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

            NewDwarf

            Here's an example of banding/no banding :
            https://imgur.com/IDgqF5m

            If you look closely on the 3 screenshots below you'll see that banding is the same before (1) and after the command line (2), and that banding is worse on safe mode (3). If temporal dithering was disabled by the command line banding should be the same in (2) as it is in (3)

              insta42014 What is the technical background of that banding? How is it related to the temporal dithering?

              Technically, temporal dithering doesn't increase the number of sampling bits. So, dithering is just an illusion in your brain

              I would even say, that disabling of the temporal dithering will NOT remove visible gradients (banding in your term) as the display continues to produce 8-bit colours (regardless of the dithering). Moreover, by disabling the temporal dithering, we get rid of two virtual bits.

              Anyway, it is interesting to know who is the author of the banding theory and how he/she came to this conclusion…

                NewDwarf I think that we see the true capabilities of the screen when the system is in safe mode and the intel driver is not enabled. When this is the case the banding is horrible, due to the fact that dithering is disabled. In normal mode, without activated dithering algorithm, we should find the same horrible banding as in safe mode, but your solution does not worsen the banding which remains the same as before on normal mode (the gradients are blurry compared to those in safe mode).

                Using ditherig.exe in Windows to disable temporal dithering on Intel GPU introduce horrible banding (when it works and when the display isn't true 8-bit), showing the true capabilities of the screen.

                I also think that the MacBook Pro display is not even capable of displaying true 8-bit and relies on temporal dithering to show 8-bit and 10-bit.

                  insta42014 Honestly the dithering.exe on windows produce a lot of banding but i think that nobody was able to turn a bad device in a good one only with that software..

                  So if this command works also with the M1/M2 SOC i could buy a new MBP and try if it works also for me..

                  Does dither=0 remove spatial dithering or just temporal dithering? ditherig has the option completely remove both ~ which might be the cause (pure speculation) of the terrible banding.

                  insta42014

                  My experience since 2012 was that some macbooks would give me eye strain / pain and others did not. Laptops with display panels made by LG or AUOptronics would give me eye strain / pain. While Samsung did not. I think the Samsung panels were 8 bit while the other brands panels were 6 bit and had temporal dithering enabled.

                  Apple has removed the command that shows what vendors panel is in a laptop in newer versions of the OS.

                  I suspect the reason Apple and other vendors refuse to talk about this issue is because in 2008 Apple was sued by some professional photographers because of temporal dithering. It was making it impossible for them to do their jobs.

                  dev