After installing macOS Sonoma 14.3 official release, I noticed that my mouse cursor is jittering like crazy when dragging windows around. Windows themselves seem to drag mostly smoothly, yet at times the windows also jitter. This is really annoying and was totally fine back in 14.2. Now the details below.
This only occurs only on an external screen and when the refresh rate is above 60hz (i.e. 100, 120). When the refresh rate is 60hz, there's some kind of smoothing effect applied to window dragging (which is actually really nice for 60hz screens), but that is gone when you choose a higher refresh rate.
I've also noticed that it is weirdly connected to polling rate. If I set my mouse to 4000hz polling rate, the jitter is mostly gone. This is not a fix, since 4k polling is absurd in terms of mouse battery and CPU load. The jitter is very random - sometimes more, sometimes less, maybe slightly correlating to load and producing less jitter on higher load. I have tried 125hz, 500hz, 1000hz and 2000hz (slightly less), all of which produce the same jitter. I believe it was the same with Magic Mouse, though that thing causes so much window dragging stutter with its' 90hz polling on a 120hz OLED that I can't even tell properly (it used to have the same smoothing effect at 120hz back in Ventura, why take it away?).
Lastly, I am running my external screen (LG C2) via HDMI 2.1. I don't have a DisplayPort/usb-c monitor to try, so curious if those connections are experiencing anything like that. I have a feeling that this might be a HDMI 2.1 problem, since Apple always breaks something around HDMI.
My life was perfect with 14.2, now they killed it. Will try 14.4 Beta and report if anything is changed there. If not, guess I'll need to drag 14.2 as long as possible, till someone at Apple gets some stick for breaking things that were fine.
Update #1: Actual windows themselves jitter more and more today. This is actually making things unusable.
Update #2: Same issue present in 14.4 Beta.
Update #3: It is fixed in 14.4 Beta 2! Absolutely butter smooth experience!
AVOID 14.3 WITH HIGH REFRESH RATE EXTERNAL DISPLAYS!
This only occurs only on an external screen and when the refresh rate is above 60hz (i.e. 100, 120). When the refresh rate is 60hz, there's some kind of smoothing effect applied to window dragging (which is actually really nice for 60hz screens), but that is gone when you choose a higher refresh rate.
I've also noticed that it is weirdly connected to polling rate. If I set my mouse to 4000hz polling rate, the jitter is mostly gone. This is not a fix, since 4k polling is absurd in terms of mouse battery and CPU load. The jitter is very random - sometimes more, sometimes less, maybe slightly correlating to load and producing less jitter on higher load. I have tried 125hz, 500hz, 1000hz and 2000hz (slightly less), all of which produce the same jitter. I believe it was the same with Magic Mouse, though that thing causes so much window dragging stutter with its' 90hz polling on a 120hz OLED that I can't even tell properly (it used to have the same smoothing effect at 120hz back in Ventura, why take it away?).
Lastly, I am running my external screen (LG C2) via HDMI 2.1. I don't have a DisplayPort/usb-c monitor to try, so curious if those connections are experiencing anything like that. I have a feeling that this might be a HDMI 2.1 problem, since Apple always breaks something around HDMI.
My life was perfect with 14.2, now they killed it. Will try 14.4 Beta and report if anything is changed there. If not, guess I'll need to drag 14.2 as long as possible, till someone at Apple gets some stick for breaking things that were fine.
Update #1: Actual windows themselves jitter more and more today. This is actually making things unusable.
Update #2: Same issue present in 14.4 Beta.
Update #3: It is fixed in 14.4 Beta 2! Absolutely butter smooth experience!
AVOID 14.3 WITH HIGH REFRESH RATE EXTERNAL DISPLAYS!
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