Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

forum.notebookreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 215 posts

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#201

Post by coldtea »

quinndupont wrote: post #199
coldtea wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In no way am I trying to incite Mac vs. PC, but after years of Apple laptops I grew bored with their aluminum fascism So, they like killed millions of people, or invaded other countries to make them use aluminum laptops?

If we must, METAPHORICALLY, yes.

Nope, not even metaphorically.

In fact, even the other thing that's directed at them ("it's just because of marketing") is not true either.

While they had good ads, their marketing spending was historically miniscule (especially compared to companies such as Samsung and Microsoft) and of course they began from near zero budget (actually near banruptcy) circa 1997 and grew with products that made people want to buy them and the press write about them, not ads.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#202

Post by Thimothy »

Audiophilip wrote: post #126
sz4kerto wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, you can install Windows on it but then you lose many of the advantages of using a Mac -- for example, trackpad precision and overall energy efficiency. So if the laptop is going to be used for gaming, then it does not make sense to buy a Mac and install Windows on it. (I've got a rMBP, and I'm using Windows on it most of the time because I don't like OSX and I can't replace the laptop at the moment, but I…

All right, I get what you mean, but now we're talking about something else. Your original statement that I reacted to was: "There's no Macbook that's good for gaming, because of the OS and the cooling." Your reasoning that because of their OS MacBooks are not good for gaming is simply not true, considering that you can install Windows on them to eliminate the aforementioned graphical performance issues of OS X. If an…

Of course is a strong contestant against "normal" windows laptops, but if you are willing to pay what Apple asks for a Macbook pro you shouldn't compare it against "normal windows laptops", but with the high end Asus ROG, Alienware or some custom gaming laptop. And if serious gaming is the driving motivation behing the buy it isn't really a contest.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#203

Post by dysfunction »

MereInterest wrote: post #157
RandallBrown wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about tap to click. I'm talking about the whole trackpad being a button.

I have a chromebook designed like this, and it removes any precision in clicking. I push down, and my finger slips as the trackpad depresses.

Usually I don't find myself clicking on my Macbook trackpad anyway. I usually just tap, plenty of precision that way, plus OSX tends to have larger click targets than Windows and lots of gestures (especially with BetterTouchTool) that make precision less important.

My only issue is click-and-drag, but that was at least somewhat alleviated when I learned to hold the click with my index finger and do the drag by moving my middle finger (which is similar to what I'd do with a trackpad with dedicated mouse buttons anyway) instead of just using my index finger.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#204

Post by dysfunction »

userbinator wrote: post #161
overgard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that apple gets this right either. (I have a macbook). The actual tracking feels fantastic and precise, and it has a nice texture, but I /hate/ how they refuse to put real buttons below it. Things like "right mouse drag" which I use all the time become a nightmare, and the whole "no buttons" thing just seems like it's putting aesthetics over functionality.

I had the same experience with a relatively recent (2013?) Macbook, trying to help someone with one. I agree the tracking is quite nice, but clicking it requires far more force than I'm used to, meaning that trying to hold it down and drag is even worse - the friction is too high. The tactile response when it goes down and back up is also a bit weird; it's too dull and heavy-feeling when it goes down, there's almost…

For click and drag, don't use your index finger to both keep the button depressed AND move the pointer. On a regular trackpad you'd click the left button with index finger and move the pointer by moving middle finger over the trackpad; you can do the same thing here by clicking in with index finger and then moving middle finger.

Other than click and drag I never use the physical click, tap to click is where it's at. OSX registers tapping much, much better than any trackpad I've tried with Windows.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#205

Post by dysfunction »

archagon wrote: post #194
sz4kerto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no Macbook that's good for gaming, because of the OS and the cooling. There are more and more games on Steam that run on OSX but the performance is usually abysmal (e.g. Dota2 runs around 20% fps on OSX compared to Windows). And they're just too thin to have a cooling that'd be suitable for gaming -- Asus ROG laptops are incredibly well cooled, really.

I disagree. I think the high-end Macbook Pro is one of the best gaming laptops out there. The Nvidia chip is almost half as powerful as the AMD 6850 I used to have in my desktop, which has a giant turbine fan and takes up two PCI slots! Sure, performance in OSX is often poor, but BootCamp and often Parallels solve this problem quite elegantly. It's not too different from booting up a console, I think. Thanks to my Ma…

Is the driver situation any better in Bootcamp for Nvidia than AMD? Bootcamp's drivers for the AMD 6750 in my late 2011 MBP were usually many versions behind, meaning some games it had the specs to handle wouldn't even run, and there was no way to upgrade with the OEM drivers. I ended up removing Bootcamp entirely to have more room for the now quite extensive selection of OSX-compatible games on Steam.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#206

Post by krick »

Pxtl wrote: post #175
MereInterest wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenovo business laptops. The consumer laptops are shoddy and thin, but the business laptops tend to be rather durable.

I wish companies would follow the car company approach and fully separate their consumer-crap and quality corporate brands into to completely-different brand names. I tend to think that their consumer-end completely sabotages their high-end name. Everybody has a foul memory of a mid-range dell/hp/asus device and that feeds consumers into the "screw it, I'll just buy Apple" response. Make a brand that consumers can tr…

That's actually great idea I think. Would be not only more profitable for them, but also much better for me as a customer, as I wouldn't have to make detective adventure out of search for a computer. I wonder if they never thought of it or there're any problems that disallow them to do that.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#207

Post by archagon »

dysfunction wrote: post #205
archagon wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think the high-end Macbook Pro is one of the best gaming laptops out there. The Nvidia chip is almost half as powerful as the AMD 6850 I used to have in my desktop, which has a giant turbine fan and takes up two PCI slots! Sure, performance in OSX is often poor, but BootCamp and often Parallels solve this problem quite elegantly. It's not too different from booting up a console, I think. Thanks to my Ma…

Is the driver situation any better in Bootcamp for Nvidia than AMD? Bootcamp's drivers for the AMD 6750 in my late 2011 MBP were usually many versions behind, meaning some games it had the specs to handle wouldn't even run, and there was no way to upgrade with the OEM drivers. I ended up removing Bootcamp entirely to have more room for the now quite extensive selection of OSX-compatible games on Steam.

I think it is, yes. I don't really follow driver updates all that much, but Nvidia's GeForce Experience application routinely tells me about new downloads (most recently a week or two ago). And it's not a proprietary Apple fork, either: I downloaded GeForce Experience straight from Nvidia as soon as I installed BootCamp and haven't had any problems with it.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#208

Post by archagon »

exidy wrote: post #178
archagon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about Windows? Because I'm pretty sure OSX doesn't have any right mouse drag controls.

Xcode.

Oh, neat. I didn't even realize that Control-drag was the same as a RMB drag. That should make my life a little easier.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#209

Post by mitchty »

MereInterest wrote: post #159
overgard wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works perfectly fine if you have two mouse buttons below the trackpad (which every laptop I've ever had before my macbook has had).

With every tech company trying to imitate all of Apple's poor decisions, it is getting hard to find a laptop that has physical buttons. They have all been switching over to having just the trackpad.

How is it a poor decision? OS X generally has been designed to not need right clicking. And where it does, aka Xcode you can just do control click in most places.

I don't really see how this is a poor decision on apples part. For windows sure, right clicking abounds, though I'd argue that right there is the crux of the problem in general. The over reliance on right clicking in user interfaces I think isn't too far off from "magic track pad pawing motions like triple swipe etc...". But that last bits mostly my opinion on the matter.

Re: Why Asus trackpad driver sets the CPU speed at maximum during scroll

#210

Post by MichaelGG »

overgard wrote: post #129
RandallBrown wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the lack of buttons. It makes it much much easier to click on things since I don't have to precisely hit a button. I don't think I've ever used a right click drag for anything, but it seems easy enough to do on my macbook pro. Just click with two fingers and drag.

There's no reason you couldn't do both. I really hate the trackpad click thing though for a specific reason: the pressure required changes based on where you are on the trackpad. It takes much more force to click at the top than at the bottom, so I end up using my thumb to click on the bottom anyway, at which point... I'd rather just have a proper button.

The reason is aesthetics. No buttons makes it look sleek, which is all the OEMs are going for. Same reason has driven the other changes in recent ThinkPads. It's purely about looks, with making it functional coming far behind. (One example of many: New ThinkPads have no way to determine if they are charging/plugged in, except by carefully looking for a few seconds after a state transition. If the plug is loose or another problem happens while you think it's charging, they give you no notification. This is purely a twisted sense of aesthetics, trying to make it feel less IBM. And on more than one occasion, this has caused me serious issues as I discovered too late that my system was out of power.)
Post reply on HN