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
I disabled dithering on Apple silicon + Introducing Stillcolor macOS M1/M2/M3
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
aiaf Sorry for not responding earlier. No, I did not try editing color elements and influence negotiation that way. Interesting that Apple Silicon Macs have the tendency to seemingly intentionally choose inferior modes (in your example the YCbCr 4:4:4 with limited dynamic range should have the same bandwidth as with the RGB+full dynamic range and the later should be the obvious choice for a computer, not the former). Forums are populated by annoyed posts because of this.
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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."
I apologize this is off topic but alot here seem to know about pcon.. I need help understanding something.. the Intel arc a770 gpu uses the Realtek RTD2173 PCON for it's HDMI port ONLY. Can someone here tell me what the native bpc And refresh rate is for that PCON before it does it's trickery?
@aiaf ? or someone else here have any idea?
new-jdm there are good things with IPS like the viewing angle, but after looking at 50 monitors or so recently I for one figured that most VA screens seem way better for me at least. IPS and OLED screens get this glowing oversaturated lines and text. The only IPS I found with a totally stable picture were some 1080p 24" 165hz screens. Probably from the same manufacturer, as the brand on the screen doesn't say anything about who made the panel.
LED is the backlighting, and not present in all IPS screens.
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async Seriously blown away by what is possible by manipulating color profiles together with an overlay. Can almost make this mini led screen feel like paper while reading.
I just tried opening the (worst) astigmatism shape that flickers and kills my eyes, at a few different sizes on the screen, then I wen't back and fort in the Display Calibrator and adjusted things until it stayed mostly still. Obviously the color profile is garbage for photos, but the reading and coding experience is really something else. I ended up with one where there is slight color shifts based on the luminance. Purple/redish text with gradual yellowing of the whites.
anon123 Currently just mixing between a checkerboard pattern or scanlines. Don't have it as an installable app, but I think I dumped it in the thread if anyone wants to play with it. This is my current config.
.overlay {
opacity: 0.5;
position: absolute;
top: -50px;
left: -50px;
width: calc(100% + 100px);
height: calc(100% + 100px);
}
.overlay.overlay-1 {
background: repeating-linear-gradient(0deg, black, black 1px, white 3px, white 3px);
opacity: 0.1;
}
.overlay.overlay-2 {
background: repeating-linear-gradient(90deg, black, black 1px, white 1px, white 3px);
opacity: 0.0225;
}I found a sealed refurbished base model M2 MacBook Pro 13” on eBay for $750, and it arrived yesterday.
The panel serial number has a bunch of zeros in it (like the worse of the two screens examined by @DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs). I looked carefully for any color shift from one side to the other, but the display looks perfectly uniform with a neutral tone, so it looks like I was fortunate with the panel.
I installed and activated StillColor right away. I confirmed that a slow-motion video of a dark gray background on max brightness does not show any pulsing, consistent with the other findings here. So far, the display looks stable and mostly comfortable, although there is a slight warm undertone (compared to the older displays I am used to) which I associate with discomfort but I believe this is residual and I can adapt to the screen. It reminded me of my wife’s 2018 iPad Pro 12.9” (before it was ruined by iPadOS 17), which I didn’t use extensively but it seemed comfortable when I did.
I will continue testing this in earnest over the next few days, but so far, so good. I sincerely appreciate those who investigated various models and came up with this recommendation.
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async Thanks, I am going to look into VA more.
With that being said, I can't find any screens anymore that have a backlight other than LED.
Right now I am using an early-days LCD monitor and I'm having a way better time.
Edit: Specifically, I dusted off this TN panel, and it appears to be absolutely superb in terms of comfort: https://www.lg.com/ca_en/monitors/fhd-qhd/l222wt-bf/
I see there are modern (expensive) TN panels available, maybe it's the way to go.
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I used a spectrometer and confirmed the slight warmness on my M2 MBP TB running sRGB color profile with night light and true tone off. Spectrum and the red spike and the lower than 6500K color temperature:
https://ibb.co/TKWmjyQ
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macsforme Nice, BTW make sure to turn off the touch bar if you haven't already to avoid PWM from the touch bar OLED strip:
there's multiple ways to approach that…
easiest method: set touch bar to Quick Actions + turn off Control Strip on keyboard preferences to entirely black it out. then set "hold Fn" behavior to Show Expanded Control Strip.
you can then hold Fn to control volume and brightness (but will lose access to the "real" F1-F12 keys)
if you want to toggle between black and shortcut keys, but ALSO want to maintain access to real F1-F12 keys when needed: Hide My Bar app (trial, then paid)
if you want a completely black touch bar but still want access to shortcut keys at ALL times: make a custom setup with the MTMR app (free) or BetterTouchTool (40 day trial, then paid) with black-colored "invisible" buttons that control volume and brightness (this is what i did!)
photon78s by the way, does the amount of flicker on M2 TB MBP change based on whether resolution is set to native @2x/200% scaling ("Looks like 1280x800") vs. the default "scaled" resolution ("Looks like 1440x900")?
Lauda89 are you a developer so you have Node installed? In which case you can download the zip I put here earlier and run npm run start. If not I have to find a way to make it into a proper app at some point. It's fairly easy to get running with chatgpt and some terminal commands as it is just an electron app
DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Did you ever use Intel based MBP 2018, 2019 13''?
It is curious to hear your opinion about M2 based MBP 13'' (with disabled dithering) in compare with MBP 2018, 2019 13''.
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NewDwarf I used to own an Intel MBP 2016 13" (also Touch Bar) with Iris 550 graphics. It was a pretty usable device, screen was generally crisp, UI looked sharp — was actually a really great device for graphic design and music production, at least around the macOS Mojave era.
However, some issues I had with the Intel MBP 2016 13" is that sometimes different color schemes (e.g. VSCode themes) made me feel tired or looked blurry while using them. There were also times where working with very long documents was really tiring and hard to focus on.
Despite the screen being usable for some applications, I remember changing color schemes, fonts, and line spacing over and over on the Intel 2016 13" (which is usually a sign that a screen is impacted by at least some level of temporal dithering)
So for heavy schoolwork and coding, there were a lot of times where I ended up switching to old Windows and Linux laptops to really be able to focus.
(At the time, I had no idea what PWM or temporal dithering was or that I even "had issues with screens", so I did not know at all why I occasionally had such an urge to switch devices when working with a lot of text.)
FWIW, I later had a 2020 Intel 13" MBP for a short time (the very last Intel made) and its screen was way worse than the 2016, looked blurry even at native res and lots of eyestrain. 2016 13" was my only usable Intel MBP .
So…
I'd actually say the 13" Touch Bar M2 MBP (with Stillcolor) is actually better than my old 2016 13", as so many color schemes all look equally as good on this screen without starting to feel "weird".
(The 13" Touch Bar M2 MBP is especially better than the 2020 13" Intel MBP, lol, as the TB M2 screen is actually sharp. But it's honestly better than the 2016 13" too!)
The screen on the Touch Bar M2 is actually so sharp that even looking at it from halfway across the desk, I can use it on TRUE native (2560x1600, super tiny) resolution and still be able to read coherently which totally shocked me.
If I can read THAT precisely once I'm put in front of a "good screen", maybe that explains why I can notice temporal dithering and why I'm sensitive to it…
The Touch Bar M2 MBP also seems to be noticeably better at displaying very dense, cluttered UI — and especially better at displaying "repeating lines of the same thing" and allowing me to easily "line them up" in my head without everything feeling like it looks unstable or unbalanced.
So the Touch Bar M2 MBP is better than even a usable Intel MBP, IMO
Note that this is specifically about the 13" Touch Bar M2 MBP.
All the other M1/M2/M3 MBAs, MBPs I've tried, I have significant issues with (even with Stillcolor) and I would not want to use any of those as my primary device. Mini-LED MBPs especially are totally unusable for me.
However, the screen on the Touch Bar M2 MBP is built totally different from all of the other Apple Silicon laptops…
It's something you could swap out a good Intel Mac with and not notice much of a difference — or if anything, actually notice an improvement (this all relies on Stillcolor, of course).