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

Donux its three posts above

Here you go, Macbook Air m2 13 inch, "raw-panel-serial-number" = <"FP1241306KN1J8CAZ+5A2A280724A5HD+PROD+Y237323742384+66241136241131241215241210+K52920681Y82120817+6861A2224KL3N400M24HT2347A29M3729+S28E6898BKS28E6898BKS28E6898BKS28E6898">. I guess I have no zeros, but panel is really intensive over time. Basically unusable, only for quick glimpses. But GPU on external monitor also causes neurological tension.

photon78s Could it be refurb model with zeros ?

Donux we've been talking about the M2 Touch Bar MBP, not the M2 Air. The serial numbers for M1/M2 Air are entirely different and not really relevant to what we're talking about.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Alright, well keep us updated as we all have wested interested in solving this eye strain problem throughout the macbook line.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Maybe that good panel was a replacement at some point in it's life. If so, you indeed won the panel lottery!

Donux

Both units are refurb.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Did you try to mess with this? Might be possible to disable, or change it to your least favorite color. If it is related that is.

ioreg -l -d0 -w0 -r -c AppleCLCD2 -a \
| sed -e '/^\t*<data>/,/^\t*<\/data>/ { /^\(\t*\)<data>\(.*\)/ { s//\1<string>_data:\2/; h; d; }; /^\t*<\/data>\(.*\)/! { s/^\t\(.*\)/\1/; H; d; }; /^\t*<\/data>\(.*\)/ { s//\1:data_<\/string>/; H; g; s/\n//g; }; }' \
| plutil -convert json -r - -o -| grep -i gray

Lots of these ATP values. Apple Panel Technologies?

| plutil -convert json -r - -o -| grep -i APT
    "APTDefaultGrayValue" : 255,
    "APTDevice" : true,
    "APTEnableCA" : true,
    "APTEnableCDFD" : false,
    "APTEnableConfigExpired" : true,
    "APTEnableDefaultGray" : true,
    "APTEnableEvents" : false,
    "APTEnableLogs" : false,
    "APTEnablePRC" : true,
    "APTEventsMask" : 0,
    "APTFixedRR" : 0,
    "APTLimitRefreshRate" : false,
    "APTPanicOnChargeOOB" : false,
    "APTPanicOnChargeParity" : false,
    "APTPanicOnStuckPolarity" : false,
    "APTPDCEnable" : true,
    "APTPDCEnablePM" : 1,
    "APTResetCA" : false,

I also still want to see someone try to modify this. I didn't find out how to edit hierarchical values.

    "BacklightMatching" : {
      "IOPropertyMatch" : {
        "backlight-control" : true
      }
    },

The APT options does something. This is weird. Confirmed with Quartz Debug.

        "APTFixedRR" : NSNumber(5),
        "APTLimitRefreshRate" : true,

This is weird. Setting this to different values causes different refresh rates:

0 - 60
1 - 60
2 - VRR Minimum 75
3 - VRR Minimum 80
4 - 60
5 - Fixed just below 50
6 - Fixed at 40
7 - Unstable just below 35
8 - Fixed at 30
9 - Unstable right above 25
10 - Unstable below 25
11 - 60

Maybe it affects other things that makes it easier to capture as well.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs This nits limit on certain XDR presets causes insane flickering on Instagram when videos autoplay here because of EDR, so I guess it could be something similar. Could also be an actual bug where they check some total brightness level too early and keeps readjusting.

Did you try playing with the Display Calibration as I posted earlier in the thread? Might be able to bypass it by applying a small tint to certain levels of gray there. Also you could try maxing brightness and reducing gain as much as possible in BetterDisplay, as that changes things quite a vit on XDR at least.

These things would be infinitely easier to test if someone found a way to access he raw pixel data that is sent to the display. That would open the way for apps that monitor for flickering. I'm sure there exists some way. This would probably be answered pretty fast by someone from the Hackintosh community as they have been hacking with how the OS handles graphics cards and other things for 15 years.

Questions for whoever knows more about the OS, or can get someone relevant into the thread:

• Where does the logs that are enabled with ioreg flags in the MobileFramebuffer end up? I have yet to find them with either monitoring the filsystem or the log command (with debug logs included). Does it require some other debug mode to be enabled that is usually used by Apple? AppleStockholmDebug? Is there another command? The total output for these are probably pretty high, so it would make sense if they don't automatically start to stream them.
• What are all the different framebuffer PixelCapture flags? Where does it end up? Is there a way to monitor if enabling it starts writing some new things to the ram that can be monitored?
• Is there any known ways to reset or restart the framebuffer and related things. Similar to how you would kill the Dock or UIServer. Changing color profile resets a display on timestamp at least. There is a high chance that certain flags simply doesn't affect things while changed without some reset.
• Is there something like dtruss that can be targeted at the connection between different hardware components? For example for trying to read the pixel stream as late as possible?
• Is there some way to set these ioreg flags way earlier in case it is only read on startup?
• Is there some way to trace or log what is setting the different ioreg flags early? That could give a better map of what framework or daemon is using what part of it. Might be possible by setting the stored logs to debug mode. Surely these defaults has to be stored somewhere that the is reads them from. Is there some type of search by strings in the entire disk that works for binaries? I found a way that works in Private Frameworks, but it would be interesting to do it on all daemons as well.
• Does the UIServer use 10 bit and then converts it to 8 bit for sending? Is there any reliable way to screen record for example HDR content? Could be that some diffs show up if the comparison is done on the full resolution with max bitrate.

Tagging @waydabber and @aiaf in case you guys still have some energy left here

Stumbled upon this tool again. No idea if any parts of it works on M1, but I'm sure there are other similar things in the Hackintosh community. I'll look into it when I get home.

https://github.com/benbaker76/Hackintool