How do you get the best performance out of monitors for a Macbook?

[Marty_Macfly]

Hi All,


Earlier reading and posting on this forum has got me thinking.

How do mackbooks work with monitor drivers for all the different types of monitors out there?

Can one install specific drivers, by App Store or whatever, or are you stuck with generic drivers as part of the OS?

How do you know if a monitor is going to work well with a Macbook or not, if you can’t install manufacture specific drivers?

I’m a bit sceptical with just reading webset reviews, where they get commissions on sales etc.

I currently have a Ipad, and when I tried to plug into a monitor by HMDI, the screen is square and pretty grainy. It is just a badly blown up duplicate of the ipad screen. Pretty poor for a Ipad “Pro” considering the modern tech we have today.

Hoping the macbooks are a better proposition, as I‘m thinking about getting one in a couple of years as the next replacement laptop.


Regards
Martin

PS:
I currently have a 24” monitor for work laptop, a AOC G2460PF.
Hoping it will work ok for the macbook as well!

 

[joevt]

iPads are 4:3 aspect ratio. They don't use 16:9 of external display unless you're playing video full screen.

A MacBook should not have any problem with a display that is 4K 60Hz or less. The shape of the display doesn't matter except it might not work with a display that is wider than 4096 pixels unless you have a MacBook Pro from 2016 or later with an AMD GPU or a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with a 10th generation Intel CPU.

Macs don't use third party drivers for displays. You may do things like override the display's EDID (using a utility like SwitchResX) to add custom timings or resolutions if macOS doesn't give the exact option you want.

 

[hobowankenobi]

No drivers...so no problems. As mentioned, there are edge cases regarding specific resolutions, as well as ICC profiles, but both can be addressed without drivers.

The single biggest limiting factor for lower-end portables is not having enough GPU power to drive very high resolutions, or multiple monitors. But that is all hardware, not software.

 

[Marty_Macfly]

Thanks for the info guys.

This is quiet funny. I come from the Window’s world, where everything is Drivers and broken *.dlls etc.

Cheers
Martin

 

[hobowankenobi]

Thanks for the info guys.

This is quiet funny. I come from the Window’s world, where everything is Drivers and broken *.dlls etc.

Cheers
Martin

One irritant to some Mac users is that Apple recently hid the resolutions...probably because so many casual users don't understand it at all. A quick tip to see and select optional, non-recommended resolutions manually here.

If you need to switch back and forth alot (like folks that travel and connect to different projectors, etc.), there are third-party tools (some free) that present all resolutions easily...I like the free version of Display Menu.

Macs have their quirks...but welcome to the dll-free world!