2014 Retina Macbook Pro 15 (GT 750m) Overclock

[dev-br]

Hello.

I tried searching everywhere for months before starting this topic.

I purchased this Macbook because I like apple's hardware, not exactly the sotware (I always used Windows). I have a 2010 Macbook Pro 13 that I can easily overclock its screen to 103hz using CRU + nVidia Control Panel under bootcamp (windows) for gaming purposes.

Now, I want to the same with the 2014 model (also running windows), which has this "Retina" display (I think this is the issue here).

Besides knowing if the screen is overclockable, I also would like to know:

1) They say the native resolution is 2880 x 1800, is it possible to overclock it using a downscaled resolution?

2) If so, how much input lag (if any) will I get if I use a downscaled resolution like 1440 x 900?

For whoever is interested on helping me, when I try the regular CRU / Control Panel method I get blurry pink display when trying the native resolution and some flickers with 4 quadrants of the display in the screen when I try the downscaled one.

[ToastyX]

Laptop displays usually only support the native resolution, so you can't add higher refresh rates at lower resolutions. You'd have to add higher refresh rates at the native resolution, and then use GPU scaling for lower resolutions. GPU scaling does not add lag. If the built-in display can't handle higher refresh rates at the native resolution, then it's not possible to overclock.

[dev-br]

(01-07-2016 04:00 AM)ToastyX Wrote:  Laptop displays usually only support the native resolution, so you can't add higher refresh rates at lower resolutions. You'd have to add higher refresh rates at the native resolution, and then use GPU scaling for lower resolutions. GPU scaling does not add lag. If the built-in display can't handle higher refresh rates at the native resolution, then it's not possible to overclock.

I kinda got it. But why do I get different screen behaviours when trying it in different resolutions? Wouldn't it just be a matter of finding a suitable EDID for this to work? I mean, should I believe that apple changed some key component from 2012 to 2014 so the screen isn't physically overclockable anymore?

[ToastyX]

(01-09-2016 11:54 PM)dev-br Wrote:  I kinda got it. But why do I get different screen behaviours when trying it in different resolutions? Wouldn't it just be a matter of finding a suitable EDID for this to work?

The behavior of a panel trying to display a non-native resolution without a scaler is undefined. It might try to process the signal as if it were the native resolution, which would result in 4 segments at 1440x900. If you try reducing the vertical resolution only, like 2880x1600, chances are the image will repeat at the bottom. Lower resolutions will only display correctly with GPU scaling. The EDID does not deal with scaling. It only defines what resolutions the display supports.

(01-09-2016 11:54 PM)dev-br Wrote:  I mean, should I believe that apple changed some key component from 2012 to 2014 so the screen isn't physically overclockable anymore?

Isn't the screen a key component? You're talking about two different panels with different timing controllers and different resolutions with different bandwidth requirements. High-resolution panels are less likely to overclock because of bandwidth restrictions.