I just received a MacBook Air M2 few days ago and I noticed that the display flickers even more than old MacBook Pro, and especially with gray colors (worse temporal dithering?) My config is: 8 core GPU / 16GB / 512 SSD Here's a slow-mo comparison video with my MacBook Pro 13 2018 (both at max brightness, filmed at 720p 240fps) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuuoJR-4BU Another slow-mo video on Safari : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwLl_lbq0Zs

karut It's recorded at 720p 240fps with iPhone 7

This is pretty atrocious.. you should take these videos and post them in the MacRumors forum.

@insta42014 Thanks for joining the forum and thanks for this video. Given you see it at the highest brightness I think calling this PWM can be ruled out. +1 to posting on MacRumors (or giving me permission to post your videos on there 🙂).

insta42014 i am not understanding this if you check notebookbookcheck review they said there is no PWM and no Temporal Dithering

ryans I remembered where I have seen this sort of shimmer before.. several years back, one of the Microsoft Surface tablets had that problem. I wanted to show the video of it here but I never found the link again. It was doing the same shimmering, MS had to push out a new Intel graphics driver to fix it, I don't think it was a hardware fault. @insta42014 If you feel up to it after reading about it, can you run the Asahi Linux install script? The purpose of doing so is because not having a GPU driver, it's all software drawing. If the shimmering stops, then we know it is a software issue.. but if it doesn't, then the problem is deeper. Installing it won't remove MacOS, it just makes another partition and you can dual-boot between them.

If you have an external monitor, do you see the same shimmering? What about changing to sRGB color profile ?

try to boot in safe mode and record it again

ryans Yes you can post it on MacRumors if you want I tried sRGB color profile, color calibration, safe mode and the flickering is the same Here's a slow-mo recording in recovery mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0mVlkf61KE I just returned it today so I I couldn't do more tests

Videos of MacBook Air M2 flickering

degen

Sunspark I am determined to try Ashai Linux but I was thinking of using a Mac Mini since HDMI ports are working on that but not Mac Air yet

hoangnguyen

Some M1 Air also had that flickering. How do you solve it? It is better to return it to the store.

healwithjason

insta42014 Do you remember which charger you were using with it and if you had it plugged in while you recorded these?

the123blackjack I just asked them with a comment about why they didn’t see a flickering even though insta42014 was able to record some.

If you guys could also comment under the newest Macbook Air M2 review at notebookcheck or ask the author of it on twitter we could potentially get some insight!

asus389

Are the M2 air and 2018 MBP running the same version of Mac OS?

insta42014

asus389 Yes

caboy My MacBook Pro 13 2018 has a LG panel and I had severe eyestrain before using Iris to avoid PWM and disabling dithering, now it's okay. I think that disabling the touch bar which has PWM also helps (I use the Hide My Bar app). I also calibrate my display to 6000K using i1 Display Pro colorimeter and it makes the display nicer to look at and less agressive

caboy

One possible explanation might be the use of display panels from different vendors. I first noticed eye strain /pain from a Macbook Air in 2012. It had an LG display. I ordered another and got one with a display made by Samsung. That one was okay. No eye strain or pain. At one point I remember getting one with a display made by AUOptronics, which also gave me eye strain / pain.

There used to be a command that would show which display panel a macbook had. It seems apple has disabled command that in Monterey.

asus389

insta42014 interesting thanks. I can use my 2017 on default settings except I turn off the keyboard backlight which I think flickers. Mine doesn’t have a Touch Bar. If I upgrade the OS past Catalina I start getting eye strain they are doing something different with graphics in the newer OS versions I think.

caboy

insta42014

What is Iris? Would be interested in checking that out.

asus389

My work macbook is a 2019 mbp. It was good until Big Sur. Upgrading to Monterey hurt immediately. I think you are correct. It seems like in the new OS versions this is the default.

insta42014

caboy https://iristech.co/, it allows you to change the brightness of the display while keeping the real brightness at 100% to avoid PWM

You can also disable dithering using this method: https://ledstrain.org/d/268-osx-dithering-help-wanted/171, you have to enter the command line in recovery mode

Let me know if it helps

caboy

insta42014

Thanks

Alfort

insta42014 was there an improvement on your MacBook Air M2? I got one delivered yesterday and the screen felt uncomfortable to me. When I was on the shop I had a first bad reaction to the screen and the one on a MacBook Pro 14 inch M2 looked much better, but I thought to get the Air at home and have a proper look. I also made yesterday a 240 fps video for both the Air and a MacBook Pro 15'' 2015 and both showed artefacts blinking but much more noticeable on the Air.

Also anyone that has been able to compare the screen on the MacBook Air M2 and the MacBook Pro 14'' M1/M2? I'm thinking on getting the latter but it has PWM

madmozg

Alfort I tried MBP 14 m2, its still bad unfort 🙁 well its better than MBP 16 m1, but still giving me brain fog which is not acceptable to use on a daily basis. There is a guy on youtube who is using some interesting device to measure PWM, here is a video for MBA m2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urB2xtr3h3c It doesn't look that bad as iphone or especially as samsung s23, so I assume we getting problems with eyes because of FRC, i think current macbooks are using 8bit + FRC display, but i might be wrong.

markdotpeters5

madmozg this is abou as good as any display gets, it's very very low. Lower than the iPhone 11 which is frequently the 'go to' device for people suffering with PWM sensitivity (like me).

It seems this Air might have been faulty to me, as many many other people have commented it has no PWM/temporal dithering and is fine to use.

AGI

I can't believe that a device that costs that much isn't checked against flickering. What a shame.

Apple-Meta-USA

Any Solution ?

Apple-Meta-USA

I‘ve the same on my MBA M2, by iPhone 240fps recording (slow-mo)!

It's not caused by temporal dithering since i disabled dithering by using StillColor!

Apple-Meta-USA

So WTF is that ?

Same as the video shows, which provided by the Owner of this thread on the top.

Blooey

Does the flicker only show up only for certain patterns? Is it certain colors, or is it all colors? Does it only affect darker shades? Is there a known website or image with the effect that I could test under slow-motion?

The answers to those questions could help narrow down the source of the problem.

TemporalDithering

Is that the backlight of the panel flickering?

I can’t believe a screen flickering like that is allowed to be sold on the market. The level of modulation seems to be very high. Do we know what frequency it is?

JTL

TemporalDithering I can’t believe a screen flickering like that is allowed to be sold on the market.

As I understand it, there aren't really any regulations for product safety in this department. And attempts at certification (i.e TUV) seemingly have glaring holes that make the certification not worth the paper they're printed on.

The level of modulation seems to be very high. Do we know what frequency it is?

I don't have the device at issue on hand, but at some point I might investigate how to measure flicker/modulation percentage and other aspects with waveform capture using an oscilloscope, but that's yet another project I potentially need to work on. I wouldn't exactly trust the Lupin and other portable flicker meters for accuracy.

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