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

jordan his e-ink display is in high speed (not HD) mode, which uses dithering to achieve everything between pure black and white, instead of displaying true grayscale.

only HD mode on boox truly eliminates dithering. (this is why the "fast" modes look a lot less high resolution too or seem to cause jagged edges around text)

what you're seeing here is that effect, i get it on my boox device too whenever there's movement, so it's coming from e-ink and not macOS.

the style of dithering used on e-ink isn't the worst thing to me because the screen still remains entirely still when nothing is happening i.e. when i'm trying to read, and i actually like how it's visibly obvious instead of trying to appear "invisible" as this makes my eyes understand it more.

but definitely dithering on e-ink is still something to be aware of when getting into e-ink devices lol, not a lot of people talk about it. but when an e-ink screen is still, nothing should be happening, which is the thing that matters most!

aiaf so my friend was testing his Mac internal screen more with still color he says it feels better if he mirrors his eink monitor to internal screen. He said even with stillcolor and not mirroring it feels less comfortable still color helps but stillcolor + mirroring makes it a lot more comfortable.

wonder if this is similar to the people who say better display mirroring helps. Wonder what it could be!

Blooey

I just tested a Mac Mini M2 using my 240fps cam/microscope setup and I can confirm I see flickering even when Stillcolor is enabled.

The Mac is connected via a usb-c to displayport cable to a LG monitor (LG 27gp95r-b) running at 144Hz. Color profile is set to sRGB. This monitor shows less flicker but still some after the latest windows update (Win 11 Home Build 22631.3235) when connected to my Legion 7i PC. I think that latest Windows update introduced more flicker but I'm still testing this.

In addition to screen mirroring, try using the computer via OBS studio on a known true 8-bit panel secondary computer running a older OS/gpu driver with the new computer connected to a cheap USB capture card.

jordan I had never used BetterDisplay, but I followed the instructions on their GitHub. I think I created a mirrored virtual display, of the main display, mirrored back onto the main display. Which is pretty wild.

But that combined with, and without Stillcolor, I still have temporal dithering under the microscope. Again, I can't yet say for certain the source of this flicker, but it has all the signs of temporal color dithering, using frame rate control.

jordan did it feel OK in HD mode? boox devices only dither in the other "fast" modes

however, it's definitely hard to use a boox device entirely in HD because it runs at only about 3 frames a second in that mode lol

(and it will switch in and out of HD every time you scroll, which i really wish i could disable)

another huge factor about e-ink is lighting. the type of lights in your home actually matters even more for naturally lit displays… if your lightbulbs are flickering LEDs, the boox will "basically become PWM too" as it's illuminated by whatever light is in the room. this becomes really important if you're using it in a lot of other places with random lighting conditions. (using it outside in sunlight avoids this issue!)

another thing to note is that i can totally see why e-ink can cause eye strain if someone is sensitive to "visible" flashes as well… because in all modes, you get that full, obvious flash from white»black»white whenever you press the "full screen refresh" button. (i'm fine with this, since it's not a flash of "illuminated" light, but i can see how it can be annoying)

and of course, dither is used in all non-HD modes as all shades of gray get turned into super dense patterns of black dots instead.

however, i'm not actually sure if the "moving" aspect when scrolling etc. is actually temporal dithering… since it seems to occur in only in some "triangle-shaped" areas near something that's moving, and other dithered areas remain still.

possibly it's a technical necessity to have interference in adjacent pixels etc. for however the screen is able to perform an update so fast. or maybe it is temporal dithering, i'm not really sure tbh

twomee

If I'm going to guess (and assuming it is not EMF emissions of different or newer devices), it may be LCD or pixel inversion but that is something you cannot fix with software or can you?

Maxx do you have windows ACM turned on? ("Automatically manage color for apps" in advanced display settings) If so, turning it off should fix this.

The reason why some Windows 11 machines don't cause as much strain is that not every computer "supports" ACM. The ones that do — which is newer machines — will dither like crazy.

https://ledstrain.org/d/1908-update-from-win11-21h2-to-win11-22h2-leads-to-eye-strain/145

This "feature" was introduced in the Windows 11 2022 update and introduces Windows's own OS-level temporal dithering that runs on top of whatever your GPU already is doing.

photon78s Probably in the case of this monitor it seems like the monitor itself is causing the dither that you see even with Stillcolor, it's most likely a 6bit + FRC panel

(or a "10bit capable" panel using 8bit + FRC, which is being activated whenever it receives the 10bit signal that M1 Macs generate.)

Blooey This confirms my theory that specifically on XDR mini-LED Macs (such as your 16" Pro) there is some additional dithering.

I most likely suspect is coming directly from an "8bit + FRC" panel in the Pro that is receiving the Mac's 10bit signal, similar to external monitors that include their own FRC.

What seems to be the trend is Stillcolor makes some degree of improvement but doesn't truly "fix" XDR M1 Macs… but on LCD M1 Macs like the M2 Air, Stillcolor has much better results and can significantly improve the display.

Remember that all XDR M1 Macs use what is called "hardware reference modes" for colors and try to hide away the standard color profile menu. On the other hand, LCD M1 Macs use standard color profiles just like Intel Macs. There is definitely a significant difference in the color management pipeline between display types.

It's actually still possible to force an XDR Mac to load a color profile, but the interesting thing is whatever white point it has will actually be multiplied by the white point of the reference mode. This means that "reference modes" are an entirely different layer of color processing (probably done by the DCP firmware instead of the OS) and not just a simplified "abstraction of color profiles".

(Interestingly enough, the Studio Display is the one counterexample — it's a standard LCD, but uses the new "hardware reference modes", unlike the other Mac LCDs. I would avoid the Studio Display.)

The M2 Air also claims to have 1 billion colors (10bit), but potentially, the 10bit to 8bit + FRC down-conversion is done via the GPU on the Air instead of on the panel itself. (I've seen a few Windows laptops do 6bit + FRC entirely on the GPU, so it's certainly possible.)

This may be why M2 Air users are reporting both better improvements in screen comfort and also more obvious changes in banding.

I really wish I had an M2 Air instead of my XDR M1 Pro so I could see the difference myself