I actually found that my Intel macbook pro goes haywire (fans spin up) if I set the scaled res to anything higher than 3008 x 1269. So even though I can do 3360 or 3200, it's practically not possible to do so for long period of time, the performance really deteriorates. Wonder if it is a limitation of the Intel GPU.
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M1 MBP & LG 34 inch ultra wide 5K2K
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fractional scaling in MacOS always had a huge impact on the performance. I remember my MBP 15" from 2014 too well, when I connected it to my 27" 4K monitor, running it at a fractionally scaled resolution. Fans constantly running, crazy hot, UI got slow and messy.
Interesting - how is this any different running at 3008 vs 3360 or 3200? Isn't it fractional as well? The native res is 5120 x 2160
MacOS is only fast when scaling the resolution at integer factors. I don't think that this has any noticeable impact performance wise.
If you use any other fractional scaling, it first creates a virtual, much bigger version of the screen in memory and downsamples that to the actual resolution. This also why some users complain about a less sharp result as it applies sharpening filters and stuff like that in realtime.
I don't see any impact from fractional scaling on an M1 MacBook Air. I suspect that on Intel hardware, fractional scaling turns on the discrete GPU which is going to produce a lot more heat and use a lot more battery.
Oh sure, mine used a Nvidia gpu which was didn’t get anymore love from Apple at this point and performed absolutely terrible. The one with an AMD GPU was better but it was still noticeable. Good to know it’s better with an M1!
I have actually, it works 95% of the time but will randomly stop working. I'll be returning the 5K2K.Have you tried monitor control? It has been updated to work with the m1 macs.
GitHub - MonitorControl/MonitorControl: 🖥 Control your display's brightness & volume on your Mac as if it was a native Apple Display. Use Apple Keyboard keys or custom shortcuts. Shows the native macOS OSDs.
🖥 Control your display's brightness & volume on your Mac as if it was a native Apple Display. Use Apple Keyboard keys or custom shortcuts. Shows the native macOS OSDs. - MonitorControl/Moni...github.com
This might be a silly question, but I'm now looking at other 34" monitors with 3440x1440 resolution. They should look as sharp as (if not sharper than) the 5K2K running at 3008x1269 right? I just want to make sure that the 5K2K pixel density doesn't translate to higher PPI even as lower resolutions.
if youre running 3008 x 1269 in hidpi it will look sharper than the native 3440x1440 due to the rendering performed.
(owner of native 34" 3440x1440)
If you used the MacOS scaling this will of course not change the PPI. A lcd running at lower resolutions also looks very different than the same resolution native. LCDs are terrible at interpolating or downscaling their internal resolution.
A 3440x1440 34" has 109 dpi I think, I could not work with that kind of ppi anymore, awful to look at.
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Before you buy a new monitor wait for the new M1X Macbooks which will be released soon. I hope the new models don't have such bugs as current M1 models.
Not at all! If you choose the ”looks like” 3008x1269 resolution in the macOS monitor preference pane, the resolution applied will rather be 6144(3008*2)x2538(1269*2), which will be downscaled to the monitors native 5K2K resolution. This is due to using the high resolution artwork UI backend, so to speak.
Thus a low dpi display like a 3440x1440 will look far inferior.
Thank you guys so much, this has been very helpful! I think I’ll keep the 5K2K for now and hope compatibility gets better with new Apple software/hardware updates.
It is more complicated…depends on what you mean by “sharp” I guess.
The 1440p will be sharper but lower PPI. For example, if you display an alternating 1x1 pixel grid, it will be pixel perfect, perfectly sharp, however lower PPI so maybe perceptibly jaggy.
Meanwhile, EVERYTHING on the 5k2k set to “looks like 3008” is getting interpolated, so the 1x1 pixel grid will look like an artifacted mess. Details in generawill be smoother/blurrier.
Soo…what ends up looking “better”, including with respect to perceived detail, is a perceptual phenomenon that will depend on the scale of the details you care about, in addition to the difference in PPI (lower but not interpolated on the one hand, higher but interpolated on the other).
For me personally, for my use cases, I can tell you I prefer looking at a 140 PPI 40” 5k2k (even at these interpolated in between/fractional retina scaling levels) compared to a traditional 109 PPI 27” 1440P display.
Here are some examples: https://gist.github.com/johncolby/70e4c52d845078f789b1fc23e3fb1cb0
Just to confirm my understanding (in layman terms), the exact same image would look 'sharper/clearer/more retina' on the 5k2k monitor even though the 3008x1269 resolution is lower than the 3440x1440 because the higher PPI allows interpolation between pixels, which allows for 'more details'?
In other words, an image would look better at 3008x1269 on a higher PPI screen than at 3440x1440 at a lower PPI screen?
Yes and no. What is important to know is that the image is NOT rendered @3008x1269 when it is using macOS “looks like“ scaling feature. While an ordinary 3008x1269 resolution would look inferior, with this setting every low DPI pixel is represented by four highDPI pixels, thus the actual highDPI resolution is a quadruple of the corresponding low dpi resolution. Somewhat like Windows 200% scaling or some Linux 2x scaling feature. Thus 3008x1269 highDPI in regards of the drawn resolution (not the appearance) corresponds to a 6016x2538 low DPI resolution, and thus is far superior in most cases even thought not every virtual pixel maps to a physical one. (This only applies is if the horizontal and vertical resolutions of a screen are exactly half of the physical pixel count.)
For instance the usable desktop space and the window sizes on a current 27” retina 5k iMac are equal to those on an older generation 27” non-retina 2.5k iMac, even though the display has quadruple the amount of pixels. Each element on screen like the cursor is just twice the amount of pixels in height and width.
I hope this makes this somewhat clearer.
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Thank you Rastafabi for the thorough explanation, I think I understand it now. In this case I'll be keeping the higher PPI monitor. Appreciate everyone who helped!
LG 34wk95u is weird. It can do 5120x2160 using dual-tiled mode over Thunderbolt 3 or it can do 5120x2160 using a single DisplayPort 1.4 connection.
Either mode should work but we are talking M1 Mac - you might have better luck with a DisplayPort connection.
try changing the display port version to 1.2 on the monitor. I have an intel MBP, and I have to use 1.2, 1.4 squeezes the vertical resolution, and doesn't work at all for some reason.
True. I have a 3440x1440 34" curved Samsung and a Dell 27" 4K. I prefer to work on Dell whenever possible. On Samsung, I have to disable font smoothing to make it usable.
I should say that the dual tile mode works with DisplayPort 1.2 (each tile is a HBR2 x4 connection). This makes it compatible with older Macs that can't output DisplayPort 1.4.
DisplayPort 1.2 might be able to do single tile 5120x2160@60Hz but only up to 8bpc RGB and only if you use CVT-RB timing (704 MHz) which might not work. The 34wk95u specifies 730 MHz in its EDID which is too much for DisplayPort 1.2 to do 8bpc RGB.
The monitor is not weird, it's just the M1. If you use an Intel Macbook everything works perfect which means the M1 devices are beta products 😂
Having said all that-I would like to get a decent 32-34 inch USB-C monitor so that I can charge my M1 Mac Air and use that single cable for display (cuts down on wires and easier to plug in and out).
I am not a professional and don't work from my monitor, just want a half decent bigger monitor to use with the M1 MacBook Air
could someone suggest any that seem to work fairly well witho it glitches?
I am not a professional and don't work from my monitor, just want a half decent bigger monitor to use with the M1 MacBook Air
could someone suggest any that seem to work fairly well witho it glitches?
Hi found this thread whilst researching monitors for a M1 MacMini I was planning buying to replace my iMac 5k.I thought I had narrowed monitor choice down to either the LG 5k2k or the U4021QW but have read all the scaling issues. I've been trying to figure out if native would be too small for me as I feel that 3008 x 1269 will be too big.
Can anyone with either of the monitors take a screenshot at native resolution so I can view it at the correct dimensions to figure out if the UI is too small. Thanks
Can anyone with either of the monitors take a screenshot at native resolution so I can view it at the correct dimensions to figure out if the UI is too small. Thanks