Sampled on the same or close enough patch on blooey's test chart. Lenovo Legion Pro 7i at 60hz versus M2 MBP TB. I also suspect it is only showing pixel inversion differences at this point. The 7i is running ditherig.
Warning! Please do not click the link to watch the videos if you are or suspect you are sensitive to visible flicker!
photon78s Woww, that's an amazing difference compared to the 7i.
The 7i is definitely and obviously showing temporal dithering — but on the Touch Bar MBP, there's sooooo much less that I suspect that all that we're seeing there is mostly pure camera noise.
It doesn't seem to have a really noticeable pattern (compared to the 7i where dithering is clearly visible).
For example, I actually get something that is reminiscent of the remaining "flicker" on the Touch Bar MBP when recording even printed words on paper on my iPhone 14 Pro, which obviously shouldn't flicker, so I bet most of that is just camera noise.
That has been my reaction even since I got this cheap toy microscope looking at the differences between devices. Hope viewing the videos does not cause any further eyestrain as you said you are not sensitive to visible flicker!
photon78s Yeah the videos are totally fine to watch for me — I can literally watch a straight up flashing black to white strobe pattern on a screen and feel nothing at all LOL (in fact it sometimes even makes me feel better)
It's only the invisible & subliminal flicker that gets me
I should mention that I use the 7i at 240hz refresh rate. Whatever dithering or inversion that's there flickers faster (1/2 refresh rate for inversion) which for me is less straining (not for others). This is confirmed via scope video as well because of correct me if I'm wrong the Nyquist frequency and the limitations of 240 fps sampling rate.
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs (Lots of people think that is true with other Macs too, but two 2015 Intel Macs I tested actually also show PWM-like flicker on dark grays in 240hz slow-motion even at max brightness!
Which ones exactly?
JTL flicker on dark gray at 240hz slow motion detected on these 2 Macs:
-
2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro (AMD dGPU, Core i7, 16GB), in both AMD and Intel graphics modes
12.6.8 Monterey
Personally, I don't like using this laptop, very uncomfortable, so much glare. I can notice temporal dithering, everything is shimmering (which cannot be fully solved with dither=0, even in Intel integrated graphics mode)
-
2015 12" MacBook (Intel HD Graphics, Core M, 8GB)
10.14.6 Mojave
Personally, this laptop is pretty good, very usable (although not perfect). Dithering can be successfully & noticeably disabled with dither=0. Image is very stable. However, I still get some "waves of tiredness" symptoms switching between light and dark content (like when switching browser tabs) which seems to be connected to this PWM-like flicker
My guess is that video takes a widely different route to the display, and bypasses at least some stuff. Just based on cpu/gpu/battery considerations it makes no sense to run as many types of image adjustments there. Not sure if this is the same as what is used in BetterDisplay. It would be interesting to test the following:
@waydabber You probably know much of this even without testing
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs please how do you toggle on/off and test dither=0 on intel macs without the stillcolor app? Id like to try it. Mine is 15in 2018 with intel/amd graphics with Mojave.
reboot to recovery mode (hold Cmd+R while starting up before apple logo appears)
open terminal under the utilities menu
run the command nvram boot-args="dither=0"
reboot
this will only work in intel integrated graphics mode (force with gfxcardstatus app)
FWIW I have a 2018 macbook air that it doesn't work on at all (not even changing software brightness with betterdisplay will cause banding shifts, implying that it doesn't work at all), it's only ever worked for me succesfully on the 2015 12" MacBook. YMMV
if you really need AMD dedicated graphics dither disable method too, i can help you out later potentially, i know a more obscure method that lets you change without rebooting so you can actually see effects in realtime. if intel doesn't do anything, maybe AMD dither disable method will do something
fyi AMD method is neccessary for anything external monitor related. external outputs are hard-wired to AMD
too busy to share it right now though
however, on the one laptop I used AMD realtime dither disable method on — 2015 15" rMBP — despite noticeably changing how colors appeared it didn't actually fully remove the shimmering effect
(my theory is that 2015 15" has a "6-bit + FRC" panel that still tries to dither stable 8-bit GPU output)
maybe it would work better on P3 Wide Color MacBooks though like your 2018 15"
personally though, i've stopped messing around with dither disable methods recently because i'm literally in heaven now with my 13" M2 Touch Bar Pro with Stillcolor.
Literally has the most stable screen output I've ever seen on a Mac display. Better than any Intel Mac I've used and WAY better than everything else that has Apple Silicon. ALL other M1/M2/M3 stuff is unusable for me but specifically the M2 Touch Bar Pro is perfect — I am fully committed to it now LOL, not focused as much on improving my older Macs anymore
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Don't leave! We need you to keep struggling and pushing 
Didn't pull the trigger on an M2 yet, as I didn't find any with more than 8 GB ram, and it will be rough to go from 32 to that. My laptop is infinitely better, but still a far way from stable. Hoping someone with a bit more knowledge on how OS stuff than me has the drive to figure out the other stuff.
Currently experimenting with a small grid checker pattern to give the eyes at least some feedback for where to focus. Actually quite pleasant. Also digging into studies on peripheral suppression and contrast sensitivity to figure out what on earth the eyes / brain need for sharp contrast lines to stand still. Obviously they are still on the screen, but something is tricking the brain. At least it's easy to experiment with as the feedback is nearly instant.
I only have Opple4, unfortunately
Here is same laptop screen in last win11 at 80% of brightness - left is no dithering, and right is ST1 dithering mode (via ditherig tool). Without IGPU dithering, measurments looks more "flatty" without extra peaks
You have oscillograph + photodiode and Opple4, right? Can you proove, that type of chaotic noise in measurments, done by Opple Analog-to-Digital-Conversion, or its real screen noise ( flickering ) ? My quesiton is, if it is screen noise, the flickering frequency should be higher than 3 khz ( looking at period of 0.2ms of avg peak )
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Thank you, and turning it back on is I suppose the same process? nvram boot-args="dither=1"?
Also you mention you only use 13 M2. I woud need a 16 M2 (no touchbar, newer laptop) for my work, do you think there would be any difference in how stillcolor works there?
Just figured out that there is still the advanced color calibration tool in mac, even with XDR.
It takes you thru a bunch of these gamma adjustments where you compare a solid color to striped lines, but I actually found it most useful to look at the rest of the screen while making adjustments and see how text and lines feel. I've looked for a more advanced tool to create custom ICC profiles, but it seem that none exists, apart from calibration devices. Hoping @waydabber creates something at some point. There is also this app Gamma Control, but it doesn't cover more granular adjustments.
BetterTouch tool or some other app is required for ICC profiles to stick.
Hold option while launching it to enable the expert options.
do shell script "sleep 2;open -a '/System/Library/ColorSync/Calibrators/Display Calibrator.app'"
set theDlib to (path to the "dlib" as string)
tell application "Finder"
activate
open alias (theDlib & "ColorSync:Profiles:Displays:")
end tellmartin there is no 16" M2 with IPS LCD. 16" M2 with no touchbar (in addition to 14" M2 with no touchbar) uses mini-LED which is "the worst screen in existence" IMO.
avoid that one. only the 13" M2 with touchbar is safe (because it has a really good true 8-bit IPS instead of mini-LED)
the closest thing to a "more" usable larger Mac that Apple makes now is the 15" M2 Air/M3 Air, but from my testing those laptops are not perfect, they flicker on dark gray on camera. if you're not PWM sensitive though and only dithering sensitive it might be good to try?
for me however, two M2 Airs I tried with different panels weren't good enough even with Stillcolor — they both caused this sharp pressure in my left eye, and a tiny bit of motion sickness (13" touch bar doesn't cause these issues at all)
however, M2 Air with Stillcolor was still WAY better than mini-LED Pros, since pixel perfect details (at least on my second M2 Air with a better "panel lottery" result) actually looked sharp on the M2 Air instead of blurry, colors were pretty uniform, and I could still mostly be able to see "a lot on the screen at once"
for some people, a "good panel" 15" M2 Air with Stillcolor could very well be enough
but for me, both the "bad panel M2 Air" and "good panel M2 Air" still caused eyestrain, unlike 13" M2 touch bar MBP
so ultimately, i went with the touch bar model
(which for me isn't an issue because i prefer smaller laptops, lol)
async Didn't pull the trigger on an M2 yet, as I didn't find any with more than 8 GB ram, and it will be rough to go from 32 to that
interesting, i got one with 24gb RAM from refurbished store, so that was perfect for me
After some tinkering with calibrated profiles along with a pattern overlay it seems like it is possible to make some significant improvements to how straining the mini led screen is. Would be really interesting to be able to tweak everything possible in color profiles
