Since my solution seems to be a unique one (and could possibly be incorrect) I'll post it here.

In Terminal, write:

sudo nvram boot-args="dither=1"

Reboot.

Also, you can check if it's there by entering nvram boot-args afterwards. It should write out boot-args dither-1

Edit: this is actually incorrect, it should be sudo nvram boot-args="dither=0", thanks to NewDwarf for the fix.

    devilgrove Yay! You found it!

    …But, you cannot enter this command in normal mode! You must enter the recovery mode first and then run that command.

    To disable dithering you have to enter

    nvram boot-args="dither=0"

    Not sure why you put dither=1. 1 is incorrect parameter here.

        devilgrove I'd be super keen to hear if you still find an improvement given the correct argument being used. I have found a 2020 to try it on but would appreciate hearing about your experience. Having seen your other threads our issue appears very very similar.

            NewDwarf well, the reason I thought it was dither=1 is because I read that the default was 0, so my assumption was 0=true and 1=false. And the output did change for me, so maybe I got lucky.

            Also, I actually inputted your command into Terminal during recovery, but when I input log show --predicate "processID == 0" | grep Dither, it still loops "Dither is enabled in pipe misc" every time. See picture below:

            https://imgur.com/a/qbXM4da

            If you have any advice on that I'd appreciate it as well, I'm a bit confused now since my eyestrain has undoubtedly relieved.

                devilgrove Reboot to the normal mode. You have to add the nvram parameter only once. This parameter is passed to the kernel on booting.

                  devilgrove Hmm. Interesting…

                  Could you share the output of below command, please?

                  nvram -p | grep dither

                      devilgrove One more advice. Wait when the command

                      log show --predicate "processID == 0" | grep Dither

                      is finished. More likely, you see the old logs. The last string have to report you about disabled dithering.

                          NewDwarf Wow, you're right! It does say disabled at the end. I didn't even realize that I was looking at log history, I thought the command was constantly checking for some reason. Thank you!

                          Looks like OSX dithering has finally been solved 🙂

                              NewDwarf honestly I wouldn't have been able to find that solution without you assuring that there was a simple solution like that, so thank you. You're also clearly much more knowledgable than I am about OSX disassembly, so I appreciate the troubleshooting as well!

                                devilgrove Looks like OSX dithering has finally been solved

                                Wow, this is a dream. Nice job! Very nice solution, setting the NVRAM param 🙂. Have folks tried it and saw eye strain improvement!

                                Would be interesting to see if a similar solution exists for Apple silicon.

                                    ryans

                                    I've gained access to an M1 Air later this evening and have a 2020 Intel i5 MBP arriving Monday. Both were unusable previously so will be interesting to try this out.

                                    Will report back

                                      NewDwarf Doesn't work on my MacBook Pro 13 2018 (Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655), banding stays the same before and after the command line, and banding is worse on safe mode

                                      When entering the command log show --predicate "processID == 0" | grep Dither, it shows :

                                        0    kernel: (AppleIntelCFLGraphicsFramebuffer) [IGFB][LOG  ][DISPLAY   ] [Modeset] Dither is disabled with bpc 1

                                          dev