Poor Windows 10 UI and Chrome performance with Intel Graphics HD 530

[idata]

I /thread/114776 posted this in a thread reporting on the same issues, but was requested to post it as a new question instead.

Ever since I got my Dell XPS 15 9550 (almost 2 years ago), I have noticed Windows 10 animations lag (minimize/maximize animations, resize, task view, ...) and Google Chrome runs even slower, becoming unusable at times. As per the thread linked above, I was hopeful to read about the Falls Creator's update resolving this issue for some (UPDATE: problem persists after Spring update). Unfortunately, I notice no difference on my computer. I have had a motherboard replacement, a screen replacement, and a full laptop replacement by Dell, followed up most recently now with an audio card replacement. Nothing has changed.

Judging from the information you can find online and the feedback from Intel and Dell support, this seems either to be a rare problem or people generally don't care. For example, in none of the XPS 15 reviews this problem is mentioned, although I have seen it firsthand on 4 laptops of the same model (my original laptop, the one with the motherboard replaced, the full replacement, and a similar model from a friend). However, this is definitely not an isolated issue!

Some sources mentioning this issue:

- https://superuser.com/questions/1172870/dell-xps-15-9550-4k-intel-530-ui-performance-windows-10 Dell XPS 15 9550 4k Intel 530 UI performance Windows 10 - Super User

- /thread/104262 Intel HD Graphics 530 - Poor performance 4K

- https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5iqaid/dell_xps_9550_4k_poor_ui_performance_do_i_have_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5iqaid/dell_xps_9550_4k_poor_ui_performance_do_i_have_a/

- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/maximizing-window-animation-of-4k-windows-has-a/239553c7-94d3-4556-904f-19238488b28c%23LastReply Maximizing window animation of 4k windows has a severly reduced - Microsoft Community

- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/4k-laptop-lag-in-windows-10-ui-animations/38b87055-b1fd-4502-8bf2-8ae7484c05b1http:// 4k laptop lag in Windows 10 UI animations

- I've posted this resize issue also on Microsoft Feedback Hub: https://aka.ms/Fjuwtk https://aka.ms/Fjuwtk Probably most important observation here is: "It is only windows which near about 3/4th of the full 4k size (3840x2160) which stutter when maximizing."

- ... There might be more sources I can try to dig up based on my searches in the past, if this could be of any help.

Reproducible issues (Still persists July 21th 2018)

The following issues are not 'showstoppers' when considered in isolation. I merely list them since they are easy to reproduce and are indicative of the overarching problem: the Intel HD 530 graphics card (and possibly others) are unable to run Windows 10 smoothly in 4k, to the degree where I prefer to work on a (cheaper) non-4k system.

1. Opening up Task View on 4k always has reduced performance compared to full HD

Steps to reproduce: press WinKey-Tab repeatedly while several application windows are open.

In the following video, a 4k laptop (XPS 15 9550) is positioned on the left, and a full HD laptop (Lenovo T460s) is positioned on the right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhIodAmBXz4&t=0s&list=PLD_Nf7Vbam2j3O-wXFzCouM3f9-qGvreA&index=9 XPS 15 repeated task view - YouTube

The 4k laptop only has a couple of windows open (file Explorer), whereas the Lenovo is running two instances of Visual Studio, IntelliJ, multiple Chrome instances, etc ... (my 'typical' work environment). Still, as can be seen, the animation shown when opening the task view (press Windows-Tab repeatedly) lags immensely on the 4k laptop compared to the full HD laptop. From this, I conclude this is not a performance degradation due to the system being under heavy load, but likely a bottleneck due to screen resolution. In an actual work environment (where I replicate the setup of the Lenovo on the XPS), 'every day' window management (dragging windows, resizing windows, switching virtual desktops) simply becomes unbearable.

2. Scrolling in list view of Windows explorer lags and maxes out GPU

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open up a Window explorer window.
2. Open up several folders in the list view on the left hand side so that there is a considerable region through which can be scrolled. E.g., open up "C:\Windows\System32".
3. Open up the task manager, and select the "Performance" tab.
4. Scroll in the list view using a touchpad (this might be related to XPS 15 9550's touchpad drivers specifically, although I have no clue where they are located or who is responsible for them, or why it would impact GPU performance).

You can notice there is an immense delay. The view continues to scroll seconds after the scroll action has been initiated while the Intel GPU spikes. To further demonstrate this is a bottleneck related to the GPU and somehow related to screen resolution:

1. Resize the list view so it takes up half of the screen
2. Scroll again.

This is demonstrated after another short 'task view' demonstration in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MJsS7ZqDOg&index=14&list=PLD_Nf7Vbam2j3O-wXFzCouM3f9-qGvreA Windows explorer maxes out GPU when scrolling - YouTubeThe scroll operation is now even slower, lasting over 10 seconds, and the GPU spikes to 100%.

3. Scrolling in some applications is unacceptably slow for a high-end system</h2...

[idata]

I have no problem with Chrome on my laptop, is amazingly fast for me on my XPS 15 9570 which has a UHD630 and 4k display. Scrolling is same as fast as in Edge. I advise to do these optimizations and turn off most Windows animations (includes Scroll animation in Edge and Chrome), it helps a lot and also will speed up scrolling in Chrome and Edge:

You get there under system control, system, extended system, visual effects. Also use 200% DPI scale instead of 250%, that improved things too for me a bit. I don't have an English version of the above Windows animation settings, but it is straightforward what to deactivate.

[idata]

I would appreciate it if people stopped spreading this nonsense. Certainly if you disable animations they will no longer lag. In short, you shouldn't have to disable animations, and furthermore, I played around with this extensively in the past and any effects you observe are purely coincidental. Try the exact tests I described in the first post and you won't notice any difference.

It is also quite amazing how support (and some people apparently) don't seem to care that high-end systems can't even run a basic window manager of an operating system. Some people that buy a PC actually want to get some work done and not simply run some modern video games or watch videos; we want to be able to have multiple windows/desktops open and have a smooth experience doing so!

[idata]

Everything what Whathecode said is obviously complete nonsense.

1. Windows animations were always terrible, no one wants or need them

2. this is a (very satisfying) workaround not a solution

3. "Certainly if you disable animations they will no longer lag." NO WAY 😮

4. the animation settings also include an entire which effects the scroll animations of Edge AND Chrome and has a large performance improvement if you disable it

I have Windows animations deactivated since years on all my devices also desktop, min/max animations are just terrible and take away time.

Blaim M$ for not having devs anymore, who know what they're doing. Most competent devs of the old Windows team were retired or fired.

[AlHill]

Ok, let us keep the conversation civil.

Klumsch, if you want to disable the animations, then do so. However, I have not seen any such problems. And, I have never had to deactivate animations, on any version of windows on a lot of different hardware over the past 20 or so years.

And, you can blame whomever you want.

Also, references to "M$" are very old and unnecessary.

So, keep the conversation civil, voice your opinions, and have fun.

Doc

[TWoo]

I've recently updated to the fall 2018 Windows 10 update, as well as the latest Intel GFX drivers (on a 9570 XPS 15, i7, 4K).

I'm not sure if one or both of those updates helped, but Windows UI performance has definitely improved for me (esp. switching desktops, opening task view/timeline w/ animations). It's not 100% perfect, but much much smoother than before.

Has anyone else had the same experience? Hoping that something actually got fixed and this behavior will continue.

[TTurb]

I updated to Windows 10 Fall 2018 update (Version 1809), and i can confirm that my situation has dramatically improved on my Lenovo P51s with 4k display and intel / nvidia graphics and UI scaling set to 225%. I had not updated my graphics cards drivers in this update, but i had installed the most recent drivers directly from intel and nvidia before, not waiting for lenovo to provide them through their update tool.

Now it's not 100% perfect, but i'd say 95% percent for my daily use cases. Without being overly systematic:

• scrolling in chrome and firefox is smooth now, and rendering websites feels much faster now; before it felt sticky when scrolling, and one could partially see rendering the html to visual.
• Working with Indesign, Illustrator ... CC 2017 works very smooth now; before there was always some interface lag on every attempt to select an element or text.
• alt+tab / win+tab is very fast now, it was a pain before
• resizing explorer windows ... well that's still choppy instead of smooth, but honestly, unlike the three above it's not what i do all day long and it's not terrible.

So whoever made the changes, thanks for that ... after a year with a beautiful but laggy display, i now have finally best of both ...

[CChri50]

I just bought a msi gf63-8rc with intel 630. When I run at 4K the performance is pretty sluggish compared to 1080p. Not only that but I was getting power limit throttling and my cpu wouldn't stay at 4ghz and would clock down to 2.8ghz (with stable temperatures). I had to grab throttlestop and undervolt my cpu/cpu cache/intel gpu to get it to stop doing that. it's still a bit sluggish with the windows UI but at least it doesn't throttle down. I am also getting electrical noise on the mainboard when the cpu is maxed out (a strange squeak/whine). I am really disappointed with manufacturers like MSI not providing a switch to bypass the intel gpu for 2d desktop rendering. I have a laptop from a decade ago that does this and it's pretty ridiculous that performance is degrading over time instead of improving. Not to mention all the cpu speculative execution vulnerabilities that are reducing performance of newer cpus by up to 40%. Intel needs to get its act together... I am thinking of giving this laptop to a family member and getting something with a discrete gpu, because the laptop is performing worse than my 5yr old i5 workstation. Really sad to pay 1100$ and get such sloppy performance...

[EKran1]

Same problem here. Dell XPS-9560 laptop w/ touchscreen 16GB. Windows 10 Home. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050.

Using 2-finger on the touchpad to scroll Windows Explorer is acutely painful and maxes out GPU. Firefox scrolls fine. Chrome scrolls fast until fingers come off the pad, then throttles.

Downloaded and installed Dell Touchpad Driver v19.2.17.64 (A10), upon installing it said "unnecessary to install", and didn't complete (must have it already?).

Tried disabling the integrated graphics card through Device Manager (didn't work, still very slow scrolling). Tried disabling the NVIDIA card, didn't work (no apparent change).

Any solution to this yet?

[AArya9]

Same Issue here with a xps 13 9370 i7 4k UHD 620. Chrome is dreadful firefox is a tiny bit better and old edge is super smooth. New Chromium edge is the same as chrome

[AArya9]

Issue may have to do with ram being in single channel

[AArya9]

Bump

Issue persists on 2020 XPS 15 9500 with UHD graphics and on XPS 13 9300 with Iris Plus Graphics.