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

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:

1. White hdr video overly at 1% transparency
2. Virtual screen at half the display
3. Browser text rendering vs video text

@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.

martin

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 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.

Can't calibrate new XDR MacBook Pro display - missing 'Color' button, calibration option. | Page 7 | MacRumors Forums

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 tell

martin 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)

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Would you say that generally even for external display we should strive for

• IPS, not LED
• no FRC
• anything else?

Edit: after some more research… I found that "IPS" and "LED" aren't mutually exclusive. With that in mind, what kind of backlight would you recommend to look for?

I searched a lot of modern brands and they're all "W-LED."