't help very much – also due to what the guy from Aspyr said. You can blame Apple (or whoever produced that Nvidia drivers).