Interesting article about M1 and external displays

[Internaut]

Not to mention a fix that might apply to some.

This is why your external monitor looks awful on an M1 Mac

Q&A with the developer of BetterDummy: from macOS secrets to his motivations

www.theregister.com

 

[leman]

Apple is designing their systems assuming a certain minimum level of visual fidelity, so if you don’t have a 4K display, getting a Mac is probably not the best idea. And yes, 1440p is probably the worst choice with a modern Mac.

The hack like what BetterDummy does works - but you pay for it with a worse picture, since the display does not have the pixel density to pull of proper HiDPI rendering. I suppose this is the reason why Apple does not support it officially - they don’t want people to complain.

 

[CWallace]

Stands to reason when using non-native scaled resolutions on smaller (24") QHD displays.

I run a 27" QHD (2560x1440) 27" display as a second monitor to my 27" Intel iMac 5K and it looks fine in macOS at native QHD.

 

[ADGrant]

One comment I found interesting:

"This feature is completely missing for M1 Macs; there is no accessible way to add custom resolutions and display timings, which is unprecedented in the desktop OS space. This is mainly because the Apple Silicon graphics drivers are derived from iOS and iPad OS, which is on one hand great, but on the other hand rather limiting – these devices do not really need to support all kinds of various third-party displays."

Not sure if it is true but the GPUs are obviously derived from those in the iPad and iPhone so it might be.

 

[alfacentauro]

The problem of using BetterDummy:
- Some bugs when you exit from sleep
- No more than 60Hz refresh rate
- Bugs related to touchpad gestures

I can't believe Apple hasn't fixed this yet. Thinking seriously to switch to Win/Linux

 

[Spindel]

Apple is designing their systems assuming a certain minimum level of visual fidelity, so if you don’t have a 4K display, getting a Mac is probably not the best idea. And yes, 1440p is probably the worst choice with a modern Mac.

The hack like what BetterDummy does works - but you pay for it with a worse picture, since the display does not have the pixel density to pull of proper HiDPI rendering. I suppose this is the reason why Apple does not support it officially - they don’t want people to complain.

I have a 1440 display. I have no problems at all with it.

What problem am I supposed to have?

 

[Boil]

I have two Acer 31.5" 2560x1440 (75Hz DP / 60Hz HDMI) IPS monitors I would plan to use with a future M1 Max-powered Mac mini, with USB-C to DP cables; fingers crossed...?!? ;^p

 

[leman]

I have a 1440 display. I have no problems at all with it.

What problem am I supposed to have?

Well, for one, font smoothing (Apple dropped subpixel rendering since they assume HiDPI everywhere). Then, blurry image when using non-native scaling (as Apple does not allow use of retina rendering on low-HDPI screens).

 

[EntropyQ3]

I have a 1440 display. I have no problems at all with it.

What problem am I supposed to have?

A 27" 1440p display was what Apple introduced with their iMacs, and which was pixel doubled to 2880p in 2014. Basically on the 5k iMac display the resolution of the 1440p display is faked for interface accessibility purposes. (I always felt that Apples way of handling this was a bit of an ugly cludge, if understandable.)

Religious debates on forums over what resolutions look good are mostly pointless as viewing distances and visual acuity varies from person to person and are basically never quoted along with either condemnation or endorsement.

In keeping with this tradition, I'll claim that 1440p on a 27" monitor looks "good" under MacOS when run native. It is what Apple has shipped and optimised for themselves, and choose to replicate on higher resolution monitors.

 

[Spindel]

Well, for one, font smoothing (Apple dropped subpixel rendering since they assume HiDPI everywhere). Then, blurry image when using non-native scaling (as Apple does not allow use of retina rendering on low-HDPI screens).

Who the hell uses non native on a 1440 display that isn’t tiny (For the record I have 27”)

 

[leman]

Who the hell uses non native on a 1440 display that isn’t tiny (For the record I have 27”)

Right? ? But apparently some people do, and they complain about blurry image.

What I find particularly funny is that before retina displays you would laugh about someone like that. But now people just expect things to “work” even if it’s nonsensical from hardware standpoint. That’s why we can’t have good things.

 

[Spindel]

Right? ? But apparently some people do, and they complain about blurry image.

What I find particularly funny is that before retina displays you would laugh about someone like that. But now people just expect things to “work” even if it’s nonsensical from hardware standpoint. That’s why we can’t have good things.

In some other thread about this people said that turning off font smoothening made it better (not like I’ve had any problems) so I tried it and THAT looked horrible. Was a quick revert to MacOS default value.

I personally prefer 1440 at my screen size (27”), it’s a good compromise between resolution and resource usage at normal viewing distance.

 

[EntropyQ3]

Both with screens (regardless of material), and with photographic prints, people seem to adjust to the presentation. If there is more to be seen, they move closer. If they detect the limits of the medium, they stay at a distance, or even move away a bit if there are artefacts they find objectionable.

If moving 10cm back helps my brain interpolate smoothness, I will. But I always prefer subjectively "infinite" resolution. I feel that I'm done with having my output mediums being pixellated.

 

[entropi]

I was expecting a total blurry mess, but my Dell U2415 (1920 x 1200) looks totally fine on a M1 mba. But everyone says it shouldn't and buying a new 32" 4K screen isn't easy...

 

[ddhhddhh2]

I'm still evaluating whether to order the M1 Max now, the apple store in my location still hasn't promised a time frame for delivery.

But I have a reseller who can get me a new M1 Max 64G 2TB for a lower price (equivalent to the apple store's 64G 1TB).

However, there are still a few things that make me hesitate, first is the windows support, I need win10, win11 as a virtual machine, and I rely heavily on external monitors, there is no way I can buy two or four 4K monitors for myself at home or company just because of such things, it is too impractical.

So based on this phenomenon, I'm still evaluating.

Despite this, I'm still not quite sure if, specifically, an external screen below 4K is actually quite blurry? I haven't had a chance to see for myself.

But if you look at the 2019 MBP 16" external screen at 2K and 1080, it's not that great either, so could the M1 Pro/Max be worse? I wish I could confirm that with my own eyes.

 

[Cyprusian]

I have a 27" QHD HP27fq monitor connected to my Mac Mini M1 by HDMI and it displays its native 2560 x 1440 resolution at 75Hz to deliver a crystal clear very sharp image with absolutely no sign of fuzziness on fonts or anything else.

 

[Internaut]

I'm still evaluating whether to order the M1 Max now, the apple store in my location still hasn't promised a time frame for delivery.

But I have a reseller who can get me a new M1 Max 64G 2TB for a lower price (equivalent to the apple store's 64G 1TB).

However, there are still a few things that make me hesitate, first is the windows support, I need win10, win11 as a virtual machine, and I rely heavily on external monitors, there is no way I can buy two or four 4K monitors for myself at home or company just because of such things, it is too impractical.

So based on this phenomenon, I'm still evaluating.

Despite this, I'm still not quite sure if, specifically, an external screen below 4K is actually quite blurry? I haven't had a chance to see for myself.

But if you look at the 2019 MBP 16" external screen at 2K and 1080, it's not that great either, so could the M1 Pro/Max be worse? I wish I could confirm that with my own eyes.

My 25” Dell is a 2k display and the actual pixels and so on are fine with my M1 Air. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to those who say you should only use this monitor or that. What just works in the PC world should doubly just work in macSpace. The one problem I do have, especially since upgrading to Monterey is it often take a few sleep/wake attempts to get the monitor to work.

 

[playtech1]

I have over the years always found the Mac interface to feel a bit less crisp than a Windows machine on various 1440p monitors.

The content itself is fine (videos, photos, etc.), but the UI elements (windows, fonts, icons, etc.) all have a certain softness that does not manifest itself on an internal display. It's not a big deal, but it doesn't look particularly great.

My M1 Mac Mini hooked up to a 4K 55 inch OLED looks super sharp, so perhaps there is something in there being a particular issue with 1440p (which happens to have been the vertical res of my last three monitors).