MacOS – AirPlay via AppleTV stutters on retina MacBook Pro but not iPhone 4

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I recently got a retina Macbook Pro and I am loving it except for one thing. When I go to System Preferences > Sound > Output and select AirPlay while playing audio, the sound will often just stop or stutter for a period of time from less than a second to 6 or 7 seconds. The music is not just pausing because I can see on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube that the audio continues to play. Yet on my iPhone 4 when using AirPlay, it never stutters or pauses.

What gives?

I tried switching the wireless channel on my router without luck.

Best Answer

I saw the chatter over on the official Apple forums last week and there has been some success on Retina MBP owners with the workaround here (and listed below)

Go to System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Uncheck 'Automatic Graphics Switching'

This will of course switch 100% to the Nvidia chipset which will be a larger battery drain.

The issue, according to those users, is that the integrated graphics on the Retina MBP is the root cause and more than likely to be as a result of immature drivers from Intel since they also report that there is no issue under Bootcamp.

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