Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

M1 Mac External Display - Fuzzy Fonts & Colors - YPBPR vs RGB

Status
The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
  • Like
Reactions: turbineseaplane
Mistercharlie said:
I hope so. The various display issues seem like the main problem with the M1 Macs. Would be great to fix them.
Click to expand...

I hope it does as well. But knowing that the RGB issues have been ongoing for many years makes me think that we may not be so lucky. At least with Intel Macs, we could use an override file to force RGB, but not so with M1 Macs.
 
aednichols said:
Hi Amit,

I have just come in to the same problem. Long time Mac and Ultrasharp user here; have a U2713HM and U3219Q in the lab for testing.

The two Intel MacBooks I have work great, RGB on both displays. The M1 does not, even when I apply the EDID fix.

I'm still in the return period for both the U3219Q and the M1 MacBook Air, so I do have some options.

Best,
Adam
Click to expand...
I’ve got the same issue on my M1 MBA with U2713HM connected via DisplayPort from Caldigit TS3 Plus. Have just submitted feedback to Apple.
 
  • Like
Reactions: prandelicious
I was struggling with color problems with my Mac Mini M1 and Dell U3219Q too: Gamma seemed off (blacks way too bright), orange colors looked horrible, and eventually I discovered that the monitor was operating YPbPr mode all the time. I tried creating EDID overrides with patch-edid.rb on an Intel Mac, even used an EDID editor to double-check that all YPbPr/YCbCr modes were disabled (https://www.analogway.com/emea/products/software-tools/aw-edid-editor/). While I did manage the EDID override files to get accepted by Big Sur, it did not have any effect on the color mode either in USB-C or or HDMI connection (the product ID is different for these modes, by the way).

What seems to have worked for now, strangely, is connecting to USB-C, enabling "Smart HDR: Desktop" in the display OSD settings (I had it disabled earlier), but NOT enabling HDR in Mac Display settings. Display is now RBG mode even after sleep & wakeup. Haven't tried rebooting yet (fingers crossed).

Please, all who are encountering such issues, give feedback to Apple: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macmini.html
It's really embarrassing that this issue hasn't been properly fixed after years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mistercharlie
a139 said:
I was struggling with color problems with my Mac Mini M1 and Dell U3219Q too: Gamma seemed off (blacks way too bright), orange colors looked horrible, and eventually I discovered that the monitor was operating YPbPr mode all the time. I tried creating EDID overrides with patch-edid.rb on an Intel Mac, even used an EDID editor to double-check that all YPbPr/YCbCr modes were disabled (https://www.analogway.com/emea/products/software-tools/aw-edid-editor/). While I did manage the EDID override files to get accepted by Big Sur, it did not have any effect on the color mode either in USB-C or or HDMI connection (the product ID is different for these modes, by the way).

What seems to have worked for now, strangely, is connecting to USB-C, enabling "Smart HDR: Desktop" in the display OSD settings (I had it disabled earlier), but NOT enabling HDR in Mac Display settings. Display is now RBG mode even after sleep & wakeup. Haven't tried rebooting yet (fingers crossed).

Please, all who are encountering such issues, give feedback to Apple: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macmini.html
It's really embarrassing that this issue hasn't been properly fixed after years.
Click to expand...
Same! I connected via USB-C, enabled the Reference setting in Smart HDR, and now it's RGB. Funnily enough, it doesn't look much different to how it looked in YPbPr mode, although perhaps text is a little sharper. My colors were fine the whole time.

Anyhow, very happy that this works!
 
Now that I can semi-reliably force my M1 mini to send RGB to my U3219Q (using the HDR method above), I have compared RGB with YCbCr, and I can’t see any difference. I’m definitely not seeing the washed-out colors or fuzzy fonts reported by some. Here are some pictures shot with the iPhone. Any color difference between them is down to the iPhone camera’s white balance. Can you see a difference?

AF39ACBA-CEAD-4A1C-8CA6-4F92676F7300.jpegC5A6C88D-2DF3-4359-B9CC-55659FB83B74.jpeg454CC6A3-4301-47FB-AAA2-1D80E9B82618.jpeg9CA3E1F1-38EE-4A8E-9E5B-94C501966D90.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: deeddawg
Here are some quick screenshots between Intel Mac on RGB vs M1 Mac on YPbPr. The difference in color/contrast is less apparent on some content but more visible on photos. Prolonged reading also feels more comfortable on the Intel Mac with RGB mode.

Intel Mac Mini (left) — M1 Mac Mini (right)
CA2D1AC3-7320-4151-B14F-C52B4D9ADAD6.jpeg
791DC986-1198-44F6-9A22-7E76ECB1FC34.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mistercharlie and aednichols
Sarpanch said:
Here are some quick screenshots between Intel Mac on RGB vs M1 Mac on YPbPr. The difference in color/contrast is less apparent on some content but more visible on photos. Prolonged reading also feels more comfortable on the Intel Mac with RGB mode.

Intel Mac Mini (left) — M1 Mac Mini (right)
View attachment 1703248View attachment 1703249
Click to expand...

This to me looks more like font smoothing enabled by Big Sur.

You can use this command to disable it:

Code: 
defaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 0
 
  • Like
Reactions: caubeyeudoi
Sarpanch said:
Here are some quick screenshots between Intel Mac on RGB vs M1 Mac on YPbPr. The difference in color/contrast is less apparent on some content but more visible on photos. Prolonged reading also feels more comfortable on the Intel Mac with RGB mode.

Intel Mac Mini (left) — M1 Mac Mini (right)
View attachment 1703248View attachment 1703249
Click to expand...

Remember that a screen shot captures what's in the computer's display buffer, not so much what one sees on the monitor.

As @AAPLGeek mentions this is much more likely a font-smoothing matter.

Note that you have to reboot after issuing the terminal command before you'll see the results. Also, you can adjust the amount of smoothing by changing the "-int 0" to 1 or 2.

See here for more info: How to Adjust or Disable Font Smoothing in macOS Big Sur - MacRumors
 
Last edited:
Mistercharlie said:
Now that I can semi-reliably force my M1 mini to send RGB to my U3219Q (using the HDR method above), I have compared RGB with YCbCr, and I can’t see any difference. I’m definitely not seeing the washed-out colors or fuzzy fonts reported by some. Here are some pictures shot with the iPhone. Any color difference between them is down to the iPhone camera’s white balance. Can you see a difference?

View attachment 1701036View attachment 1701037View attachment 1701038View attachment 1701039
Click to expand...

No apparent difference when considering the likely effect of the phone camera auto settings.

As I've suggested elsewhere, while I'm sure some folks are truly experiencing an issue, I suspect this is not nearly as wide spread as it might appear reading one of these threads. It also seems more related to YCbCr 4:2:2 vs 4:4:4 and may also be affected by whether the monitor is connected via HDMI or Displayport.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mistercharlie
Having the same issues on a Dell U2719D here. Fonts looked pretty awful, setting font smoothing to 0 as per the below did help, but then fonts look significantly worse on the built in MacBook M1 Retina display so it's not a great solution.

efaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 0

Unfortunately I forgot to check what setting this was on before changing it to zero, would someone with an M1 MacBook be able to run the below & let me know what the default smoothing is set to please?

defaults -currentHost read -g AppleFontSmoothing
 
nanoblade said:
Having the same issues on a Dell U2719D here. Fonts looked pretty awful, setting font smoothing to 0 as per the below did help, but then fonts look significantly worse on the built in MacBook M1 Retina display so it's not a great solution.

efaults -currentHost write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 0

Unfortunately I forgot to check what setting this was on before changing it to zero, would someone with an M1 MacBook be able to run the below & let me know what the default smoothing is set to please?

defaults -currentHost read -g AppleFontSmoothing
Click to expand...
Code: 
defaults -currentHost read -g AppleFontSmoothing
2021-01-09 19:54:18.888 defaults[8792:626291]
The domain/default pair of (kCFPreferencesAnyApplication, AppleFontSmoothing) does not exist

That key doesn't seem to exist on a default installation, you should be able to delete it to restore the original behavior.
 
Having similar issues with new MacBook Pro M1 and LG 27UD88-W 4k monitor (over usb-c).
I took two photos using same manual camera settings (W/B, focus, ISO, shutter speed etc).

On first photo external monitor is connected to left MacBook Pro 2018 (intel) and displaying black screen.
Second one (on the right side) is the new M1 chip over usb-c displaying the same black screen.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20210110_163756.jpg
    IMG_20210110_163756.jpg
    153.5 KB · Views: 338
  • IMG_20210110_163815.jpg
    IMG_20210110_163815.jpg
    169.1 KB · Views: 308
alex_sbb said:
Having similar issues with new MacBook Pro M1 and LG 27UD88-W 4k monitor (over usb-c).
I took two photos using same manual camera settings (W/B, focus, ISO, shutter speed etc).

On first photo external monitor is connected to left MacBook Pro 2018 (intel) and displaying black screen.
Second one (on the right side) is the new M1 chip over usb-c displaying the same black screen.
Click to expand...
Nice work!
 
This is worrying actually as the release notes for 11.2 mention fixes for resolution problems for external displays but nothing for colour issues (lack of rgb etc).

For ref, I have the LG 27UK850 (connected to an M1 Macbook Pro) and I've done an advanced calibration but didn't correct it too much, so in the end, I settled for the supplied "Rec. ITU-R BT.709-5" profile as that looks like it gets as close as possible to the deepest black levels without sacrificing the rest of the picture.

It still isn't right though as when I'm browsing sites I visit every day it still feels like the blacks are dark grey rather than black.

Hoping Apple has something in the works for this.
 
amitdel said:
Would you know any way to determine if one is seeing YPbPr 444 or YPbPr 422? (Either in some system menu, or on the OSD)? It would help hone in on an acceptable display without subjectivity.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, 444 vs 422 generally isn't exposed to the user. Most devices spitting out YUV (steaming boxes, blu ray players, etc) don't care about the difference. Most things that *need* 444 are PCs and sometimes game consoles, and they can use RGB in that case. It's simpler, and you don't generally lose much in terms of compatibility.

Honestly, Apple really needs to say something here and let people know if a fix is coming or not. This sort of "use YUV over HDMI by default" likely stems from the shared HDMI/DisplayPort controllers they use in the iPad Pro SoCs, and possibly even shared drivers. I'm hoping this isn't behavior baked into the hardware itself.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 410 and pldelisle
GandalfGarry said:
This is worrying actually as the release notes for 11.2 mention fixes for resolution problems for external displays but nothing for colour issues (lack of rgb etc).

For ref, I have the LG 27UK850 (connected to an M1 Macbook Pro) and I've done an advanced calibration but didn't correct it too much, so in the end, I settled for the supplied "Rec. ITU-R BT.709-5" profile as that looks like it gets as close as possible to the deepest black levels without sacrificing the rest of the picture.

It still isn't right though as when I'm browsing sites I visit every day it still feels like the blacks are dark grey rather than black.

Hoping Apple has something in the works for this.
Click to expand...
I take the release notes as neither a positive nor negative sign. The RGB/YPbPr issue may be too subtle for most people to notice, and it is well known that not everything Apple fixes makes the release notes.
 
Curious if anyone has updated to the new beta version OS and have noticed if this was addressed?
 
Hoping for a fix as well, super annoying.
The colors on my primary display are super washed out compared to my second screen on my M1 Mini.
 
Two LG 4K.
Can’t remember the exact model.
One is connected via HDMI (this one has the color issues) and one via USB C-> Displayport
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back