Here is a list of notebooks with PWM frequencies or 0 for the ones not using PWM, anynone interested can check any alternative they want to consider.
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Eye strain - Returned my 2019 16" Macbook Pro
- Thread starter pragmaLT
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I have tried to install different versions of the macos, and discovered that the macos capitan (10.11.6) doesn't cause eye strain. Any later version does.
is it possible to install graphic drivers from macos capitan on later versions of the software? let's say on Mojave?
is it possible to install graphic drivers from macos capitan on later versions of the software? let's say on Mojave?
Could you please tell what is your hardware?
That's a very interesting finding. Now I want to try El Capitan, even in a virtual machine, as this version is not supported by my Mac that shipped with High Sierra. I wonder if the host or guest OS graphic settings would be used?
I do not know if what you ask is feasible, but I would like to learn it as well. Maybe hackintoshers would help?
I tried something similar- starting up Catalina in safe mode (hold down shift). Graphics drivers are not loaded, you can tell the colors are different. I have much less eye strain. The folks at ledstrain.org think it has something to do with temporal dithering, which apple uses by default.
Safe mode is pretty unusable for serious work, unfortunately.
I noticed it got worse as well after Mojave, I've always assumed it was because they removed subpixel antialiasing. Supposedly this affects older lower res screens (which I don't own so I can't test), but I noticed it immediately on the 15" MBPr screen. I downgraded back to whatever the previous version was (high sierra?) and it was immediately easier to look at. Not really a viable long-term solution to keep using an old OS, though, imo.
I am wondering about temporal dithering as well, since it seems to be a macos problem, not a screen problem for me. Using the MBP screen is not tooooo bad, but using my external 4k 28" monitor with the mac gives me a massive headache and dizziness within 20-30 minutes, even using the comically large scaling levels (the 1080p equivalent).
It seems that people have been getting headaches and dizziness from apple products for years and years, according to google search results... I wonder if apple themselves have looked into it at all. Surely it must be on their radar, at least...
Notebookcheck.net lists this information in their reviews. You can start with this link: https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Best-Notebook-Displays-As-Reviewed-By-Notebookcheck.120541.0.html
My wife is getting a 2020 MacBook Air, so I'll report back here next week on how it is.
Did you try it? I've already tried the MBA 2018 and MBP 16" so I don't think the MBP 15" 2019 could work for me!
I checked it in store with help of EIZO test. Then compared at home with 2017 13" and 15" and I found them better. Here is my post about that: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-anyone-else-getting-sick-of-apple.1812325/post-28272445
My wife has confirmed my observation, she is designer and illustrator and she can see all mentioned artifacts even better than me.
I have tried to install
I have Macbook pro late 2013
that is very interesting! let us know
It didn't stick with me... It is still not so good.
I have Macbook pro late 2013
that is very interesting! let us know
Okay... as disappointing at it will sound, but I spend today hours trying different things. So:
What I notice (also as was said in the forum) that booting into safe mode eliminated the ache. I notice that too.
1. I tried to see which drivers (kext) are loaded in the safe mode vs normal. For my Macbook pro late 2013 (Catalina), connected to graphic, in safe mode the driver called "AppleIntelHD5000Graphics" is not loaded.
I decided to try and disable it for loading when starting in the normal mode, and see what happens. I did that by first disabling protection of the system, and deleting AppleIntelHD5000Graphics.kext from /System/Library/Extensions
The system loaded, and it was better for the eyes. but unfortunately, the graphic driver (of course) didn't work, and the system is lagging-unusable.
2. The idea! What is the previous system that has better for eye drivers? I installed the first possible system for this laptop (Macos Mavericks) and realized it is perfect for eyes. Wow! Then I copied the whole folder /System/Library/Extensions from Mavericks and now was on my way trying to use drivers from Mavericks on Catalina installation.
Next, I tried in many iterations to use Maverics files:
AppleIntelHD5000Graphics.kext
AppleIntelHD5000GraphicsGLDriver.bundle
AppleIntelHD5000GraphicsVADriver.bundle
in the Catalina. I also tried to mingle and edit the plist files inside of these packages to make them "compatible", as some of the parameters changed with the new system. For example in Catalina, among these drivers, there is one more file called "AppleIntelHD5000GraphicsMTLDriver.bundle". I tried many permutations with changing back and forth.
... and all these times, Catalina hadn't loaded the driver even once.
I feel it could be possible to do, but I am out of options for now.
I hope new intel drivers will fix it somehow, but there is not much hope.
Or someone manages to run old drivers on a new system. As I do not think right now Mavericks will be usable.
I'm not a coder, but it looks like that's a lot of work to make old drivers and the new system work together.
I do not believe Apple will ever fix it: they do not care about old bugs. I used High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina, and I doubt there's a difference.
I don't really know what to do here. I was thinking of contacting some developers or hakintoshers when I'm done with the current workload. I also want to gather some facts before doing this: no-one would believe if they do not experience this eyestrain themselves. Until I bought this iMac, I wouldn't believe that a computer could cause it.
Recently, I also installed El Capitan in a VM under Parallels, and it looks better for the eyes. But no Apple graphic kexts are loaded, and without graphic acceleration it's not very usable. The only advantage over safe mode is that the microphone and the sound do work. I've also installed Linux Mint VM in Parallels (it's their standard installation, so it takes only a couple of minutes), and it's good for the eyes. I use it for reading large files, a sort of e-reader
.I've described all other steps I've made here: https://ledstrain.org/d/744-imac-27-2017-eyestrain-discomfort
I've got the biggest improvement after switching the color profile and sticking to native resolution.
US20100238193A1 - Programmable dithering for video displays - Google Patents
In a liquid crystal display (LCD) driver circuit, harmonizing a pixel inversion pattern and a dither pattern is disclosed. The pixel inversion pattern and the cooperating dither pattern interact with each other in such a way that there is substantially no discernable video artifacts generated...
patents.google.com
This patent asserts that dither algorithms and LCD panel pixel-inversion need to 'harmonize' together in order to avoid artefacts.
"However, depending on the algorithm used to vary an applied dither pattern from frame to frame, temporal dithering can cause the undesirable visible artifact known as “flicker.” Flicker results when dithering produces a sequence of pixels that are displayed at the same location on a display screen with periodically varying intensity, especially where the frequency at which the intensity varies is in a range to which the eye is very sensitive. The human eye is very sensitive to flicker that occurs at about 15 Hz, and more generally is sensitive to flicker in the range from about 4 Hz to 30 Hz (with increasing sensitivity from 4 Hz up to 15 Hz and decreasing sensitivity from 15 Hz up to 30 Hz). If the pixels displayed at the same screen location (with a frame rate of 60 Hz) have a repeating sequence of intensities (within a limited intensity range) that repeats every four frames due to dithering, a viewer will likely perceive annoying 15 Hz flicker, especially where each frame contains a set of identical pixels of this type that are displayed contiguously in a large region of the display screen. However, if the pixels displayed at the same screen location (with a frame rate of 60 Hz) have a repeating sequence of intensities (in the same intensity range) that repeats every sixteen frames, a viewer will be much less likely to perceive as flicker the resulting 3.75 Hz flicker. "
There is another patent lurking on the web which documents Apple's approach to dithering on it's consumer devices. It's just unfortunate there is no user-controllable way to adjust it.
Is it this patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP2466575A2.html ?
I have also found an old series of articles that prove Apple uses dithering:
Amulet's temporal dithering KEXT & fear of OS-X's console!
I've written previously about Amulet's fix for both nVidia and Radeon graphics cards doing temporal dithering under OS-X and how that spoi...
philtechnicalblog.blogspot.com
> Phil's technical blog
- Broadcast engineering and IT related links and stuff. Maybe some music, films and other things.
philtechnicalblog.blogspot.com
Temporal Dithering; good for colour depth, bad for extending!
I've become quite a fan of products based on Teradici - an on-the-fly compression system that allows dual-DVI w/peripherals to be extended ...
philtechnicalblog.blogspot.com
Here is a hint on when it appeared (in 2009):
- you’ve got a Mac that’s performing temporal dithering (new Macs, around 2009). Apple have come up with a new, very annoying idea, where they continuously vary the pixel values coming out of the graphics card every frame to create additional intermediate colours. This will break the T-lock code on 1/2-2/3rds of frames.
Why is the bits++ demo not working? — PsychoPy v2024.2.4
There should be more resources online, and I hope to gather them when I have time.
I wonder why so few people are sensitive to this?
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Not sure if that is the one but here is a link to the PDF version.
It's baffling, you would think it would have as wide an audience as PWM (as technically temporal dithering is flicker).
Somebody here must be knowledgeable enough about kext's etc to write a tool for modern Apple devices to disable dithering.
For people on this thread since the beginning, you will know I've tried every post-2017 MacBook Pro and find them unusable for more than a few minutes and always come back to my 2017 13 MBPr. My 2017 Surface Pro was great until an Intel Driver update and then the same issue. installing Ditherig.exe and disabling made it great again. Well, I went and upgraded from HS to Catalina and now my 2017 is awful too.......rolling back, thank goodness that's an option.
First I intend to send feedback at: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html
Not much hope, but the more they hear of the issue, the better.
I'll write that I have an eyestrain and a nervous strain from macOS and will ask for a user option to switch off temporal dithering in display preferences.
P.S. I have upgraded to Catalina 10.15.4 and I can feel AMD graphic drivers have slightly changed. The display is not as blinding at a high and medium brightness. Besides, I can now look at the text without feeling strain in the body. However, my eyes still get tired after I've worked with the text for a while. Thus, the issue has not been fully solved, but some algorithms have changed, and for me it's better. I hope it's not placebo. Maybe they started paying attention to graphics in connection with the new MacBooks and HDR monitor.
Not much hope, but the more they hear of the issue, the better.
I'll write that I have an eyestrain and a nervous strain from macOS and will ask for a user option to switch off temporal dithering in display preferences.
P.S. I have upgraded to Catalina 10.15.4 and I can feel AMD graphic drivers have slightly changed. The display is not as blinding at a high and medium brightness. Besides, I can now look at the text without feeling strain in the body. However, my eyes still get tired after I've worked with the text for a while. Thus, the issue has not been fully solved, but some algorithms have changed, and for me it's better. I hope it's not placebo. Maybe they started paying attention to graphics in connection with the new MacBooks and HDR monitor.
Thanks. I sent the feedback too.
Anyway why do you mention AMD? You feel some relief only when the system is using the amd gpu or just in general even with the intel driver?
AFAIK, unlike MacBook, iMac does not switch graphics between AMD and Intel. It uses AMD all the time. Probably, because it does not need to save energy.