async Recently was using a similar setup to you with 1600x1000 retina streamed to 1280x800 retina.
Agree that it's a great way to get the extra space when needed without the really obvious and annoying scaling artifacts (and whatever the heck else the DCP/TCON might do whenever its not actually rendering at its physical resolution…)
I personally chose 1600x1000 instead of 1680x1050, as the Windows laptop I was using for a while as my remote desktop "window into macOS" also ran at 1600x900 (non-Retina however) on a pretty much an identically sized 13.3-inch panel as my m1air.
That way (when needed) I can get pretty much identical UI sizing as the previous laptop I was used to for a while!
Of course, that's still Retina instead of "True Non-Retina", but a "blurry" Retina scaled down (and importantly, without sharpening artifacts) is still more comfortable than native 2x IMO as "everything is smoothed out". There's no "sharp rectangle edges" distracting away from text.
However, actually "seeing the pixels" with True Non-Retina is still superior IMO — but then I'm stuck with larger UI and a lot less screen space.
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So far I'm enjoying both streaming 1600x1000 retina (bilinear filtering) and 1280x800 True Non-Retina (integer scaling) but crucially, using them at the right times and in the right places. They both have the ability to work great for me but each one has important strengths and weaknesses.
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1600x1000 Retina streaming is working really well for outdoors use & semi-outdoors with natural sunlight. Obviously needed for using a lot of "pro" apps that require the space. In most cases feels like the optimal size for the macOS UI, same density as my previous Windows laptop so it's familliar to me. Specifically when I'm outdoors I sometimes actually prefer this mode over True Non-Retina.
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But on the other hand, there's a certain magic to 1280x800 "True Non-Retina" streaming. Despite the large UI being limiting — planning, note taking, writing emails, reading long articles/books, any really in-depth web browsing where I'm trying to research something new or complex… ⬅️ I find it more comfortable doing these things in "True Non-Retina" mode than on any other screen I've used for a long, long time.
There are certain details and "patterns of symmetry and/or repetition" that I can only "see correctly" in True Non-Retina. Various websites and extremely information-dense content look entirely different to me while using this mode in a really magical way. Certain types of content take on a "whole new life" of reading comfort and "understandability" in this mode in a way that is legitimately a game changer for me.
I think one of the reasons is that I find it a lot easier to be idle for long periods of time — "thinking to myself, not actively using the laptop, but still staring into the screen" — in True Non-Retina. The screen feels the most "still and flat" it possibly can in this mode, I feel like I can actually slow down and think—
—instead of my brain suddenly getting really confused by a "still" hi-DPI desktop with no visible pixels. Even though this is still obviously wayyyyy more tolerable with Stillcolor vs. if it was also "moving" due to temporal dithering in this state — the lack of any sharp pixels to "lock focus onto" inherent to hi-DPI itself (aside from rectangles) can still just generally feel disorienting when not actively interacting with the laptop.
❗️❗️ For what it's worth, I was just feeling the most comfortable using 1600x1000 Retina streaming outdoors on a table further away from me. However, after recently getting back indoors and using it on my lap, I used Retina mode for only a tiny bit but then had the sudden urge to switch back to True Non-Retina. And now I'm feeling a lot more comfortable on that again…! ❗️❗️
⬆️ I feel like this will be very consistent for me, both streaming modes are able to work great in their own way, but seem to each rely on distinct optimal lighting + screen distance + environment conditions.
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Pinging waydabber for this final section…
Despite streaming eliminating Apple's really annoying scaler sharpening artifacts due to allowing the physical display to maintain native resolution output… it's worth noting that there are still "some" artifacts, but very predictable ones.
At least on m1air, maybe differs based on video decoding hardware?
(Fortunately, I cannot notice any "moving" artifacts at all.)
Streaming seems to be using something similar to chroma subsampling — it seems to have "less color resolution than brightness resolution" especially on reds.
For example, red text on dark gray background in a True Non-Retina stream looks very blurry (vaguely similar to YCbCr artifacts). This is only true on the stream target. This can actually be really easily captured in a simple screenshot of the target display with the stream "window"!
However, this is predictable, doesn't seem to introduce any other "noise". It does NOT seem to act like a full-on "compression algorithm" like Sidecar or remote desktop — it's more of just a basic reduction in color resolution. Not sure what causes it.
Fortunately, these artifacts seem to not bother me, but it would be really nice to have some kind of option to enable/disable this "color compression" when needed for color accuracy (as long as the hardware is capable of it).
@waydabber is this reduction in "color resolution" while streaming coming from an intentional decision in BetterDisplay? or is it something that macOS is adding itself in the way it handles screen capture and video decoding