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

@Lauda89 On the iPhone X, change the brightness slider to 50% and run that test again. The modulation depth will be different.

@NewDwarf thanks again for your help on this!! I have a Rx 5600 Xt in an EGPU exclosure do you know what commands I'd need to disable dithering on that please?

DigDeal Sorry to hear the firmware downgrade did not work for you. I wish there were better methods for empirical measurements of these problems (I see there are some hopeful developments in other threads here recently). Because of this, it can be hard to determine whether some irreversible changes are occurring during software updates (not limited to the main firmware), or if our brains now associate the whole device with being a threat, even after reverting to the previous, tolerable state. I hope our continued research here will ultimately bring some clarity.

@GBowler noted different levels of eye strain between two identical MacBook models with different installed firmware versions. I also have several MacBooks of the same year (2015), which all had recent firmware versions, but among them I find certain screens more tolerable than others. So, while firmware remains a possible factor, I am currently leaning more toward attributing my personal issues to panel variations.

i think laptops with ips lcd screens would cause the least eyestrain?

macsforme you could check the display panel of your Mac with the following command:

ioreg -lw0 | grep \"EDID\" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

RobC Unfortunately, all display EDID values for this MacBook model/year appear to be identical. My understanding is that Apple removed the ability to see the display model/vendor after people were returning earlier retina MacBook models which did not come with a display from their preferred vendor.

macsforme . Sorry, the right command is:

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed “/[^<]*</s///” | xxd -p -r | strings -6

I used this commands with several MBP 16 2019 and all three panels were different.

macsforme 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.

This might not be possible, because it requires a "known good" system of the same model but in that case it might be possible to compare firmware dumps between a "bad" versus "good" system and potentially identify what's different.

From what I remember (almost) all laptops integrate the GPU VBIOS into the UEFI ROM image, as opposed to desktop GPUs where the GPU VBIOS is flashed onto a separate chip, so identifying or changing the VBIOS in use can be done with external tools.

DigDeal Maybe this is how they increase sales? Got eye strain, aha, need better product? I mean this sounds ridiculous but in this world I am surprised day by day as to what is possible when you have weak CEO and very pushy board.

RobC Here you go, under the marketing layer, there is the same or maybe even worse situation than in PC market. Does Dell have the same problem ?

macsforme yeah, pretty sure at that stage it's at least partially psychological. I'm literally scared to update any usable device at this point.

Interesting note, again proving my point that it's 100% software related, is that using "safe mode" makes it tolerable. Not ideal, but not as harsh as in regular mode. Most likely some sort of hardware acceleration is disabled.

Donux yeah well this plan backfired lol. I'm not buying another Mac, thank you. At least on Windows I could make a backup and roll back drivers and software on my own if needed.

Hunter20

Here's AHKinject_SCN078.dmg

https://mas-fx.filemail.com/d/sofofeusdcicyvs

Really interested if this works for you. Please report back! I tried on a 2019 16" MBP with Sonoma and didn't seem to work. See above. Let us know if this works on your 15"!

RobC I currently have four of these machines. All four return only "Color LCD" for that command. Three of the four (including the one I subjectively find most comfortable) return the exact same entire EDID string, while the fourth is not a byte-for-byte match but when parsed by edid-decode all values still appear to be the same. If the ability to see more panel info returned on later Macs, that is good news and may be helpful to us here.

JTL I suspect you are right about VBIOS being stored on the main firmware chip (especially the Intel integrated VBIOS, but likely the discrete AMD VBIOS as well). My initial tests consisted of reconstructing an old firmware image (with some help from some guys on the MacRumors forums) from a combination of donor dumps found online and Apple's own .fd firmware images from their macOS installers (specifically an old version from the El Capitan era). While this seems like it should include an older GPU VBIOS, my preliminary testing did not seem to show any differences in GPU info listed in the OS between old and new firmware versions on this model (although there is still more testing to do). Also interestingly, someone on this board (maybe you? ) found an "AMDFirmware" update script in macOS installers, which seemingly suggests an AMD VBIOS update outside of the main firmware, but that could also be for different GPU models (such as those in desktop machines).

macsforme Did you tried with the following version of the command?

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///"

If you put every answer line into an edid-decoder like this one: https://hverkuil.home.xs4all.nl/edid-decode/edid-decode.html you could get much more details of your panels, like the vendor and date in which they were manufactured among others.

RobC Yes, I tried the command as you posted it. As I stated, all the info is the same when parsed. Manufacturer: APP; Model: a02e; Made In: week 4 of 2015; Serial Number 0; Monitor Name: Color LCD.

Sonnis Could you please tell what is the panel manufacturer of this laptop you have used? - "MBP 14" M1 Pro" which caused very minor symptoms for you. This could be a really good purchase once the panel details are known, since on the second hand market these laptops already going quite cheap, yet still very powerful.

macsforme I suspect you are right about VBIOS being stored on the main firmware chip (especially the Intel integrated VBIOS, but likely the discrete AMD VBIOS as well). My initial tests consisted of reconstructing an old firmware image (with some help from some guys on the MacRumors forums) from a combination of donor dumps found online and Apple's own .fd firmware images from their macOS installers (specifically an old version from the El Capitan era).

If you have any forum threads or information from elsewhere I might be of interest.

If you sent me the firmware dumps/images in question I might be able to take a look as well.

Also interestingly, someone on this board (maybe you? ) found an "AMDFirmware" update script in macOS installers, which seemingly suggests an AMD VBIOS update outside of the main firmware, but that could also be for different GPU models (such as those in desktop machines).

Not sure I recall that exactly, but what I do remember is some desktop Mac systems used GPUs similar to the same model as commodity PCs but had "Mac Edition" VBIOS firmware for them and it's a thing to flash cards sold for PC use with "Mac Edition" VBIOS's to improve Mac compatibility. So that's some prior art for differences between Mac and PC VBIOS's, but considering what else I said I wouldn't be surprised if the situation with Macbook's is different enough that might not be relevant.