**TLDR: Windows 10 22H2 (19045.3570) and SPECIFICALLY ONLY non-updated Intel drivers from July 2018 COMPLETELY TRANSFORM the 2018 Retina MacBook Air screen into one that feels like four times the resolution and comfort than any macOS version. This laptop went from "a computer I literally didn't even care for with a bad screen" to my daily driver that has the best screen ever across all my modern devices and I still cannot believe it. If you can't find a good Windows 10 setup TRY THIS.** Disclaimer: All information here is only in regards to the internal display. I have not tested this with an external monitor. I have a 2018 Retina MacBook Air (i5, UHD Graphics 615, 16GB) that was lying around for a while… I didn't really have a use for it though, since I never liked the screen compared to most of my other devices. It's an interesting case — since it actually defaults to \*only\* "millions of colors" despite also including "billions of colors" in the BetterDisplay menu, only supports sRGB (Color LCD profile has same appearance as sRGB), and does not have True Tone at all, which is rare for a Mac from the T2 chip era. Newer Retina MacBook Airs actually do support P3, which makes this a really unique Mac. But I still hated looking at the screen, tried it on Ventura, Monterey, and Mojave and all three versions just had a really smudgy look to the screen, Lots of glare, shimmery text, hard to discern individual pixels, colors looked drab and washed out, and completely dried out my eyes after 30 minutes of looking at it. Yes, the screen was on native 2560x1600 (1280x800@2x) Retina resolution and auto brightness was off. It's actually the first time I've had a disappointing experience with Mojave which was surprising. At that point, I just chalked it up to it being a cheaper LCD, probably some bad antiglare coating or whatever as it does have a relatively intense "blue IPS glow". At least, that's what I thought. At some point, I needed some way to run a Windows-only app, so I threw Windows 10 22H2 with Boot Camp on the MacBook Air. I installed it from Mojave and it seemed to install older drivers from 2018. Immediately, I noticed something felt different about the screen. Definitely noticeably better at first impressions, but I thought maybe it was just my preference for ClearType font smoothing at this point. But I didn't have time to fully evaluate it, because a few hours in — since I learned that Apple added precision trackpad support down the line — I decided to run some driver updates through the Windows version of Apple Software Update. It installed the new trackpad driver which is awesome, but I realized I left another box checked that installed an update to "support the Studio Display". After the Studio Display update installed, I realized it updated the Intel graphics driver all the way from the 2018 version to a 2022 version. The "Intel Graphics Settings" option on the desktop context menu vanished, and the app was replaced with the new Intel Graphics Command Center. Suddenly, the good impressions that I had with the screen on Windows at first went AWAY — and Windows 10 became just as hazy, washed out, and uncomfortable to look at as macOS had always been on here, at the same exact resolution settings. I was shocked because at this point, I was still kind of skeptical of the idea that software updates could change the way a display looked. ClearType was still enabled despite looking way worse now. Screenshots of the same apps before and after the update didn't seem to have any differences. But I just saw the screen change with my own eyes. A few months later, I decided to mess around with this laptop again and attempt to downgrade to the old Intel drivers. They're essentially impossible to find online, so I had to use the "Download Windows Support Software" option in Boot Camp back in macOS, which took a few tries to get working and not just pop up an error message. I was eventually able to get the 2022 driver uninstalled with Display Driver Uninstaller and install the original 2018 one again, which I could tell worked because the Intel Graphics Settings shortcut reappeared. After installing the 2018 driver, here are the only settings I changed: * Turning off the annoying "display power saving technology" (automatic contrast) in all power profiles through the graphics settings. * Disabling all triggers in the "Calibration Loader" task in Task Scheduler » Microsoft » Windows » WindowsColorSystem, which prevents any color management or color profile from being activated at login. * FYI — this is the task you can disable to get rid of that weird "change in brightness" that happens on some computers once you enter your password after a reboot. I don't see this documented anywhere, so I am sharing it here. (The Intel driver that I am now using is 24.20.100.6222 from 7/10/2018. If it matters, my web browser is Firefox 122.0. The MacBook Air is strangely still using a Ventura recoveryOS even after downgrading to Mojave, so it probably has newer system firmware.) This old driver has blown my mind. Immediately after installing I noticed the haziness and dry feeling I got from macOS and the newer Windows Intel driver completely vanished. The colors feel **more** vibrant, but in a good way that actually feels natural, not in that blown out way that's commonly associated with bad screens here. Apps in light mode don't feel like staring at the sun anymore, even at high brightness. Background colors look solid, not grainy. I can notice tiny details in the OS — like how the Desktop icon in the File Explorer sidebar has one dot at the bottom left and and a few dots at the bottom right — without trying to notice it, barely leaning towards the laptop, and without even needing my glasses. I've been using this setup for the past week now, for hours a day, and my eyes feel amazing. It feels like I got a screen replacement — but I didn't, because if I try to boot back into macOS the same exact eye strain I used to associate this laptop with returns. The screen DOES have PWM under 75% brightness (at a VERY high rate, 113600Hz), but I don't even care. It still looks great at low brightness with my Windows setup, and just looks even better at higher brightness. The one thing I've noticed is that this 2018 driver seems to have no concept of temporal dithering at all. There's a noticeable amount of banding, and changing the brightness and contrast settings will cause this banding to shift. Even after installing ditherig.exe, selecting the Spatial or Temporal settings does not seem to affect the banding at all, which leads me to believe that no form of dithering at all is implemented in this driver. (I still keep ditherig open "just in case", as I've recently noticed that on some of my other machines, the dither settings sometimes appear to not affect banding but still noticeably change some colors.) This is in contrast to macOS, where even on an old version like Mojave, there is no banding. Adjusting color table gamma in BetterDisplay will maintain an entirely smooth image with no additional banding — a clear sign of dithering, most likely temporal. Unfortunately, even the dither=0 boot-args trick does not affect this Mac in macOS. (I've only been able to get dither=0 to work on Macs from 2015, for what it's worth.) But I don't mind any more because I now have the perfect Windows 10 machine — which somehow is the SAME EXACT laptop. In summary, downgrade to macOS Mojave, install Windows 10 22H2 with **2018-era drivers**, disable DPST and color management for a MASSIVE improvement in display clarity and comfort on the 2018 MacBook Air. Install the trackpad driver but DO NOT install the Studio Display driver.

In my experience 22h2 is the worst win 10 edition. Try 2004 instead

@"DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs"#p32307 wow that sure sounds very promising!

@"Aquila"#p32325 For me, with this method I am having no issues with 22H2 at all, it works amazingly with these old 2018 Intel drivers on UHD 615. However yep it does look terrible with more recent Intel drivers though — but everything I use works perfectly with the old drivers, so I'll be staying on the old drivers for as long as this laptop still works lol

@"DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs"#p32329 I'm so happy for your good experience 👍

@"DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs"#p32329 > For me, with this method I am having no issues with 22H2 at all, it works amazingly with these old **2018** Intel drivers on UHD 615 @"si_edgey"#37 described a similar situation https://ledstrain.org/d/152-temporal-dithering-sensitivity-my-solution >Intel HD 630 driver version: 21.20.16.4475 (from **2016**, more recent drivers cause symptoms) It seems that the **old** version of the driver is the key issue (but dithering.exe is also mentioned)

One and a half weeks later of regular use. **When this specific Windows OS+old driver combo is used**, this 2018 Retina Macbook Air is still basically the most comfortable, sharpest, and crispest "high resolution" screen I've ever used. Basically zero strain. The only other "retina" devices I've used that rival this in comfort/clarity are: * 2013 iPad mini 2 (16GB, WiFi) with iOS 10.2 * Surface Pro 4 (i7, 256GB) with Windows 8.1 (through unofficial downgrade method) and old Intel drivers * iPhone 5 with iOS 6.1.3? This is crazy because if I boot back into macOS, the screen **on this same 2018 MacBook Air** is suddenly terrible again, regardless of macOS version, color profile, bit depth, resolution scaling, font smoothing strength, hardware vs. overlay dimming, BetterDisplay dummy displays, boot-args, even with Safe Mode or HW acceleration disabled through Quartz Debug (which gives a slight improvement, but I can still notice moving dither patterns on static content and white backgrounds). Even "viewing Windows screenshots while booted into macOS" looks bad, so ClearType is not a factor. But then I boot back into Windows and the screen is amazing! Of course, the current \~2022 Intel Windows driver also has forced color management and temporal dithering too, even with ditherig.exe. But the old 2018 driver that is provided by Mojave's Boot Camp is able to eliminate both. (As an update to my first post, I've realized that ditherig.exe **does** have to be open to 100% eliminate dithering and the "shimmering colors" effect.) I'm bewildered how **what appears to me as two different LCD panels** **can "exist" within one laptop** and how much JUST software can completely change perceived display quality. The nicest thing is that this working setup runs **Windows 10 22H2(!!)**, and even though Windows color management is disabled and """supposedly""" less color accurate, the native 8-bit sRGB LCD still displays beautiful and realistic colors, there are basically no "aesthetic" compromises except for banding in shadow/blur effects. T2 chip means Apple's official Precision Trackpad driver upgrade is supported, which is incredible, it provides true macOS-quality trackpad smoothness on Windows which is a laptop user's dream come true. This laptop still has pretty good battery life, runs quiet, and web browsing is snappy. Extremely fast 113600Hz PWM does not affect me, and the display is PWM-free when at high brightness anyway. For now, I think I've found my endgame, at least for a Windows environment. (I have disabled Windows Update. Just to be safe, I am also not connecting this laptop to any external displays, since everything is working perfectly right now.) When I need to use macOS apps, I am screen sharing from this Windows setup into another Mac via NoMachine. This has some quirks and lag but is currently my best "workaround" to use Mac apps strain-free.

@"DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs"#p32523 > I'm bewildered how what appears to me as two different LCD panels can "exist" within one laptop and how much JUST software can completely change perceived display quality. Congratulations, it looks like you have found your GOOD configuration :) If you write down your **GOOD configuration** briefly: 1) Windows 10 22H2(19045.3570) 2) Intel UHD Graphics 615 (6xx most likely too) 3) **OLD** video driver 24.20.100.6222 (https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=24.20.100.6222) 4) **ditherig.exe** (version??) with "disable all dithering" (https://kawamoto.no-ip.org/henteko/myapp_en.html) 5) internal MacBook Air LCD panel is everything right? do you see the **difference** on the test sample "gradient/banding" ? http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php macOS vs Windows 10 22H2 could you check your configuration with this driver from 2016? https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=21.20.16.4475 but only if you have an **full image** of your good system, to ensure that changes can be **rolled back**

(DDU also works for clean driver unininstalls [link to DDU page](https://www.wagnardsoft.com/display-driver-uninstaller-DDU-))

@"glvn"#p32526 Here is my full, working and strain-free system specs… ✅ = the minimum needed for a working setup. **General:** * **✅ MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018)** * Intel i5-8210Y @ 1.60GHz * 16GB RAM * 512GB SSD * ✅ Original unreplaced screen (unsure of panel supplier) * recoveryOS says “Install macOS Ventura” regardless of installed OS * **✅ Windows 10 Pro 22H2 (19045.3570) with Feature Experience Pack 1000.19052.1000.0** * (Windows is necessary, all macOS versions look terrible on this machine) * Installed via Mojave 10.14.6 on macOS partition * ✅ Screen resolution 2560x1600 with 200% scaling (HiDPI) * Default ClearType font rendering settings * Light mode * “Better performance” (option 3 of 4) power plan selected in both battery and plugged in * Battery saver disabled * Brightness 50% or higher works for me (76%+ eliminates PWM entirely) * ✅ Auto brightness disabled * ✅ NO Night Light * Custom accent color #00cfff (I find this more pleasing than any of the default accent color choices) * Enhance pointer precision off (not necessary but improves trackpad) * Mouse pointer shadow disabled * Text cursor blinking disabled **Software:** * WSL is installed (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS) * ✅ Firefox 122.0.1 (HW acceleration disabled, not sure if necessary) * VS Code 1.85.2 (Electron 25.9.7) * NoMachine 8.11.3 to screenshare into second Mac when needed * Display post-processing and hardware decoding both disabled * Renders at pixel-doubled “non-retina” resolution * The **only** app I've found to still have visible temporal dithering and cause strain, even within this entire configuration, is Figma Desktop — it seems to implement its own dithering algorithm due to its "enhanced" color management capabilities, because every other Electron app does not cause strain for me. Thankfully, Figma is able to be used strain-free via the web version in Firefox. **Apple Software Update (Windows):** * Enhanced Precision Trackpad driver installed * ❌ Do NOT install Studio Display support driver (this will update Intel graphics!) **GPU:** * Intel UHD Graphics 617 (Amber Lake) * Device Revision 02 with Video BIOS 1001.0 * ✅ Driver 24.20.100.6222 (7/10/2018) from Mojave Boot Camp **(most important piece, DON'T UPDATE!)** * ✅ “Intel(R) Graphics Settings” should appear instead of “Command Center” * **Intel » Display » Color Settings** * **Color Enhancement** * ✅ Brightness 0, Contrast 50, Hue 0, Saturation 0 * **Intel » Video** * **Color Enhancement** * Standard color correction: app default * Input range: app default * Total color correction: disabled * **Image Enhancement** * Sharpness: app default * Skin tone enhancement: disabled * Noise reduction: custom, 0 * Contrast enhancement: disabled * Film mode detection: disabled * **Intel » 3D** * **Application Settings** * CMAA: turn off * MSAA: app default * Anisotropic filtering: app default * Vertical sync: app default * **Global Settings** * Application optimal mode: enable * **Intel » Power** * ✅ Display Power Saving Technology **disabled** for ALL combinations of power states and plans **Disable Color Management:** * **Settings » System » Display » Windows HD Color** * ✅ Turn off “Stream HDR video" * **Task Scheduler » Microsoft » Windows » WindowsColorSystem** * ✅ Disable “Calibration Loader” task and all triggers (access the triggers within the task through double-click) * **Control Panel » Display Adapter Properties » Color Management** * ✅ No profiles associated with device in Devices tab * ✅ “Use Windows display calibration” should be unchecked and grayed out in Advanced tab **Winaero Tweaker:** * **Behavior** * ✅ Disable Windows Update: ON * **Boot and Logon** * ✅ Disable blur on sign-in screen: ON * **Desktop and Taskbar** * ✅ Increase taskbar transparency level: ON (disables Acrylic systemwide) * Wallpaper quality: 100 **Ditherig.exe:** * ✅ Ver 2.1 * ✅ “Disable all dithering functions” selected **(the final piece!)** **What you should notice if this works:** ㅤ 1. Display suddenly looks beautiful and crisp instead of hazy and “dry” ㅤ 2. Solid colors are uniform, clean, and still — not shimmery, grainy, and "constantly moving" ㅤ 3. Setting apps to light mode doesn’t feel blinding ㅤ 4. Text feels “on the background”, not “in front”, no shimmer, minimal glow/halo ㅤ 5. Small, precise pixel-level details in icons and UI are crisp and obvious ㅤ 6. Shadow and blur effects in Firefox and Electron apps have heavy banding, and adjusting brightness or contrast in Intel Graphics Settings affects this banding ㅤ 7. You begin to notice certain visual details that you have not experienced in this vivid of a way since the 2000s ㅤ 8. ???. ***Welcome home !!*** ꩜🐚🐚🐚❓❓❓

If you have a friend with a newer iPhone (13 pro or later) can you record a macro/slo-mo of the screen using both drivers? It would need a phone with the macro lens and 240hz slo-mo to see it. I'm wondering if the new driver is using spatial or temporal dither (or maybe both). It would be really useful to know what it is doing. We tried to do this on a MBP 16" and mostly didn't find anything. In this case, I bet whatever the Intel driver is doing will be visible.

MacBook Air 2018 + Win 10 22H2 + OLD Intel drivers = much more usable than macOS

async

Would be interesting to record some similar stuff in win and mac here if you do to try to deconstruct exactly what is different. It's time consuming as always tho.

Refresh rate / VRR
Different monitor timings / blanking
Different default gamma?
Copy color profile and timings from Windows to Mac?
Effect of turning off retina and scaling on both and running them at native resolution?
Recording of scrolling text https://www.testufo.com/framerates-text
How much does the same browser differ? Is the issue everything else on the OS?

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async Copy color profile and timings from Windows to Mac?

Windows 10 on 2018 Air is using no color profile at all at least to my knowledge, I even disabled the "Calibration Loader" service to prevent Windows from doing that thing where it "slightly changes colors right after typing in your password" on a fresh boot.

That's something that can't really be reproduced on macOS (since there's no way to truly use "no color profile" on macOS, the closest you can get is a "NULL ICC Profile" but that doesn't actually disable color management)

I'll check timings the next time I reinstall Windows on the 2018 Air. That will not be for a while, though, because I'm busy at the moment and I have other usable devices — so I currently don't have a reason to use my 2018 Air.

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