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Troubles with 5120x1440 resolution

G

goto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 6, 2013
22
0
Hi!

I have iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) with AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4 GB and till today I was using it with two additional displays (4K + FHD). Today I purchased new display (idea was to replace the FHD one): Philips 499P9H/00 Curved HDR. It has a native resolution of 5120x1440 pixels. Unfortunately, my iMac is not allowing me to choose this resolution in settings (even with 4K unplugged). The max res it offers is 3840x1080. Is there anything I can do to unleash the full power of my new screen?

I was considering a switch to new mac mini but now I'm not sure if it would handle such resolution?

Thanks!
 
jerwin said:
are you using hdmi, or display port?

Your display might work over display port 1.2, if it also supports mst.
Click to expand...

I use DisplayPort and display supports DisplayPort 1.4. I don't think it supports MST.
 
That's the thing though, your imac has diisplay port 1.2, not 1.4.

what resolutions does your imac support over this monitor?
 
5K support - which is technically what your monitor is - was only supported with the 2017 iMacs and onward. The 4K resolution that you're seeing is the most that your iMac can supply to one display. The 2018 Mac mini does support 5K screens natively, and you could add an external GPU for even more power. Unfortunately, while your 2014 iMac technically supports external GPUs as well, Apple only officially endorsed and provided support for it over Thunderbolt 3.

Long story short, if you were considering an upgrade to the Mac mini, this isn't a bad time to do it.
 
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Ledgem said:
5K support - which is technically what your monitor is - was only supported with the 2017 iMacs and onward.
Click to expand...
Well, technically it is not 5K display. It is half-5K, that has less pixels than 4K.

Ledgem said:
Long story short, if you were considering an upgrade to the Mac mini, this isn't a bad time to do it.
Click to expand...
Can I be sure that recent mac mini will support this resolution?
 
goto said:
Well, technically it is not 5K display. It is half-5K, that has less pixels than 4K.
Click to expand...
Display resolution nomenclature has gotten a bit weird, it's true. You're running up against the 5K barrier because it has 5120 pixels on the horizontal access, which technically makes it a 5K (5,000 pixel) monitor. Some people refer to ultra-wide displays as "5K2K" but because your vertical resolution is 1440 your monitor doesn't technically qualify for that terminology, either. 5K1.5K I suppose, although it doesn't matter enough to coin a new term; 5K2K already strikes me as being a bit silly.

goto said:
Can I be sure that recent mac mini will support this resolution?
Click to expand...
I looked at the monitor, itself, and I'm not certain. Here's why.

According to Apple's website, this is what we have for the Mac mini:
Support for the following combination of maximum concurrent display setups:

  • Up to three displays:
  • Two displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz connected via Thunderbolt 3 plus one display with 4096-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz connected via HDMI 2.0
  • or
  • Up to two displays:
  • One display with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz connected via Thunderbolt 3 plus one display with 4096-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz connected via HDMI 2.0
Thunderbolt 3 digital video output supports

  • Native DisplayPort output over USB-C
  • Thunderbolt 2, DVI, and VGA output supported using adapters (sold separately)
HDMI 2.0 display video output

  • Support for one display with 4096-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz
  • DVI output using HDMI to DVI Adapter (sold separately)
Click to expand...
In other words, the Mac mini is technically capable of powering a 5K display (which your "5K1.5K" falls under), but only through Thunderbolt 3... although there's mention of video output over USB-C, as well (which is the same physical connector as Thunderbolt 3). Your monitor has two HDMI connectors, which according to Apple would not give you the full resolution, but it also seems to have a USB-C input. That's less standard on monitors at this time, so I can't really say if it would work, but it sounds like it should.

Looking on Amazon, there is one person who wrote a review remarking on troubles with a 2018 Macbook Pro, and it seems over HDMI. Resolution was limited to 4K for them until they bought SwitchResX. A software fix implies that either MacOS has trouble with that monitor and/or resolution, or that they're still not getting the native resolution but the software is upscaling for them.

I'd recommend trying to look up more about video over USB-C for monitors. Worst-case scenario you might just need to try it for yourself to see what happens. Apple does have a return policy; you could always make the purchase and, if it didn't work as you expected, return the system.
 
The new mac mini also doesn't support 5120x1440 (I have the Dell U4919DW).

I actually picked a mac mini yesterday because I had a 2014 macbook pro that wasn't able to drive the display. A quick google before buying and I found the same page jerwin linked to in the first reply, which to me seemed to clearly say that my macbook pro won't work, and any new mac mini would.

It's very frustrating that it doesn't work. Search for issues with 5120x1440 and you'll find numerous posts on Apple's websites, Dell's, Philips, LG, etc all detailing that it just simply doesn't work.

that dell monitor (U4919DW) in particular supports a picture-by-picture mode where you can have 2 computers connected to it, and it splits the display for both. You CAN get the mac mini (or even older macs) to display fine if you use 2 cables and configure it in Mac OS as 2 screens next to each other.

Caveats:
- Your dock will be on one side of the display. I haven't found a way to center it
- the status bar at the top also does the same.

Everything else works fine.

My biggest issue is that I use that monitor with a bunch of machines. Using PBP mode is very cumbersome when switching the inputs on the monitor because you have to disable PBP first, switch the source, reenable PBP, etc

I really don't understand why this doesn't work. I have a 3 year old crappy PC that's runnin 5120x1440 just fine. I didn't even imagine that any newer mac won't work. i just wanted to make sure that my old one is indeed not working (it works with PBP mode) and just bought the new mac mini

I'll be returning it today and just use my existing mac in PBP when I need to.
 
fusspot said:
The new mac mini also doesn't support 5120x1440 (I have the Dell U4919DW).
Click to expand...
Sounds like maybe it's a weird resolution that macOS won't work nicely with on its own.

Have you tried using something like SwitchResX to force the resolution? It's not free software (cost is $16 or 16 Euros), but you can try it free with no restrictions for ten days. Might be worth installing it to see if it'll help to fix your issue.
 
fusspot said:
The new mac mini also doesn't support 5120x1440 (I have the Dell U4919DW).
Click to expand...

That is really stupid...

I wonder now if it is a hardware issue (you could try SwitchResX to check) or software issue. I kinda made the decision to build Hackintosh, but now I have my doubts...
 
I know it is not a hardware issue. I have tried windows 10 on it and it runs at the full resolution. Apple simply doesn't support 5120x1440 in the current drivers.
 
COTraderxyz said:
I know it is not a hardware issue. I have tried windows 10 on it and it runs at the full resolution. Apple simply doesn't support 5120x1440 in the current drivers.
Click to expand...

I have an update on above: Apple simply doesn't support 5120x1440 in the current AMD drivers.

I took my retina mac book pro (mid 2012) that uses nVidia GPU and connected the display using mini display port to display port cable. Out of the box the output resolution was 3840x1080, but SwitchResX was able to boost it to 5120x1440@30Hz (see attached photo). This simply confirms that Apple did a very poor job with AMD drivers.

Maybe I should try eGPU enclosure with nVidia card inside...
 

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2019 Macbook Pro 13'' has intel graphics which cannot output resolution width greater than 4096 using macOS driver. It is able to do 5120x2880 on displays that use a dual DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2 connection (LG UltraFine 5K, Dell UP2715K).
You can use the AGDCDiagnose command to see the connection(s) to a display. Each port of a display may have a different EDID. Some display settings can modify the EDID.

The new MacBook Air 2020 with Intel Gen11 graphics does support resolution widths higher than 4K. It also supports DisplayPort 1.4 and DSC. I wonder if this update (10.15.4) affects older Intel graphics? Probably not.

AMD should be able to do single connection 5120 wide. I think 10.15.4 made a change for that. Before 10.15.4, you could fix the problem by going into SwitchResX and selecting Scaled Resolution Base to 5120x1440.
 
First time poster, but was reading about this as I had the same issue as I have a fix. I have 15 mbp touchbar, tried switchresx but I thought it looked fuzzy with my LC49RG90SSEXXY and still registered at 3810x1080. In the end I could only get it working by running 2 qhd with 1 HDMI and 1 Dp to a Dell dock. so I went out to get some dp to USB C to avoid the crappy Dell dock. It actually worked worked at 5120x1440 now, not sure if it was big Sur too, but strange as it didn't work with my HDMI to USB C.
 
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