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Comment by karls | Hacker News Reader

Do you run your laptop on non—native resolution? Or an external monitor with a non-native resolution?

I'm runnign on 2018 MBP, 16GB RAM + 4k external monitor. I experienced the same type of issues a couple of months back — high WindowServer CPU, mega choppy UI after a few days of use. Initially thought it was Safari, but it kept happening with other browsers as well. Researched it a bit and found a thread where someone suggested running both the laptop and the monitor on native resolution. Haven't had any problems since doing that. WindowServer sits at about 10% CPU and ~2GB RAM, current uptime 10 days.

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I think I had the same problem as you (similar hw and setup). Do you have a discrete GPU? If so check the link below out. For me, this behavior was due to OSX flip-flopping between discrete and internal GPU. Once I set it to discrete all the time (I'm always plugged in) the problem went away.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043

Seems to me a different issue than what people are complaining about atm... but what do i know, might be one and the same.

Edit: very weird... Looks like this setting was reverted for me. I just updated from 11.? to 12.0.1, so I wonder if the installer undid some of my changes. No performance issues, but I've literally just my computer on for the first time after the upgrade.

Nope, I just have an integrated Intel GPU.

I'm also pretty much always plugged in. It's likely that the issue was manifesting before switching to a 4k monitor, but after switching the issue became unbearable. E.g I'd wait 2-3s to switch between windows or desktops. Running both screens on native resolutions and I'm switching between windows near-instantly.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

:( Sorry to hear that... I know it must be so incredibly frustrating!

Sounds like it isn't an issue of flip/flopping between discrete and integrated GPU then... must just be the integrated GPU and its ability to deal with non-native resolutions.

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