I disabled dithering on Apple silicon + Introducing Stillcolor macOS M1/M2/M3

Donux still evaluating but it's a lot better than 14" pro mini led of course. the air doesn't make me feel "seasick" like my pro mini led does

with Stillcolor, better than some intel macs that have temporal dithering too (i think i prefer it over 2015 15" pro AMD, 2018 air with macOS, 2020 intel 13" pro touch bar, since all of those have really heavy temporal dithering)

not sure if as good as my actual working laptops tho (2012 lenovo laptop, 2015 12" macbook, 2018 air but with windows installed and old drivers)

stillcolor actually makes the screen feel more still on the air (which it doesn't do on the pro mini led, so that's progress)

i also much prefer looking at the M2 Air compared to my iPhone SE 2, which is really reassuring because the SE 2 (on iOS 17) is a much worse example of a modern Apple LCD. the SE has way more glare and temporal dithering shimmer than the Air has even at default settings

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs It would be helpful to know if someone with an M2 MacBook Air can control any of the inversion test images at pixelinversion.com with Stillcolor. As in, do any of the test images flicker without Stillcolor, but flicker less with Stillcolor?

I’m trying to determine if Apple is combining their color dithering system with polarity inversion mitigation. Will make it easier to identify between the two under the microscope if we know.

The third test pattern down flickers on my MacBook Pro M1 16”.

Donux Both Color LCD, sRGB, and NULL ICC Profile (installed) all feel the same to me. However, not sure if I really like the screen of this M2 Air 13" anyway.

It's hard to tell because some things that I usually have problems with on dithered screens don't seem to be an issue here, at least with Stillcolor enabled. For example, reading words left to right feels pretty easy, animated UI doesn't distract me from something else I'm trying to look at, wallpapers don't shimmer, and the adaptive color of the menu bar doesn't feel "muddy", and it's much easier than I expected to look at the very left side of the screen.

This laptop doesn't seem to have additional TCON 10bit FRC, I think(?), because BetterDisplay color adjustments cause much more noticeable changes to banding with Stillcolor enabled compared to my mini-LED MacBook Pro.

Disabling dithering seems to actually reduce the screen's bit depth here, compared to on a mini-LED Pro where it still looks like 10bit.

But at the same time, there's definitely issues that are still apparent with me that usually wouldn't affect me on a truly working setup. Looking at vertically repeating content, like a bunch of "import" lines in code looks uneven and it's hard to "focus multiple of them at the same time", backgrounds still feel "uneven" even though they're not really shimmering, looking closely at the screen I see pure white backgrounds flicker (uniformly, so more like a PWM feel than a dithering feel?) even though I can't detect any PWM at all with a slow motion camera. Generally, the screen seems to be harder than expected to focus on and remain clear when I'm just idle and not actively reading something.

The "blotches" that appear with Stillcolor enabled is also really strange and points to some possible extra layer of TCON color calibration occuring, even if it's not related to 10bit FRC.

I will try to find a second M2 Air I can get side-by-side with this one in a few days to see if any of this could also be related to panel variation. It seems like this M2 Air is especially affected by the infamous "yellow tint" screen lottery, the screen looks really yellow even with Night Shift off and True Tone off when placed next to an Intel Mac.

I will be returning this one after I compare it to the other M2 Air. However, I'd say this is still better than some of the Intel Macs that had really aggressive temporal dithering (but on the other hand, noticeably worse than the "good" Intel Macs)

If anyone is wondering, I also tried BetterDisplay mirroring for a bit. Feels the exact same with and without mirroring.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Regarding the yellow issue, Apple is definitely sourcing the panels from two suppliers. One supplier's panels have a native white point around 6300k (slightly more yellow; see e.g., the RTings review unit for the M2 15-inch) and one supplier's panels have a white point around 6750k (slightly more blue; see e.g., the Notebookcheck review unit for the M2 15-inch). I have the latter, but would actually prefer the one you have. (That being said, I calibrate my display to a D50 white point with a Calibrite/Xrite device to reduce blue light so it ultimately doesn't matter for me.)

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

What is the shutter speed when you use the "slow motion camera" to test PWM. On my phone I can set to 1/24000 second shutter speed to help see PWM. If I don't see any line patterns indicative of flicker, then I use my diy oscilloscope and Opple 4 lightmaster device to check further.

DannyD2 but would actually prefer the one you have

FYI, it's not really an orange yellow, it's a weird looking "uneven greenish spotty yellow" that only affects light colors but not dark colors.

So what you actually end up getting with my Air for example is blue looking black backgrounds and Dark Mode windows, for example, but then a weird yellow-greenish tint on an icon or the white background of a web page that will keep clashing with each other over and over.

I actually have the same exact yellow tint issue on my iPhone SE and hate it on both of them, it doesn't really feel like "a Night Shift or low blue light effect" to me, it just feels like really ugly and inconsistent colors that make white feel both washed out and too intense at the same time. Again True Tone is off.

Compared my SE 2 to an SE 3 in-store recently and finally proved my SE was affected by yellow tint the store model had so much less muddy looking white backgrounds with the same exact settings.

Just a warning lol, because for me the bluer and non-yellow tint affected screens have always caused less strain (and I'm saying that even though I do usually prefer warmer colors, for example 2700k instead of 3000k lightbulbs)

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Blown away by the similarity here. I've had lots of these episodes of extreme somnolence when I get stuck with having to watch something straining. If I force myself thru it I can get to a point where it almost feels like the eyes shut off or I fall asleep while keeping them open. Can also happen while driving in the dark for a long time, without being sleepy in any way. I more or less have to get my body moving for it to clear, so I did suspect some kind of postural / blood pressure effect. Seems to be somewhat genetic. Happens from white rice and milk as well for me, without the need of any visual strain. Strange stuff. Interested in insights on it. Mostly happens after long term effort, so I do suspect it is related to glucose deprivation in some part of the brain. I'll try not turn this thread into a metabolic / genetic chitchat, but I'm happy to discuss it in some other thread if there are a ton of people with really similar symptoms.

Got the same issue with using a monitor as well. I spent 15 years with the legs upright at the desk at work, and are incapable of sitting at a desk. We should meet at some point I guess

When I push things to far with triggers I get excessive flickering from other things like window blinds and stripes. It's cortical hyperexcitability. Search for pattern glare on google images.

You don't happen to have visual snow as well?

Actually stumbled upon this while looking for some patterns. A study that shows that repeat exposure to these hyperexcitability triggers can provide adaptation and reduced strain. So in some cases this constant strive for eliminating all strain might actually make people more sensitive.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6867050/

async If I force myself thru it I can get to a point where it almost feels like the eyes shut off or I fall asleep while keeping them open.

For what it's worth, this never happened in my life until I bought the 14" M1 Max 2021 MacBook Pro, which is when it started happening every single day — then, after I finally stopped using it and switched to using another laptop for a few months, this symptom totally stopped happening.

I really suggest you stop using the mini-LED MacBook Pro as pushing myself to use it further just made it worse and worse.

(Even the M2 Air I'm testing right now, despite still thinking it's not an enjoyable screen to use and still experiencing reading issues with it compared to devices that cause no issue at all, is nowhere near on the level of bad that the mini-LED M1 14" Pro is. I can even tolerate OLED better than my 14" Pro.)

Something to note is that I bought the computer, experienced all of these symptoms, and stopped using it (after about a year of using it), all before I even learned about LED strain. I barely even knew what PWM was at the time LOL.

It was actually when I finally started feeling WAY better, after not using it for a while, when it finally clicked for me that it was the computer, given that the 2015 12" MacBook I had switched to looked so clean and crisp in comparison that it felt like I had entirely different eyes depending on which laptop I looked at. That's when I looked up something along the lines of "blurry text, hard to discern pixel-perfect edges even on native resolution, and overly-3D-looking window shadows on mini-LED MacBook Pro" and found this forum for the first time.

(This also made me realize that for as long as I can remember, i.e. again before I knew about PWM or knew I was sensitive to similar things, I've been turning the lights on and off in the house because it's always felt "too bright" or "too dim" to me or the walls appeared "both kinda dullish grey and white at the same time and just very muddy".

Finally, just 6 months ago, I swapped out the generic LED bulbs that were literally 100% flicker depth — even worse than flourescent — with some 2700K Waveform Centric lights and literally never have needed to adjust lights since. Colors look like the 2000s again.)

I also get really tired and find it hard to breathe after drinking milk. However, I don't have any issues with white rice, just ate some right now in fact LOL. Maybe there's different varieties of white rice, I know there's some "really soggy tasting ones" that I just avoid since they seem to upset my stomach, so maybe I've never had the kind of white rice that you've had a problem with haha

I don't think I have visual snow. However, there is a very very very minor grainy affect on my vision, basically the same as the grain an iPhone camera picks up but less strong. It becomes way more noticeable the darker the room gets. Still not significant enough though, I only notice it when I'm looking for it, it is there all the time technically but my brain just filters it out I guess. From people's descriptions of what visual snow is, this doesn't seem like that, it's also not snow-like at all.

I also have a weird effect when I look at the sky that looks like "a bunch of blurry faint black circles at the center of my vision quickly moving inwards over and over" that will also remain visible for a bit after I stop looking the sky. If I look really high up in the sky I also begin to notice "firefly-like" moving bright white sparkly points darting around really quickly. All of this only happens when I look at the sky, nowhere else, so I don't usually pay much attention to it. I just have accepted it as normal for a while, but of course I don't think most people see like this.

I've had these sky and graininess effects since 2013 at latest. Started having what I now retroactively call mild screen strain (but totally didn't realize it at the time) in 2017 after upgrading to a 2016 13" MacBook Pro, which honestly was a really tolerable and generally fine laptop in comparison to many others, but still had some weirdness when reading that I don't experience on truly good laptops. I was impulsively switching to my old Windows laptop many times I needed to focus on writing a really long document, even though I didn't yet know why I was doing that at the time.

Finally, started having REALLY bad screen strain after purchasing both an iPhone 12 and the M1 Max 14" MacBook Pro in 2021. The 14" Pro is the main culprit here.

Something important to note is that I don't have migraines or epilepsy. I had one event in my whole life that resembled a migraine in high school, nothing before or after that. Concerts with the craziest flashing strobe lights ever are also 100% fine to me, in fact sometimes I feel really good and feel like I have an expanded field of vision after going to a concert. It's only "invisible" events such as when there's lights that are supposedly doing one thing (looking still) but actually doing something else (flashing on and off or temporally dithering) that is the problem for me.

For reference, I am 21 years old (Gen Z). I'm probably one of the youngest people on this forum…

hyperexcitability triggers can provide adaptation and reduced strain. So in some cases this constant strive for eliminating all strain might actually make people more sensitive.

I understand what this means, however there is a lot of nuance to this in terms of meaning what you think it means.

Counterexample: I don't think finding the working devices I still owned and going back to using them made me any more sensitive, after all I had been having issues with the flickering LEDs in my house for years even before I knew that they were the reason behind why the house always felt weird and too dim despite "looking" bright. And trying to tolerate my mini-LED MBP more and more just made it worse.

In fact, using my working devices has allowed my eyes to relax, heal, and expand my field of vision in a way where suddenly I am seeing things again that I hadn't seen for a very, very long time.

But… on the other hand: The quote totally applies in certain situations. As long as you don't have something that would prevent you from doing this like epilepsy, literally adding an overlay window on my mini-LED MacBook Pro screen that visibly strobes black and transparent over and over, or an overlay of really intense moving grain over the screen — both of these I'm fine with looking at and weirdly enough find more comfortable to my eyes than the normal feeling of looking at the mini-LED.

And when I turn the overlay off after using the computer with it for ~15 minutes… suddenly, it feels like the screen is super clean looking, like "real life is running at a higher framerate", and turning my head around feels so much more smooth. It makes me wonder "is how I'm feeling right how like, the way a typical person actually sees??"

In essence, exposing myself to visible/obvious flicker and motion seems to make me less sensitive to invisible/subliminal flicker and motion. Reccomended if possible!

However, just "tolerating" invisible flicker like temporally dithered screens and 120hz LED lightbulbs over and over again has simply made things worse and has caused longer term impact to my vision. Not reccomended!

Finding better screens is still 100% worth it and has made my vision better overall! Also, using better lightbulbs in the home has actually made me more tolerant to bad lightbulbs in other locations!

BTW,

Totally random and out of the blue question:

Do you have synesthesia?

I've always wondered whether it (which I do experience) is connected to why I am extremely sensitive to and notice very, very small or subtle motions & patterns, or if it's just a coincidence, lol.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

If you get breathing problems from milk that is interesting for sure. The same happens for me, and it's almost like you can't get enough oxygen. Do note that I've been tested for most allergy stuff, and there are lots of non-IGE reactions that doesn't show up on tests or give the common hives and swelling. I would strongly advice doing some weeks with zero milk protein. That includes butter, chocolate and mostly anything with it. I should have done so 15 years ago. There has been some theories on a type of casein (A1 β-casein) in milk being involved in visual snow, contrast sensitivity and other neurological issues. There are also milk protein allergy induced ataxia, and galactosemia. Don't really think they are that relevant for me, but it's worth noting that there are more than 1 way where milk can be responsible.

I see your points. And ofc I don't think frying the visual system is the way to go, but I do get the feel that making slight alterations from time to time just kills adaptation and makes things worse. Simply switching the resolution or changing color profile. My symptoms appeared in the time after switching from a MacBook I had for years as well, but took forever til I realized what it was. And got really bad after covid. I also switched every bulb in my apartment to Philips Hue, and that might not have been the best thing to do, even tho it looked awesome I spent quite a bit of time in pure colored light.

Not much synesthesia. Had a few cases where loud sounds triggers specific color flickers, but it is rare. The visual snow is pretty mild and I don't know when I aquired it. Not bothering me. However it seems pretty linked to contrast sensitivity / irlene syndrome. The description of the text effects and other flickering matches that pretty perfectly.

One notable thing is that if I have tinitus and use my iphone 15 pro max in the dark it modulates the tinitus heavily. Almost fun actually, as I can move the phone in and out of my vision like a godamn volume knob on the tinitus. Nearly instant effect up and down. I guess that is mildly similar to how synesthesia works.

Some periodic hyperacusis, tinitus, nocturnal jerks / myoclonus, and sound induced startle and trunk spasms that no one managed to figure out. The latter can be induced by strong emotion. Mostly under management, and quitting milk proteins made a massive difference. It was rather extreme, and simply making a small sound while I was falling asleep would make my body jump like a meter up in the air. I would actually get pain in specific trunk spots and really strange sensory experiences at the time of waking up. Think, like synesthetic pain where you can describe the feel, color and movement of it. And it stayed in one spot for some weeks, before moving permanently to somewhere else. Good times.

I don't have migraine headache or epilepsy, and don't care at all for strong flicker or too much lights, but food triggers and rapid vascular changes triggers way more visual effects. And my left ear turns bright red when it gets bad, that is also a migraine sign. Had a lot of super strange abdominal effects similar to abdominal migraine or the described feeling people get from epilepsy onsets. Tingling diapraghma / upper abdomen. Been tested multiple times for epilepsy with flickers, as well and neurological checks and mri. They couldn't induce epilepsy, but they noted that I start spasming a lot from falling asleep, and there has been lots of weird sleep/wake things.

My sensory issues are more with hard to hear/see things. So car noises outside and amp up the entire system to the point where everything is loud. Seems like mild flickers does the same. Almost like it keeps turning up the volume to get the input. My experience has always been that if I get stuck bored or have to rest after being too excited my body will start spasming and I get issues. Back in the days I would turn on audiobooks at 4x speed together with metal music when I needed some rest.

Tbh most things doesn't bother me that much and it got way better, but as I'm I programmer I want to debug the hell out of it and figure out how it all fits together.

If it fits anyone else here and is useful, I had a pretty significant difference from dropping chlorinated tap water as well, and I strongly believe that people should find the underlying issue causing their problems, and not just remove all the problematic input. I would love to figure out how it all fits together. Might have fried my system at some point with experimentation with superdosing noopept and other nootropics, or the few psychedelic experiences, or it could be related to adhd/asperger that comes with a lot of signal processing issues. Or it could be related to neck / spinal cord. Abdominal issues. Or blood sugar. Tbh I don't know anymore, but it is extremely interesting to find this many similarities.

I searched pretty broadly for what is broken when things was bad, so I have pretty extensive knowledge on genetic metabolic issues that can affect things, as well as what can be moduled. Even spent some years digging thru full genome data to learn about many of the things where my body might be different. There are a lot of things that are barely explored on this forum.

This ended up pretty long. As I said I'd love to explore these things if others have similar links in another thread. If you see other things here that are similar to your issues do tell.

Hi friends

I have had the same problems with eye strain for 1 year after using a Macbook with the Apple silicon chip. I tried a lot of stuff, medicines, doctor appointments, etc.

I don't wanna write the same problems, that were already described here. Just wanna say that this monitor solved all my problems: LG 27UP850N-W. I know that it is not a laptop display, but with it, I can use my macbook with its power.

I literally can work with this screen for all day long. Just need to turn off all additional features like smoothing, HDR, DFC, local dimming, etc.

jordan

I mean "DFC", my bad. I turned off all features that "improves" image and used only base monitor settings.
+ 2x scaling (if monitor resolution is 3840 × 2160, I use 1920 × 1080 macos scaling)
+ Disable font smoothing via https://www.fontsmoothingadjuster.com/

more info you can find here reg resolutions and fonts https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/#integer-scaling

With this, I can work and do not feel any issues with my eyes