Disable dithering on M1/M2 devices

wlmsn

So does BetterDisplay fix the eye strain/nausea problems for most of you on the M1/M2 models?

I'm tempted to give it another shot but the Apple Store is going to ban me soon if I keep returning things haha

MTNEYE

wlmsn I did not have luck with any better display settings as of ~5 months ago. Not sure if new features have been added.

MTNEYE

Thanks for all the work on this. Awesome stuff. Anyone else fine on external monitors? Have a 4k LG and a bunch of 1440p Benqs and they are of no problem to me with my MBP M1. However, using the internal LCD or airplayed to my 4k Apple TV = classic dithering/PWM eye feel for me.

Also, obviously read and followed this whole thread but what is the current state of attempts, any luck from anyone? I’ve shelved my MBP M1 for the last couple months and been using older MBA and MacBooks. Tried all the great attempts on here and just can’t make it work for me.

As a side anecdote; a iPhone 12M at 100% brightness with reduce white point for dimming and that works for me. XS Max same settings did as well. 13 did not.

MTNEYE

Hacklord interesting. Have you had any further luck with this? Thanks for your work

DannyD2

Hacklord

Do you know if anyone is working on a kernel extension that uses IOConnectSetCFProperty() to set this value? It seems like it wouldn't be that complicated.

ascourtas

DannyD2 or DannyD2, have you heard of anything?

Rtez

Is there a way to make these silicon chip machines use DC dimming instead of whatever they currently use?

ascourtas

Hacklord do you know if anyone has figured out the "enableDither" CLCD2 property? I have an M1 Macbook Pro, and I've tried both the BetterDisplay dummy mirroring approach and the args setting approach and neither has worked for me. Notably, I too get "enableDither = Yes"

I can tell it hasn't worked because I have an e-ink monitor, and the temporal dithering is apparent as a horrible "shimmering" or movement on the monitor. My 2019 Intel Mackbook Pro does not have this issue.

Hunter20

I found an enumeration called "kIODisplayDitherDisable" when searching here--> https://developer.apple.com/search/?q=dither&type=Documentation

Searching further on google i found out it's an enumeration used here:
https://opensource.apple.com/source/IOGraphics/IOGraphics-406/IOGraphicsFamily/IOKit/graphics/IOGraphicsTypes.h.auto.html

How can we change the loaded enum to (always) use this value?

anon123

I don't have a Mac right now, … I'm not a programmer but I did a search on copilot, i hope this helps someone

Answer

To disable dithering on macOS using the kIODisplayDitherDisable key, you need to write a program that uses the IOKit framework to interact with the display settings. Here's a step-by-step guide on how you can do this:

Set up your development environment: Make sure you have Xcode installed on your Mac. Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) that you'll use to write and compile your code. You can download Xcode from the Mac App Store.
Create a new project: Open Xcode and create a new project. Choose the "Command Line Tool" template under the "macOS" tab. Name your project and set the language to C.

Write the code: In the main.c file of your project, write the following code:

`#include <IOKit/IOKitLib.h>`

   `#include <IOKit/graphics/IOGraphicsLib.h>`

   `int main() {`


   CFDictionaryRef dict;
   
   CFBooleanRef b = kCFBooleanFalse;
   
   dict = CFDictionaryCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, (const void\*\*)&kIODisplayDitherDisable, (const void\*\*)&b, 1, &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks, &kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks);
   
   IOServiceSetCFProperties(service, dict);
   
   CFRelease(dict);
   
   return 0;


   `}`

In this code, service would be a reference to the IOService for the display, which you would need to obtain using other IOKit functions. This is a non-trivial task and requires a good understanding of the IOKit framework.

Compile and run the program: After writing the code, you can compile and run your program directly from Xcode. If the program compiles and runs successfully, it will disable dithering on your Mac's display.

cyclops

Rtez

Notebookcheck claims the M2 MBA doesn't use temporal dithering:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-M2-review-The-faster-10-core-GPU-isn-t-worth-it.640427.0.html

MTNEYE

cyclops interesting I wonder how that would be possible, it’s a 8 bit display that displays billions of colors. They would have to dither to get those? I randomly just picked one of these up with a 1/2 broken screen, that’s flashing horriblyh. If you thought pwm was bad, this thing is like a visible strobe. Was going to use with an external but now I want to get a replacement and try. Wonder if it’s the 15” also.

Edit: May have answered my own question. Looks like they filmed at 240fps under a microscope. I doubt this was fast enough catch the dithering

Zazu

Hi all just want to double check, does this mean that my dither is off?

Donux

Zazu What your eyes are telling you ? 🙂 And just because you have boot parameters set, it does not mean it actually triggers anything in kernel or at firmware level. It should be really noticeable impact on the eyes if dithering is off, like day and night.

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