Intel HD Graphics Lags on High-Resolution Displays (Not Powerful Enough to Handle High-Resolution Displays.)

[AAhma23]

Hey there.

I own an ASUS ZenBook UX510UW (which features a 4K display) running Windows 10 version 1903, build 18362.175.

Since the first day I bought this device, which was about 2 years ago, I've been struggling with a problem that I call:

Laggy and sluggish visual interface:

Description & details: Visual animations, such as minimizing/maximizing windows, toggling the task view, scrolling in the browsers and other applications, sometimes typing, etc. have noticeable lags and feel sluggish.

Important: All of my drivers are up-to-date. I checked with multiple applications including "Intel Driver & Support Assistant"; so, please don't just say: Update your drivers!

However, the most important point is: When I change the resolution from 4K (3840 x 2160 pixels) to Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels), the problem completely disappears, everything feels as smooth as it should be.

And I'm not alone. Many many users on different devices and even different operating systems (i.e Windows and MacOS) have reported this issue. Some of them are:

In Windows:

Intel HD Graphics 530 lags in 4K on Zenbook Pro UX501VW

Slow UI animation performance.

Terribly Laggy Animations and User Interface in Windows 10 in High-Resolution Screens

Surface Book 2 Task View Lag (and other high-resolution laptops included)

4k laptop lag in Windows 10 UI animations

Laggy animations and effects at 4K resolution (running Windows 10)

Windows 10 Animation lags

Windows animations become choppy over time in Creators Update

Window Surface Book 2 Choppy Window Animation and Jitter Surface Pen's Experiences

etc.

In Mac OS:

Mission Control laggy

Why is Sierra's UI animations so jittery and laggy?

MacBook Pro 2017 '15 UI Laggy Animations

Extreme UI Lag MacBook Pro 2017 15" 10.13.6

I've gathered a few tips and notes that I think are worth mentioning:

1. The problem is more noticeable in the apps that have been built with the Electron.js framework: (Like VS Code, WhatsApp Desktop, etc.). For instance, here is an issue that was posted in 2016 in the GitHub repository of VS Code about the exact same problem: Poor performance on large resolution)
2. The problem is often less noticeable in UWP apps (Windows-related): I personally experience a smoother visual interface in UWP (Universal Windows Platform) applications.
3. The problem is less noticeable when the Windows 10 transparency effect is disabled: I've seen many people saying so, and I'd personally confirm it as well.

I've been doing research and reading people's experiences about this problem for about 2 years, and finally, I came to the conclusion that this problem comes down to the fact that Intel Integrated Graphics (probably) do not have enough power to handle visual interfaces and especially animations smoothly in high-resolution displays. These are some of the reasons why I think so:

1. The problem is not OS-dependent: As I mentioned earlier, people on different devices, including Windows machines and Mac computers have experienced this problem. (I also provided some links that you can check out.)
2. The problem disappears when the resolution is decreased: As I (and many other people) mentioned, the problem is completely gone when the resolution is decreased.
3. The problem gets fixed when changing the display graphics processor to the dedicated GPU: My laptop doesn't have the option to change the display GPU, and so I've never experienced this personally, however, I've seen a few cases where people reported that their problem was fixed due to changing their default display GPU from Intel HD Graphics to their dedicated GPU.
4. The problem doesn't exist in the devices that do not have Intel Integrated GPU: This one is a big one! As far as I know, this problem only exists in laptop computers, and laptop computers, as we all know, often haveon-board Intel graphics processors. I've personally never seen a case where the person reporting this issue owns a desktop computer. (desktop computers often have dedicated GPUs)
5. The problem has never been fixed by multiple OS updates over time: This problem is reported to Microsoft and Apple multiple times, but their OS updates didn't make any difference, I personally don't feel any difference from 2 years ago when I purchased my device, and first experienced this issue.

Any further update or help would be highly appreciated. Thank you.

[AlHill]

Wow, you need to learn how to read the forum - "Intel customer support is available Monday-Friday 7AM to 4PM PST"

Doc

[Leonardo_C_Intel]

Hello everybody

Thank you for posting in the Intel Community.

Al.Hill has provided you with accurate information this behavior has to be reported with each Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) since this is related to the design of the laptops

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Leonardo C.                        

Intel Customer Support Technician

Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[AAhma23]

I'm sorry but don't you think it's related to Intel since many people with different devices (HP, Dell, Microsoft Surface Book, etc.) have this exact problem while they have one thing in common and that is they all happen to have Intel Integrated Graphics in their device?

[AAhma23]

I think if I didn't mention my own laptop, I wouldn't have so much trouble convincing different people that this problem is not only about my specific laptop, and is universal.

However, it'd be highly appreciated if you respond.

[AlHill]

Answer the question - Have you contacted ASUS and tried to work with them?

Doc

[plebz]

Just stumbled upon this thread, having the same issue and thought OP made an interesting point that seems to be a broader issue with quite a few sources. There is also a certrain truth and use for others in this research, as well as in the fact to post this in the Intel forum since it's part of their hardware and drivers. So, all this was, was an interesting observation with a great layout for discussion. 

And man...Usually I don't care about internet forum stuff and have never done somehting like this, but in this case, also seeing that you're still active on this forum for whatever reason, I just had to sign up and tell you how extremely pointless, douchey and arrogant your repeated uninformative answers seem. The tone and level of your illusory superiority is really cringey and I hope you can fix that at some point in life.

Have a good one.

[MartinEmrich]

High Five, just signed up to give you kudos for speaking well!

If anyone finds this after wading through that mud of useless noise:

Had a similar issue (older Thinkpad X230 with 3rd-Gen Core i5, Linux, X.Org), and stumbled upon this thread. Clearly a different issue than OP's issue, but for posteriority's sake.

Running 3440x1440 via a miniDP-HDMI cable looked just bad (stuttery, jerky). Switching down to 1920x1080  looks fine.

The issue was: the HDMI cable did only 30Hz at this resolution, which looks way jerkier than e.g. a TV show at 30fps or a movie at 24fps (higher contrast, ...)

With a miniDP-to-DP cable I get 60Hz, and it looks ok. But still one can see that the little intel HD graphics is struggling with that high resolution.

[AlHill]

No. Even if it is, it still requires you to go to your laptop manufacturer. Stop trying to create a situation that does not exist.

Now, answer one simple question - Have you contacted ASUS and tried to work with them?

Doc

[CyberBonk]

hey, same issue here with Legion slim 7i gen 8, i Have Intel UHD graphics (Not Xe cuz i have single channel DDR5), when running basic apps like Social Media (Cant mention cuz Intel Guidelines for some reason) and drawboard PDF and then use the laptop, it feels like having frame drops to 30FPS, and this drop is way more noticable in 240Hz, mode, and way way more noticable when doing any type of screen recording, 

this doesnt happen at all when Mux switch is set to the GPU, where it directly handle the display, which is 2560*1600 60/240Hz, , i think my issue may get fixed if i upgraded my ram and added Dual channel to unlock the Xe Graphics

[Roland01]

Same problem here, even with my fully scaled Dell Precision with Intel Iris XE in a 13800H processor. Which means 96 EUs, 45 Watts TDP, dual channel with over 100 GB/s memory bandwith.  It still it feels sluggish and laggy even on the windows desktop, using a dual monitor setup with 4k 120 Hz screens. Quite disappointing. I expected similar desktop performance compared to my 5 year old precision with an older solely used dedicated nVidia graphics. But no, it feels like an even older pc. Just moving ms office or explorer windows saturates the GPU by more than 50%, and most of the load is put on the CPU, where a at least one core is saturated at 100%. Not happening with nVidia. Most probably it is not only slow gpu hardware but also badly coded unoptimized windows drivers, as some specific game benchmarks seem to suggest decent performance. Many people seem to not care about this, but I am deeply regretting not having ordered the dedicated graphics option, though it didn't seem necessary. 

I was even in contact with Dell, updating all drivers and bios, they even made me installing a naked OEM Windows 11 for testing. 
It is the Intel GPUs not coping well with anything a little more demanding.