Ranked on a 1-10 scale based on symptom severity. All laptops running Ventura unless otherwise specified. All using default display settings. MBA 13" M1 -- Instant eyestrain and nausea. (10/10 I only used this for a few minutes. Brutal) MBA 13" M2 -- Delayed eyestrain, no nausea. (6/10 I used this for a week. The eyestrain starts off mild and increases over time. I can only use it for 15-30 minutes before it's too painful. Not sustainable for long-term use.) MBA 15" M2 -- Instant eyestrain and nausea. (9/10 I only used this for a few minutes. Much worse than the 13" version.) MBP 14" M3 -- Instant eyestrain and nausea. (9/10 I only used this for a few minutes. Very uncomfortable.) MBP 13" M2 -- Mild eyestrain, no nausea. (3/10 I used this 1.5 hours daily for 6 days. No major issues using the preinstalled Ventura. HOWEVER -- when I upgraded to Sonoma, it was immediately unusable. I can only use this machine running Ventura.) MBP 14" M1 Pro -- Mild eyestrain, no nausea. (2/10 I used this 2-3 hrs daily for 10 days. Used for up to 5 hours in one day with no major issues using the preinstalled Sonoma. HOWEVER - when I downgraded to Ventura, the eyestrain kept getting worse. I can only use this machine running Sonoma.) MBP 16" M2 Pro-- Instant eyestrain, mild nausea. (8/10 I only used this for a few minutes. Could be a 9/10 or 10/10 but I'm unwilling to find out.) MBP 16" M1 Pro -- Mild eyestrain, no nausea. (2/10 I have only used this for 1 hour so far, seems not too bad. Running Sonoma.) Most recent update: 12/28/23

Sonnis If you are desperate, I can use the MacBook Air 15 M2 by taking a drug called fluxarten. In my case 5mg per day is enough and I can work.

Your post matches up with my experience with these models as well. I haven't tried the M3 Pro yet or the M2 15" Air but otherwise spot on.

I've tried most of these and found them to match up to my findings as well. The worst for me were 14 and 16" MBP, then m1 air, then m2 air 15", then the best was m2 13" air (still not great as a daily driver). I have not tried m2 pro 13". I eventually gave up on macbooks, sold my units and bought a Thinkpad x1 carbon and it is 10x better than any Mac I've used in the last 5 years. I really did not want to give up MacOS but I was getting severe symptoms and now I just wish I made the jump sooner because I'm pretty sure I suffered some permanent damage over the last few years without being away of what was happening. Thanks for sharing your results!

Would you mind sharing the exact specs of the M2 Pro that you have? I'm on an Intel Mac right now but I've been thinking recently that I'm gonna have to upgrade at some point…

Great post thank you! +1 for sharing the specs of your M2 Pro 13". I too am still on an Intel Mac (2015 pro) and badly need to upgrade.

devilgrove It's the base model 2022 13" MacBook Pro M2, 8GB, 512GB running Ventura. The other machine I'm having success with so far is the 2021 14" MacBook Pro M1, 16GB 512GB running Sonoma. They both have a different "feel" to my eyes and brain, but so far I have been able to adjust to each one. Oddly enough I can't use the 13" with Sonoma or the 14" with Ventura.

Did you attempt to run the with forced low power / high power mode? Or simply with power supply vs low battery, With ProMotion the framerate it gets capped at 60 hz in low power. What application you run also makes a difference on what framerate it runs at. For example if you have some constant overlay that changes it uses a stable 120hz instead of going up and down. This can be observed with Quartz Debug from Additional Tools for Xcode.

async No I didn't. All my testing is just using the OS and Safari, letting the battery run down with default settings.

I'm testing as many MacBooks as possible. Here are the results.

magi44ken

cyclops Thanks for the sharing the list. When you said other Thinkpad models works for you. Can you list the models?

magi44ken

Espers Do you have 2023 model of Thinkpad X1 Carbon?

MAS-76

Sonnis Doing some additional testing on my own. Gut feeling to start, for you was or MBP 16" M1 Pro Sonoma or MBP 14" M1 Pro Sonoma the best? Or both truly equal?

Or by chance have you found 1/10 option! Seems like we're all in the same boat, but I'm desperate to upgrade as my 2015 Intel MBP is perfect on the eyes though not cutting in on power/battery anymore.

Thanks!

NewDwarf

Lauda89 wow! Are you sure it is a good idea to take this pretty strong medicine on a daily basis just to use the laptop? 🤯

I just bought PWM free MBP 15” 2019 32GB RAM, 4TB SSD less than $1000 and I am absolutely happy with its performance.

Dithering can be disabled on the Intel as well as Radeon card. I prefer to use the Radeon card.

ryans

NewDwarf Dithering can be disabled on the Intel as well as Radeon card. I prefer to use the Radeon card.

What about Apple Silicon? Did you ever try this @NewDwarf ?

jordan

NewDwarf how do you disable dithering on Mac ?

MAS-76

NewDwarf +1 on that, you said you bought a “PWM free MBP 15” 2019” - did you disable the dithering somehow (and if so please share!)?

I tried the 2019 MBP and it still strained my eyes a lot, but I had only fiddled withe the settings and hadn’t been able to disable anything.

Please let us know what you did.

Lauda89

NewDwarf There are two versions of that drug, a 10mg version and a 5mg version. Fortunately, with the 15" macbook air, I only need the 5mg dose. Of course I would prefer not to take medication however I don't have a laptop that doesn't cause migraines right now.

When I work from home, I connect the mac to the 27GR95QE-B (27" 2K OLED 240hz) monitor and with this combination I have no migraine problems so I take the medication when I have to work from clients. So 0 to 5 times a week.

If i connect the same monitor to my gaming PC 13700K + 4070 + W11 21H2 gives me migraine problems after one hour of use.

I bought a PWM detector:

MACBOOK:

Gaming PC:

The modulation depth is worse with gaming PC but I don't think that is the problem. My current smarthphone is iphone X which has 240hz frequency and 99.5% modulation depth and I can use it for hours without any problem..

NewDwarf

ryans No. Since last time I didn't look for the solution for the Apple Silicon.

Probably, this is because I don't have motivation to do it as I use the Intel MBP.

Sorry for that.

NewDwarf

jordan If you have the Intel MBP, please read my previous message.

NewDwarf

MAS-76 MBP 15'' 2019 has two graphics cards. Depending of what graphic card you use, choose the option (I would suggest to permanently switch on the Radeon card):

To disable the default Intel graphics card, enter the recovery mode, open the terminal app and then enter the command nvram boot-args="dither=0". Reboot your laptop. To verify the dithering is disabled, enter the command log show --predicate "processID == 0" | grep Dither

Expected result is the string

Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleIntelICLLPGraphicsFramebuffer) [IGFB][LOG ][MODESET ] Dither is disabled in pipe misc

in the log.
To disable the Radeon card you have to install the kernel extension. Download it from here https://filebin.net/0wf82zq95cn01kx2, double click the dmg file (it will be mounted). Open the terminal app and run the command sudo cp -r /Volumes/AHKinject_SCN078/ahkinject.kext /Library/Extensions

The cp command will ask the password, enter it. The pop up window should appear to confirm loading of the kernel extension. Please, confirm it. Reboot the laptop.

To verify the extension was loaded, enter the kextstat | grep ahkinject

The expected output

176 0 0xffffff7f9720e000 0xff6 0xff6 com.amulethotkey.driver.ahkinject (1.1.1d1) C89AB321-97E6-3C86-ACBA-6498B6DCC100 <6 3>

MaxPowers

This is interesting. I've tried a few and my results are pretty much inverse to yours. The M1 Pro 16" gave me terrible eye strain, the 15" M2 is all good and I didn't have any issue with the M1 Air.

I think for me it's the mini LED tech. OLED also doesn't agree with me, but if I plug away I eventually get used to it. Not sure how good that is for eye health, but eh.

One thing I did notice is that once I had eye strain, it took a while to go away, and depending on the day, any screen could upset my eyes for a while. So it can be really hard to know what's what.

I've still got the 16" in the closet, so while I've not got any strain issues, I'm going to upgrade it from Ventura to Sonoma, to see if that changes anything.

rpozarickij

I've tried MacBook Air M2 15", but couldn't use it due to strain (for me around 8/10). I returned it soon after purchasing it.

Several months after that there was a chance to try out a MacBook Pro 14" M2 Pro at work and I was pleasantly surprised by how tolerable its screen was. It's not 0/10, but it's about 1-2/10 for me.

I actually got the same model for my personal use, because it was noticeably easier on the eyes than my old 2018 13" MBP (which I was using mainly with an external monitor). Interestingly, after turning on the new laptop I got worried because I felt more eye strain than with the work model even when I had both laptops side by side. Fortunately, the strain from the personal laptop subsided (my eyes adapted?) and they now feel identical to me. This might be evidence that even identical models aren't always truly identical (I've seen this already mentioned in the forum by someone).

asus389

rpozarickij I've wondered about this. I think that within the same laptop model they can use different panels (or even different batches of the same panel) that have some variance. And also, there are different configurations of the CPU/GPU combo within a product lineup. On the surface it doesn't seem like it would make a difference, but maybe somehow it does.

Kendallsj

rpozarickij I am so glad you said that! My company found one identical to my personal (which works great but I am not supposed to use) after two failed attempts with new models - pro and air. The only difference between the laptop they sent me vs my personal is that it is running Sonoma. My personal is on Ventura. I have them side-by-side and there is a difference. I talked to Apple Store in Denver and they said that the OS shouldn’t matter, and that I was the only one that has reported any vision issues at all to them. They weren’t denying I had issues, I don’t mean to suggest that, but they were confused as well. They suggested I see an optometrist. I did that, and no issues. I thought I was going insane over here.

Donux

rpozarickij Could you update on the situation as of Today. Any new symptoms, not a placebo ?

MAS-76

NewDwarf Wonderful!! I've actually run across that kernel and wasn't able to install before. I'm going to get my 2019 MBP back and try the above exactly as you write.

Question (sorry if this is obvious) - I though the MBP 15'' 2019 used both graphics cards, switching automatically as needed. Do I need to "disable" the Intel card entirely as I think you're recommending (and if so how?) or follow steps 1 and 2 above, that will disable the dithering on both cards, and I should be good to go?

Thanks again. If this can work you're a life-saver!!

MAS-76

NewDwarf

I finally was able to execute on a 2019 MBP 16-inch w/ Intel and AMD Radeon Pro 5600M. I got the below from terminal (the Intel response a lot longer than your above). It seems like dithering is disabled on both, right?

My eyes are a bit tired from messing with so hard to tell right now on symptoms, but…

For the AMD:

And for the Intel:

Hunter20

NewDwarf

Link is broken, can you upload the kernel extension file again?

Is every MBP 2019 15" model pwm free, or are there panel variances?

Kendallsj

Sonnis

I just wanted to just say thank you so much for sharing your findings. I know it takes a lot of time to test and report back with such great detail. This is extremely helpful. I can’t figure out what is going on with me, but it is nice to know that I’m not alone in this.

NewDwarf

MAS-76 The graphics cards are controlled by the commands

// Always use the integrated graphics card
sudo pmset -a gpuswitch 0

// Always use the discrete graphics card
sudo pmset -a gpuswitch 1

// Automatically switch between discrete and integrated graphics card (this is your laptop's default setting)
sudo pmset -a gpuswitch 2

From my experience, the best option for my eyes is sudo pmset -a gpuswitch 1

You can verify that the Radeon card is the primary card by Apple logo -> About this Mac

You should see something like:

BTW, you can apply both options to have dithering to be disabled permanently for both graphics cards.

GBowler

Thankyou NewDwarf!!! can't wait to try this

I have two Vega 20 15" 2019 MBP identical as far as I can tell, one gives me symptoms, one is fine,

The one that is fine has never been past Catalina 10.15.6 and I won't update it for fear the update to the firmware will give symptoms.

The one that gives me symptoms I bought refurbished so although it's on the same OS it has much later firmware.

I really hope what you've detailed above is the answer for me.

massively appreciate the detailed explanation, I'll try this tomorrow afternoon.

Btw for the discrete graphics are the instructions to be done whilst in recovery mode?

NewDwarf

GBowler The kernel extension to disable dithering on the Radeon graphics card is installed in normal mode.

macsforme

GBowler I have been investigating reports of eye strain on MacBooks being triggered by a firmware/OS update. I also bought a few tools to dump and flash different firmware versions on MacBooks (specifically testing the MacBooks I have, which are mid 2015 15-inch Pro models, both with and without the discrete AMD GPU). So far I cannot pin down the issue, but there have been several reports like yours and I plan to keep investigating. A GPU VBIOS update seems the most plausible.

I wonder if you can compare your non-symptomatic MacBook to the symptomatic one and report back further differences? The devices have identical configurations and exact OS versions? You reported already the different firmware versions; I am also curious about any GPU differences in the System Information app (especially ROM revision, gmux version, EFI driver version, etc.), SMC/BridgeOS version, the specific EFI firmware versions, etc. Anything you can observe/report may be insightful. I would love to pin down the specific update causing the issue, and whether it may be reversible.

Also see this MacRumors post about one user's eye strain which began with a specific subversion of macOS Catalina.

MAS-76

@GBowler great, please let us know if it works for you!!

@NewDwarf second GBowler's question if the discrete graphics fix should be done in recovery mode

And lastly, this should work on an Intel MBP 2019 16" with Intel UHD Graphics 630 and Radeon Pro 5600M (8GB) too, correct? Hopefully?!!

NewDwarf

MAS-76 the solution will work for all Intel graphics cards. But I am not sure it will work on the Radeon card on MBP 16” 2019.

Anyway, please check.

MTNEYE

MAS-76 Has this worked for you 2019 16" (not 15") MBP?

GBowler

NewDwarf thankyou!! fingers crossed very hopeful for this! 🙂

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