si_edgey

Hi @"si_edgey" -- are you able to share any more details on this? Note that the kext only works with AMD/ATI GPUs, I don't think it will work on Intel GPUs.

      ryans

      I'm afraid I have long since abandoned Macbook laptops - they just won't work for me, and I also believe that Apple is intending to deprecate the KEXT system in favour of System Extensions, which would mean a rewrite of the code.

      The main issue is that the KEXT checks for the Amulet hardware being attached by USB - so you could reverse engineer the code to bypass this check but I'm not entirely sure who to approach to do that. The key info the developer gave me was:

      1. Crucially, they were only able to develop the kext because of a tight relationship between the company he was working for and ATI/AMD, who guided them on how to tweak the right parameters to disable the dithering. They didn't speak to Apple at all, this was done entirely with ATI/AMD as temporal dithering exists at the GPU driver level in MacOS - it's an abstraction the kernel has no interest in handling directly, it just tells the GPU/driver what colour it was where in the framebuffer
      2. There is a hardware check as a 'dongle' for the kext. This could be bypassed by patching the kext to USB vendor ID that the kext looks for to verify hardware. I think this is where we should focus our attention as once bypassed it will at the very least allow us to rule out temporal dithering as the root cause of our issue in MacOS.

      Hope that helps somehow!

        9 months later
        5 months later

        @JTL we're you ever able to program a solution? I'd love to message you for more info. I've tried to inject the AHK kext, but it was no help - I assume because of the hardware/software check. Desperate to find a solution on disabling dithering on a 2019 MBP

          5 days later

          MAS-76 Does the MacBook Pro 16'' 2019 have dithering with both (integrated and discrete graphics cards)? Or you use 13'' laptop which has integrated graphics card only?

              NewDwarf yes both the Intel and AMD have dithering. But from what I’ve read you should be able to disable on both.

                  MAS-76 Thanks. I found the way to disable dithering on any integrated Intel GPU regardless of the macOS version. I will definitely share it soon but currently I keep it private.

                  I am looking for the driver list used by the AMD Radeon GPU. Maybe you can share this list?

                      a month later

                      NewDwarf I'd definitely be interested. I went down the road with a programmer. He was able to disable dithering on the Intel graphics but not the AMD. Almost bricked the whole machine.

                      Were you able to make both work?

                          MAS-76 I was able to disable dithering only for the Intel graphics card.

                          I don't have 16'' MacBook thus I didn't work on disabling dithering on the AMD based cards.

                              MAS-76 'bricked' the machine? if you just mean rendering the operating-system inoperable having a backup of the kext directory thats restored in single-user mode and clearing the kext-cache should get you going again.

                              sadly the steps for this can vary on the operating-system version. the internet is your friend.

                                  axel No. You can't imagine how easy is the solution 🙂

                                  It is not display settings and direct kext level manipulations.

                                  Sorry, but I cannot reveal this information right now for some reasons.

                                  Probably, I will do it in three months.

                                      ryans Not exactly. But it would be interesting to hear your idea.

                                          NewDwarf

                                          Why keep it a secret?

                                          Can you at least tell us whether it gave you positive results?

                                              NewDwarf I will definitely share it soon but currently I keep it private.

                                              Will greatly appreciate anything you could share when you are comfortable doing so.

                                              Note that ditherig is open-source but unfortunately only runs on Windows. It seems Apple new devices is using Apple ARM silicon but working Intel is still very useful.

                                              Glad you got positive results, that's great!

                                              NewDwarf By reversing the Intel driver.

                                              That's awesome -- with IDA or something similar?

                                                    ryans Totally different approach in the macOS Intel driver.

                                                    Yes, I reversed it by the IDA Pro.

                                                        dev