Studio display does not work with older versions of MacOS

[eyabs]

I have a Studio display which I just had to return because it does not work with my work laptop locked to Catalina due to a corporate policy.

I had assumed the requirement for macOS 12.3 or higher was only for supporting things like center stage and hey Siri. This is not the case.

When plugging in the monitor, apps including zoom, teams, and chrome instantly become unusably sluggish and will sometimes crash. Also, the webcam and speakers do not work, the native resolution is set to 4K, and when scaling to 5k, the display appears fuzzy.

I thought I could get it to work but tricking it to run in display port over USB-C mode, first my using a high speed usbc cable, and second by using the club 3D hdmi -> display port cable in conjunction with a usbc -> hdmi adapter. Neither worked, with the latter causing the screen to black out about once a second.

(Side note, I was able to use the club 3D cable to hook up my Apple TV and Nintendo switch to the studio display, albeit with no sound).

So if you’re like me and forced to use an older version of macOS, don’t buy the studio display. If you’re waiting for your order to ship, do yourself a favor and cancel it.

 

[Amethyst1]

I have a Studio display which I just had to return because it does not work with my work laptop locked to Catalina [...]

Thanks for sharing your experience. What Mac is this?

 

[TiggrToo]

I have a Studio display which I just had to return because it does not work with my work laptop locked to Catalina due to a corporate policy.

I had assumed the requirement for macOS 12.3 or higher was only for supporting things like center stage and hey Siri. This is not the case.

When plugging in the monitor, apps including zoom, teams, and chrome instantly become unusably sluggish and will sometimes crash. Also, the webcam and speakers do not work, the native resolution is set to 4K, and when scaling to 5k, the display appears fuzzy.

I thought I could get it to work but tricking it to run in display port over USB-C mode, first my using a high speed usbc cable, and second by using the club 3D hdmi -> display port cable in conjunction with a usbc -> hdmi adapter. Neither worked, with the latter causing the screen to black out about once a second.

(Side note, I was able to use the club 3D cable to hook up my Apple TV and Nintendo switch to the studio display, albeit with no sound).

So if you’re like me and forced to use an older version of macOS, don’t buy the studio display. If you’re waiting for your order to ship, do yourself a favor and cancel it.

To be quite fair, Apple does make it VERY VERY clear:

Unless you see asterisk’s or other means of signifying exceptions, go for what’s in black and white.

 

[eyabs]

Thanks for sharing your experience. What Mac is this?

2019 15" MBP

 

[Cashmonee]

Could this mean that the ASD could drop support for older systems due to an iOS update? I feel like a monitor should not require a certain OS to work properly.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Apple is growing new layers of barbed wire around their walled garden with the Mac Studio and Studio Display. Two easy words: No thanks.

 

[lcubed]

To be quite fair, Apple does make it VERY VERY clear:

View attachment 1990560

Unless you see asterisk’s or other means of signifying exceptions, go for what’s in black and white.

i would take this list with a big grain of salt.

the ASD works great with my iPad air 4 and my partner's old(er) dell laptop with TB

did not test the webcam on either

 

[joevt]

Maybe for Catalina, you can copy the overrides files from Monterey 12.3 to get 5K60 10bpc RGB.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/studio-display-natural-resolution.2338616/post-30974390

 

[cybertruck]

It worked normally for me on Catalina, excl. center stage. Are you sure your system is not limited somehow by your company’s “corporate policy”?

 

[joevt]

It worked normally for me on Catalina, excl. center stage. Are you sure your system is not limited somehow by your company’s “corporate policy”?

Are you sure it worked normally in Catalina? macOS only reports the framebuffer size, not the actual output resolution. You have to use view the timing info in SwitchResX or AGDCDiagnose or AllRez.

 

[cybertruck]

Yes I’ve had 2 full workdays before deciding to upgrade to Monterey, as I was curious to test center stage. Everything worked fine on Catalina for me (latest, not sure which version specifically).

 

[joevt]

Yes I’ve had 2 full workdays before deciding to upgrade to Monterey, as I was curious to test center stage. Everything worked fine on Catalina for me (latest, not sure which version specifically).

Did the timing info show 500+MHz or 900+MHz?

 

[iStorm]

Could this mean that the ASD could drop support for older systems due to an iOS update? I feel like a monitor should not require a certain OS to work properly.

Curious about the same thing, and also the reverse… Could newer Macs/macOS require the display to have a specific iOS version, but the display doesn't support it?

 

[Jeven Stobs]

Wait.
Does it work with Windows 10?
If so there is absolutely no reason for it not to work with older Mac software.

 

[MBAir2010]

Apple is growing new layers of barbed wire around their walled garden with the Mac Studio and Studio Display. Two easy words: No thanks.

great observation!
ii was just scrolling through their website and the dumb phrases they use
to entice freshmen and inspiring coders into overpaying for being "cool"
they should use:
"Outstanding Barbed-wire Enforcing the Walled Garden"
to describe their products.

 

[usagora]

To be quite fair, Apple does make it VERY VERY clear:

He clearly indicated he knew what the listed requirements were, but assumed that it was only for the "extra" features of the display:

I had assumed the requirement for macOS 12.3 or higher was only for supporting things like center stage and hey Siri. This is not the case.

I think it's quite reasonable to assume a display could at least be used as a no-frills DISPLAY with a less-than-3-years-old version of macOS. I'm surprised it can't be.

 

[EugW]

Wait.
Does it work with Windows 10?
If so there is absolutely no reason for it not to work with older Mac software.

Apparently yes... BUT... it requires you to install Boot Camp 6.1.17 which includes the driver for the Studio Display.

If you don't there are reports it works but only at 4K and with no camera.

This is extremely lame Apple.

 

[eyabs]

It worked normally for me on Catalina, excl. center stage. Are you sure your system is not limited somehow by your company’s “corporate policy”?

It seems to work normally, aside from no webcam or speakers. That is, until I open certain apps, mainly zoom, teams, and chrome. Then everything gets unusably sluggish and apps start crashing. But as soon as I unplug the monitor things work again. It seems to be a problem with the OS failing to identify the device type of the webcam and speakers, from what I can tell from digging through the console log. The apps I'm having problems will all happen to interact with the webcam.

 

[lcubed]

does your corporate policy allow the latest versions of zoom et al?
zoom and teams are not exactly the best behaved/bug-free applications

 

[You’re not me]

does your corporate policy allow the latest versions of zoom et al?
zoom and teams are not exactly the best behaved/bug-free applications

That’s quite an understatement.

 

[Jeven Stobs]

Apparently yes... BUT... it requires you to install Boot Camp 6.1.17 which includes the driver for the Studio Display.

If you don't there are reports it works but only at 4K and with no camera.

This is extremely lame Apple.

Does it work with PC running 10? If so that’d be incredible whack that it doesn’t run on Macs with older macOSs.

 

[lcubed]

Does it work with PC running 10? If so that’d be incredible whack that it doesn’t run on Macs with older macOSs.

Read the thread. The OP’s system has corporate policy restrictions that make it behave unlike the other responders with ‘normal’ catalina installs

 

[nastysailboat]

i would take this list with a big grain of salt.

the ASD works great with my iPad air 4 and my partner's old(er) dell laptop with TB

did not test the webcam on either

Everything works fine on 2013 Mac Pro running current Monterey tho. Should work like a normal display on different os and it sounds like it does for the most part. Other than the webcam and the slow apps. What are the other specs on the machine I wonder.

 

[eyabs]

Someone on the apple community support forums was able to 'fix' this problem by creating a task which killed the VDCAssistant process every 10 seconds.

Studio Display does not work with Catalin… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[Supermacguy]

A monitor that requires an OS to run is pretty silly. A monitor should just do what's its told: display the image given to it. Anything more is nice but it should fail/fallback gracefully. A hard pass on that for sure.