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

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

pawel Really weird…

Just checked out the second video of the screen flickering, where they are filming the background of that typing website.

And I'm surprised… because I see the same flicker on my camera — on the refurbished Air, which is the better of the two M2 Airs ?!?!?

I can't catch the flicker on camera on the M2 Touch Bar Pro. But the flicker actually appears on the refurbished Air that I'm the most comfortable with??

I've actually been having a pretty good time with this refurb M2 Air, and looking at that website on the same screen where I can see this flicker on camera doesn't seem to bother me at all, so this is really confusing especially because the M2 Touch Bar Pro doesn't flicker here.

No idea where this would be coming from, maybe I'm just not sensitive to this type of PWM or something? It's also strange that it only happens on certain colors, but doesn't look like dithering and dithering is disabled.

But I apparently do have one of the "flickering screen M2 Airs" — and somehow the Air with the flicker is the comfortable one to me? This is totally unexpected.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Aaand due to this I'm leaning back towards the M2 Touch Bar Pro again. I've realized that even though the M2 Air looks the crispest, most consistent, and most beautiful when just slowly reading or browsing (which Stillcolor is definitely helping with, and is still way better than any miniLED) — I think I'm beginning to see what this flicker affects for me:

When I start using the computer faster, managing a lot of windows, etc. I'm noticing that in these contexts, where my eyes are darting around a lot more (vs. just reading and scanning), I begin to get a bit confused or motion-sick feeling when using the M2 Air, even the generally good refurb one.

So on the M2 Air, reading slowly feels really amazing (which is better than a lot of modern Apple LCDs where reading slowly is the MOST painful thing to do), but using the computer really fast starts giving me flicker symptoms. To be clear, flicker symptoms, not dithering symptoms, which are distinctly different for me…

But on the M2 TB Pro, even though reading slowly feels somewhat blurrier, using the computer really fast is working perfectly and not giving me any PWM flicker-like symptoms. When I say "somewhat blurrier", I mean very similar to a decent & usable Intel Mac — still pretty great, not bad by any means, but not "ultra crisp" like the M2 Air and some really nice Windows laptops sometimes are. Maybe this is due to a different style backlight between the Air & TB Pro?

I've moved back to the M2 Touch Bar Pro, and even though I don't like the slightly blurrier appearance, yellow tint, uneven white backgrounds (reddish tint on left and greenish tint on right, ugh quality control is terrible), I'm realizing I'm actually able to get a lot more done on the M2 Touch Bar Pro in a shorter time.

This lines up with how flicker works in general, if I'm darting my eyes around a room with a PWM lightbulb that's usually when the stroboscopic / motion blur effect would become visible — I think I'm experiencing this with whatever form of PWM-like flicker is being used on my refurb M2 Air.

It seems like there's two possible M2 Air panels?

Panel A: Worse of the two, immediate strain and can't even read on this LOL, greenish yellow tint, washed out whites, but PWM-free(??)

Panel B: Better of the two, SOME things are comfortable (slowly reading text actually feels really nice TBH), reddish tint, colors look beautiful, but has strong PWM or PWM-like flicker(??) and causes PWM symptoms when trying to look around the screen really fast?

Anyway, I'm back on the M2 Touch Bar Pro now as it really seems like I can be way more productive on this despite it's "low quality-control" panel with heavy yellow tint, surprisingly.

Filmed them side by side and the M2 Touch Bar Pro doesn't flicker at all when the refurb Air does. The TB Pro still has PWM at lower brightness but at a super fast rate that a camera can't detect, and it has no PWM at all at high brightness.

It's also worth noting again that the TB Pro seems to entirely avoid any additional color calibration past the color profile, since uniformity2D does not affect anything on this unit compared to the Air where it does.

Honestly I am believing now that the M1 Air might be the best blend since it has a screen much more like the TB Pro, also has avoidable PWM at high brightness, but you don't have to deal with the Touch Bar. Really regret not getting one to test, only bought M2s but now I've realized the M1 Air probably would've had a chance to become my favorite.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs the M3 is also an option. They brag about a new GPU architecture there compared to the M2. Most likely not better, but you never know. I guess some of the found stuff would be easy enough to check in-store. Couldn't find any info on if they use the same panel, but I guess if anyone has access to one it would be quick enough to run the command above.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs wild thought, but make sure the 8gb has enough ram free, just in case it affects how it handles the screen. Most likely not a factor, but you could make the case for doing things like keeping less frames in the buffer or not using 10 bit to save memory. Never checked if I'm running out of ram when I have the most issues with my machine, but it could be, as I just closed a ton of stuff

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs 90% certain that Sonoma is way better than Ventura on M1 Max

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async Agreed, it improved my M1 Max in a noticeable way. However, not "fixed" in the slightest though.

I'm actually pretty sure the reason why it improved is not related to PWM or dithering but actually because of some change to variable refresh rate frame timing — the mini-LED frame rate feels a lot more even now on Sonoma, there is less judder. This is especially true on forced 60hz mode, before it used to feel like "120hz emulating 60hz", but now it feels a lot more like "real 60hz" in terms of frame timing to my eyes.

This makes me think the improvements that come with Sonoma may only apply to mini-LED models.

@async Instead of an M2 Air, I'd recommend you pick up an M1 Air to start for your trial, since it has the most similar display in all regards to the M2 Touch Bar Pro but without the Touch Bar. Install Stillcolor and let me know how it works!

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

The verdict: I am going with the M2 Touch Bar Pro. Would also recommend M1 Air — as it should have basically the same basic LCD screen tech as the M2 TB Pro without the different backlight arrangement, extra color calibration, and whatever possible effects the "billion color" marketing entails that would come with the M2 Air.

Despite some of the downsides such as really uneven panel calibration on my unit, the Touch Bar (which needs to be blacked out to eliminate PWM), blurrier image at first glance (but maybe this is because my eyes can actually relax? because the image actually starts to become clearer the longer I use it) — the M2 TB Pro gives me noticeably less eye strain than both the refurb M2 Air and base model M2 Air. The intense PWM-like flicker that even affected the really well calibrated panel of the refurb M2 Air is not present at all on the M2 TB Pro.

The more I use either M2 Air, the more I get this pressure in my left eye — very similar to using OLED screens with PWM. This is probably coming from the screen flicker I can catch on camera.

The pressure isn't present at all on the M2 TB Pro, using it feels just like using a "decent-to-good Intel Mac". The M2 TB Pro is a machine I would say you could upgrade from an Intel Mac to, and as long as dithering is disabled with Stillcolor, you wouldn't notice a difference.

Stillcolor is also 100% working on the M2 TB Pro. Even though it also worked really well on the M2 Airs, making a lot of elements still (especially true on the one with the better panel of the two), I could still notice things like "a totally static non-blinking text cursor feel like it was moving a tiny bit", possibly due to the PWM-like screen flicker. However, non-blinking text cursors are entirely still on the M2 TB Pro.

So here's what it comes down to:

Want a fully usable Apple Silicon laptop?

#1: Get an M1 Air, M2 Touch Bar Pro, or M1 Touch Bar Pro, install Stillcolor, disable the Touch Bar (if applicable) and keep above 75% brightness for zero PWM. These are likely to be the most comfortable Apple Silicon laptop that ever will be made — and possibly may be more comfortable to you than even many newer Intel Macs. Stillcolor works perfectly on the M2 Touch Bar Pro and is very likely to also work perfectly on the M1 Air and M1 Touch Bar Pro.

To me, the M2 Touch Bar Pro with Stillcolor is much more comfortable than the 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro with AMD dGPU, 2018 Retina MacBook Air, and the 2020 Intel MacBook Pro.

#2: You can try an M2 Air or M3 Air but your mileage may vary. There are many good things and are still hundreds of times better than mini-LED, but PWM-like screen flickering or the different style of backlight used behind the display may be deal-breakers. If something feels off about it, just try a laptop from #1 instead.

#3: Do NOT buy any MacBook Pro with an XDR mini-LED display. These screens are currently unfixable even with Stillcolor because of the complexity of local dimming and unknown extra TCON-level FRC, and are some of the least comfortable displays I've ever used in my life — IMO, they're even worse than OLED.

DannyD2

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs This may be a dumb question, but do you have "Automatically adjust brightness" and "True Tone" turned off on your M2 Air with the flickering backlight? I wonder if it's a hysteresis-related problem with the ambient light sensor.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DannyD2 They are both off.

DannyD2

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Interesting.

Also, I managed to reproduce the green blotches effect you found with Uniformity2D on (and disappearing with Uniformity2D off) on my 15 inch MBA M2. That is the craziest thing… I'm amazed you discovered it.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DannyD2 I guess my eyes are just that sensitive — it was the very first thing I noticed the moment I disabled dithering while looking at a fullscreen banding test pattern.

I legitimately feel like a lot of our issues with screens are due to our eyes being "too good", and not vice versa — like, doctors say my eyes are totally fine, and I feel like I pick up on so many details that others do not. It sometimes feels like I see "everything at once" at the same exact level of priority and nothing is filtered out. It feels like everything that was designed "to not be seen by the human eye" (due to the "flicker fusion threshold" or vision persistence, etc.) I can end up being able to perceive in some manner anyway.

This is probably why these screen effects are so hard on me because I immediately notice every single one of them. Like, I even see the RGB subpixel fringing around text on OLED displays, and I wonder "why does everyone think OLED is so good?" because text looks so much more "rainbowy" and less accurate to me on OLED due to this. But I 100% bet that most of the population doesn't even see this or notice it…

But this is also why finding a good screen feels so satisfying, it feels like I can finally take advantage of the capability of my vision, everything starts looking so INTENSELY information dense, like "multiple repeating occurrences of an image all being equally visible all at once". This is what I wish every screen could feel like.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

By the way, since I realized I didn't state this earlier:

PWM-like screen flickering on camera on dark gray colors is present on both M2 Airs(!) Both the base model with the greenish-yellow screen with tons of glare, and the refurbished model with the reddish screen with much less glare have the same screen flickering problem when displaying the same problematic images and webpages on at least Ventura 13.6.6.

In addition, you can even notice similar flickering on pure white if you turn your camera exposure very far down before recording in slo-mo!

The reason this was likely not caught by reviewers (and some users here) is that it can only be easily captured on certain colors. However, this does not seem to line up with any form of a temporal dithering pattern, and dithering is disabled on both, which is what makes this flicker anomaly so confusing.

Will upgrade the refurb M2 Air to Sonoma and test one final time soon to see if screen flicker is still present.

Edit: it's still present after upgrading to Sonoma.

On the other hand, no screen flickering is present on camera at all on the M2 Touch Bar Pro when displaying the same images and colors at the same brightness level on the same Ventura 13.6.6 version.

DannyD2

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I gave it another try and managed to reproduce the backlight flicker on my 15 inch MBA M2. The key is to raise the screen brightness to 100% before taking the video, which I hadn't done previously. It's more subtle on my machine than the other posted videos but definitely there. I guess this is an issue with all M2 Airs.

madmozg

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs When you posting info like this, please attach video of what you are observing, not just texting. Thanks. I've tested all M2/M3 Airs and they are all flicker free, nothing on opple and clean on camera.

DannyD2

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs What's interesting about the Uniformity2D blotches on the Air is that it seems to be an analog effect at the panel level. Perhaps other people see it but write it off as dirt on the display. It doesn't appear to be a form of GPU-generated spatial dither.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I legitimately feel like a lot of our issues with screens are due to our eyes being "too good", and not vice versa — like, doctors say my eyes are totally fine, and I feel like I pick up on so many details that others do not. It sometimes feels like I see "everything at once" at the same exact level of priority and nothing is filtered out. It feels like everything that was designed "to not be seen by the human eye" (due to the "flicker fusion threshold" or vision persistence, etc.) I can end up being able to perceive in some manner anyway.

Got this HD effect as well. Comes and goes a lot. Experimented with Noopept years ago that is known to induce that exact effect, and had some pretty significant experiences on what it feels like when it goes too far in that direction. It's like vieweing 10.000 trees in the distant forest at once and getting super annoyed by lines going into the distance moving up and down when you walk. To this day I absolutely hate low framerate content and movies as movements stutter.

If you want to tumble down the rabit hole just search for NMDA receptors (not MDMA) together with visual snow, noopept, asperger, adhd etc. Tons of weird stuff going on in the brain, and there is an infinite amount on studies on how visual processing works and can break. Tbh I wouldn't be suprised if a rather large percentage here at some point did drugs, had a mild brain injury, a mild autoimmune issue after covid, or has asperger / adhd. Even tho most focus here is on fixing what gives symptoms and that monitors / lights makes it worse after too much exposure there is always an mostly neurochemical explanation for what goes on, and in many cases it can be improved. Try some magnesium threonate, Q10, carbohydrates, a few deep breaths and put a weighted blanket on your legs so they don't spam input and see what it feels like.

https://mad.science.blog/2020/10/19/2-dimensional-vision-after-noopept/
https://mad.science.blog/2020/08/21/flicker-the-mechanisms-of-temporal-acuity/

The effect you described where on one of the monitor you don't seem to process what is outside of the focused vision is pretty similar to what I get at times. I credited it to ditering or flickering simply providing too much input that isn't ignored early enough, and it feels like a "bandwidth" limitation. Similar to other things I experience, and I at some point ended up with an asperger diagnosis.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DannyD2 Also, just upgraded the refurb 24GB 2TB M2 Air to Sonoma, the flicker is still JUST as present in slow-mo on Sonoma! No change.

Returning both M2 Airs. M2 Touch Bar Pro it is for me.

M2 Touch Bar Pro with Stillcolor is the first Apple Silicon device I've ever used that I will say is just as low strain as the best Intel Macs! No additional eye pressure, no additional text flicker. Feels "familiar" & "exactly how I expected it to" — even if there still potentially may be room for improvement between "great Intel Mac level" and "perfect old Windows laptop level". It's good enough for sure.

However, ultimately, I'm realizing what I'm truly looking for is an M1 Air, given that it is very likely to have the same screen tech as the Apple Silicon Touch Bar Pros but without the Touch Bar — but I am traveling soon and won't be near an Apple Store in the future so looks like I gotta keep the M2 TB Pro lol.

🐚🐚🐚

M2 Touch Bar Pro with Stillcolor gets the @DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs seal of approval.

M1 Air with Stillcolor also gets a tentative seal of approval, and I 100% recommend to try this Mac first. That is, unless I try one later and it somehow has a totally different panel. I doubt this though.

However, I do not approve the M2 Air, unfortunately. The effect of the PWM-like flicker on me makes it feel like I can't use it "too quickly" without feeling dizzy, despite it looking sharp and crisp while using it slowly.

🐚🐚🐚

There's also just this additional, noticeable pressure in my left eye that starts a few minutes after looking at either M2 Air, that in comparison does not happen at all when looking at the M2 TB Pro.

This basically means even the better of the two Airs still ends up giving me a (more mild) version of the PWM symptoms I have with OLED — regardless if Stillcolor is enabled and my more distinct dithering symptoms don't seem to be present.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DannyD2 Yeah I'm pretty sure it's behind what some people have called the "M2 Air dirty screen effect" on Reddit and the like. Especially because the blotches "are still there" but "blurred out" to the point of not easily being recognizable when temporal dithering is enabled and is able to make them look really subtle by rendering them more "precisely" than just the limits of 8-bit color.

Of course, that means that all of these "blotch" patches are flickering even more than the rest of the display when temporal dithering is enabled, basically making the screen feel even weirder and more disorienting to someone who's screen sensitive if all settings are left at Apple's defaults.

I suspect the position and size of these blotches are probably calibrated differently per each M2 Air depending on what backlight bleed levels are detected at the factory etc.

The XDR mini-LED Pros actually have a very similar effect, but only the "fade to darker" bands at the very edges get removed on XDR Pros when disabling uniformity2D. The extra blotches (which are square shaped on XDR Pros instead of blobby) actually remain on XDR Pros even after disabling it, probably because they may be implemented even deeper at the TCON level when XDR & mini-LED is involved.

macsforme

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs However, ultimately, I'm realizing what I'm truly looking for is an M1 Air, given that it is very likely to have the same screen tech as the Apple Silicon Touch Bar Pros but without the Touch Bar — but I am traveling soon and won't be near an Apple Store in the future so looks like I gotta keep the M2 TB Pro lol.

I cannot remember the source (possibly this forum, or some review site), but I vaguely recall reading that the M1 Air display panels are inferior to the TB Pro panels in some way. Probably not super useful without more context, but I had that in the back of my mind. It could have also just been another panel lottery issue if the panels are spec’d the same.

There is also something to be said for having a cooling fan in your system, depending on your workload. Otherwise, I tend to agree that an Air with an equivalent screen, bur without the flickering touch bar, would be most ideal.

madmozg

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs I just checked notebookcheck for this MacBook Pro 13 M2 with Touch Bar, and they say that PWM with 117kHz only appears if you go below 56% of brightness, which should be totally fine for me! I've just ordered refurbished one for testing, should arrive this Wed. So I will have 2 laptops for testing and decision which one to keep MBA 15 M2 and refurbished MBP 13 M2.

pawel

@DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Very interesting conclusions, thanks for sharing your experiments in such detail. What do you experience when you reduce the brightness to the PWM range on the MBP?

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async It's like vieweing 10.000 trees in the distant forest at once and getting super annoyed by lines going into the distance moving up and down when you walk.

For me I've had this effect before but thankfully have always experienced it in a really GOOD context "that was not forced", like when my eyes are feeling particularly nice on some day and I can both see this AND completely be able to process it in a relaxed state. That's the best feeling ever and it feels like what ideal vision truly should be like for me.

When I don't see this my brain usually just doesn't process the whole thing and just goes more tunnel vision, so when my field of view has expanded THAT much, it's actually a really good sign for me and screens will usually start looking a lot better too. Not sure if I would call this version of an expanded field of vision "2D" because usually, stuff looks way more 3D at these times with super enhanced depth perception, in contrast to my more frequently occurring "handicapped" tunnel vision state where I can tell stuff looks flatter than it should and it's hard to process depth.

Irlen spectral filters are really effective for me in inducing this "really good feeling, more 3D version" of the "intensely high information density" feeling in real life/outdoors contexts.

On the other hand, using bad screens like mini-LED makes it likely for this feeling to go away and my field of vision (even off of the computer) to start getting more and more constrained the more I use a bad screen.

async Tbh I wouldn't be suprised if a rather large percentage here at some point did drugs, had a mild brain injury, a mild autoimmune issue after covid, or has asperger / adhd.

I won't say much here but I caught a very rare, serious autoimmune disease over a decade ago, it's been gone for years now but has obviously had long lasting residual effects and yeah is probably the reason behind a lot of this for me. I have never done drugs. I also don't have autism or aspergers at all but I do have adhd.

Skimmed the articles you linked and yep I definitely have a higher temporal perception "by default" lol, flicker fusion is certainly much higher for me than it is in other people.

I also totally agree with the idea of strobe therapy as long as someone doesn't have problems looking at it, and the strobe light is "visible" and not trying to hide itself —

Brcause I don't have epilepsy at all, I swear that staring straight at e.g. that one linked YouTube video with the intense black and white flash actually felt relaxing to me and made my vision feel better & smoother (less jittery motion blur when turning my head for example) after watching it. Visible flashing like strobe lights actually help me, but invisible flashing like PWM hurts me.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Same. I've been flashed sleep deprived with EEG, without finding any epileptic reactions. More light or sound helps a lot. As does any type of visual, audatory or physical stimuli. Being in a still room with faint sounds used to mess me up. Details on that further up if you didn't see it. One of these days I'll figure out exactly how it all works.

Same regarding 3d vision. 2d, blurry and disconnected is the opposite. Neurologically that is, because you also have the effects of muscle strain for some here, and focus issues due to dithering.

I can end up rather disconnected and detatched after being overstimulated for a long time. The 2D article discusses the concept of kindling and how things can spin out of control, and how NMDA might be involved in a safety mechanism that causes some of it. Citicoline is also interesting to modulate some of this as well. Used it previously and it can clear some types of brain fog in 30 minutes straight. Also I can't vouche for the author, but it sure helps spark of a lot of theories. And then ofc you have all this psychosomatic effects, where people get so interested in finding flickers that they get excited as soon as it pops up, and worst case starts training the brain that induced negative physical reactions due to a trigger gets you to a better state and should happen automatically. Like classical Skinner's dog experiment. Not that I know the first thing about this area, but I'm sure it is part of the pathology for many here as well.

Another one. https://livecortex.com/noopept-hd-vision-but-then-foggy-vision-heres-why/

madmozg

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs same here, I can attend any EDM concert, stay under stroboscopic lights all night and will feel nothing, even any PWM lamps are totally fine (I don't know why) but this invisible PWM waveforms are giving me big problems…

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