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

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async I messed around a lot with color profiles and gain recently. Somehow never tried super low gain earlier.

it seems like it's specifically Metal mode that is making some kind of significant difference, most likely due to Metal Direct Display mode.

disabling all color table adjustments, enabling Metal adjustments instead and using the same settings to get a "visually identical" image to what i was getting before with color table made BOTH Macs significantly more comfortable.

(although flicker on camera is still visible on M1 Air. but M1 Air flicker doesn't seem to bother me THAT much though)

it feels like text glows less than the seemingly equivalent settings in color table mode

i wonder if color table mode is messing with the TCON in some way and introducing some kind of additional flicker (even though banding still appears in color table mode if Stillcolor is activated)

the weirdest thing is even using a pretty high gain seems to immediately improve comfort as long as i'm in Metal color adjustments mode and using some kind of color adjustment at all, even a small one.

it's like specifically a Metal overlay going fullscreen that suddenly changes the appearance of the screen, not necessarily what color it's changing it to.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs At one point while playing with the XDR and heavy banding I noticed that color tables enabled significant banding and dithering in a large area the cursor. Like it was forcing it to be part of the regular rendering. It definitely does something different. Think the color tables might render on the gpu or something.

I've also noticed a bug when using regular color profiles (not XDR presets) that the cursor switched back and forth between hardware and software, and that the adjustments only affects one of them. There are console messages related to it as well. Meaning that it is possible to get significant color changes happening when using a custom color for the cursor.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async not sure if it's placebo but specifically changing this property seems to improve M1 Air for me

/Applications/BetterDisplay.app/Contents/MacOS/BetterDisplay set -namelike=built -framebufferNumericProperty=0x0 -specifier=overdriveCompCutoff

Sets response time overdrive compensation to 0, because it's not 0 by default on M1 Air.

For some reason after I do this, then enter and exit sleep mode, I swear the screen feels better from then on.

Doesn't affect flicker on camera at all, still there at same intensity.

On M2 TB Pro it's 0 by default.

Lauda89

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Have I to enter that command inside the terminal to set the overdrive compensation to 0?

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async color tables enabled significant banding and dithering in a large area the cursor

true, but only happens on mini-LED.

there, color tables definitely mess with things way more, as they will also affect local dimming, whatever the heck the TCON is doing with hardware-level color management and reference modes, etc.

can't really compare mini-LED Mac behavior to LCD Macs most of the time, as they have a very different display architecture

according to stillcolor source code:

M2 MacBook Air and M2 Mac mini use AppleCLCD2
While an M3 Max MBP for example uses IOMobileFramebufferShim

madmozg

Maybe let's move our macbook laptops discussion to a new topic?) I think this one is more for engineering and testing

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

@async SO much less strain with Metal color adjustments! i don't even think it's coming from the color adjustment itself, it's coming from the a switch to Metal overlay

because i don't even have the gain turned down that much or anything. only at -20% gain. but something feels really different about the screen, a lot more stable.

i don't even need any changes in colors or anything at all, just turn gain down slightly and that's it, huge difference.

pretty sure of my theory that Metal Direct Display Mode is active and is bypassing the GPU's own color table LUT management, potentially altering or removing some other steps in the GPU to display pipeline too

mapped these commands to Touch Bar buttons to control gain:

/Applications/BetterDisplay.app/Contents/MacOS/BetterDisplay set --gain=-5% -offset

/Applications/BetterDisplay.app/Contents/MacOS/BetterDisplay set --gain=5% -offset

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs @photon78s would be really interesting for you to film the M2 TB displays up close again but with a Metal color adjustment enabled…

BetterDisplay settings -> Displays -> Overview:

Allow color table adjustments OFF

BetterDisplay settings -> Displays -> Built-in Display:

Enable software-based video adjustments On
Combined brightness OFF
Use Metal for image adjustments On

BetterDisplay menu bar -> Image Adjustments

Just turn gain down from default, either really low or only a bit

Make sure Stillcolor is activated, too

I really want to know whether this is actually reducing subpixel flicker, because that's what it feels like to my eyes.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs If I'm not mistaken I think you should go into the actual monitor and turn it off there first. Seem to remember something sticking around when just disabling the general one. I read something at some point about color tables enabling some other flickering or issue on the GPU, but I have no idea where it was. Other apps that mess with colors could also have added color table stuff that sticks around.

photon78s

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

I tried this and didn't see anything change probably because the panel had so little pixel flicker to being with.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async i turned the monitor specific color tables one off first

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs i wonder if M2 TB Pro has some sort of additional "HDR" feature that the M1 Air doesn't?

yep it's definitely HDR related, when opening the GPU accelerated app that gets super bright all the other windows noticeably change color for a second and then fade back

also, whenever these bright apps are open, the strain returns (even when moving the window mostly offscreen and looking at a dim window)

which probably is directly tied to Metal Direct Display mode getting disabled again due to the overlay not being able to apply across the whole screen

hiding the bright app, the strain goes away again

is it possible to disable HDR on M2 TB Pro? I remember on Intel Macs you can option click Displays in preferences to turn off HDR for the internal display, but that's not working here

Low Power Mode doesn't disable it

Edit: figured out a hacky way to get around it, change Accessibility Zoom to "picture-in-picture", click Size and Location to make it as small as possible on the bottom right, "Keep zoom window stationary" in advanced settings, then activate zoom.

HDR stuff across the whole screen will disable (except for a very slight backlight change if your hardware backlight level is below 100%) whenever zoom is active.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Does it have locked brightness for color profiles? If so use one without max brightness, as that can induce flickering as well when hdr content appears. EDR headroom or something.

You could try this command to get log messages for what is happening. Remove lux and nits if you don't want the spam.

sudo log stream --color always --style compact --level debug --source --predicate "\
composedMessage CONTAINS 'EDR' || \
composedMessage CONTAINS 'SDR' || \
composedMessage CONTAINS[c] 'headroom' || \
composedMessage CONTAINS[c] 'lux' || \
composedMessage CONTAINS[c] 'nits'"

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async Does it have locked brightness for color profiles?

No this is only a mini-LED thing. The LCD Macs don't have the "reference modes" feature at ALL and instead feature the old school color profiles menu.

Anyway I figured out a kinda hacky workaround to disable HDR, see above

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

photon78s interesting, because just using the metal color adjustment at all (as in specifically in Metal mode, NOT the default Color Table mode) is making a HUGE difference for me —

so much easier to focus in on something my M2 TB Pro without sometimes feeling a sharp pain which is sometimes what happened before. after applying the metal color adjustment, that strain immediately decreased so much

doing an equal color adjustment in Color Table mode, it would look like text is glowing or the screen still feels "too bright" even though it's darker, like oversaturated no matter how much i reduce dimming or contrast.

but in Metal mode, it actually feels like the screen gets truly dimmer, less glare, less glow

photon78s

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

So when viewing blooey's gradient chart, I see larger bands above 8-bit level with your recommended settings using Metal than without when dimming through image adjustments in BetterDisplay.

madmozg

Here is my panel serial for MBP 13 M2 TB:

FMX352507ZHNTJJAQ+GE1S3B02830546+PROD+Y342234423453+12352321352423352412352420+K72430781K80331107+645052230KP8C500TTCYYGAHDC2638520+S47U894Z82S47U894Z82S47U894Z82S47U894Z

With this new MBP 13 M2 TB I noticed in the evening when I don't have any good lightning in my room I'm getting heavy eye strain. Like nausea and headaches. Don't know why, with previous model I don't think that I've noticed something similar to this one, this one definitely hits harder. 😢

I was just sitting in the dark room with the laptop, and damn, I got hit hard with nausea jeez, didn't feel that bad for a very long time maybe since I tested new iphones… 🤢

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

madmozg FMX

This is really interesting, yep this is pretty much my second M2 TB Pro that also has a panel that starts with FMX and also doesn't have the long strings of 00000000. Despite it being "crisp and uniform" it's also giving me heavy "sharp pain in my eyes" sometimes after focusing and nausea too.

Definitely this FMX panel is not a safe panel… it has SO much glare. It feels like it never gets dim enough even when turning down the brightness, like it always feels a bit too bright and too high contrast.

In my case, I'm actually returning my second M2 TB Pro with FMX panel because yep I have the same issues with it.

I definitely did not have these issues with my first M2 TB Pro that had the 00000000 in the panel ID instead.

So it's not just you, I had the same experience!

Rikl

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs like it always feels a bit too bright and too high contrast.

For me, it's either too dim or what you posted. All of the(4) Macbooks I've tried are like this.

Also, set -namelike=built -framebufferNumericProperty=0x0 -specifier=overdriveCompCutoff seems to make things better but I can't say what it is. MBAM1. Thanks,

async

Anyone know what is causing this dark fringing effect? It's rather pronounced when reducing anti-aliasing. Here shown with a color profile that makes it more prominent. It's not present with Pixie or inspecting.

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

async Are you not at native @2x res? If so, the fringing is coming from their scaling algorithm. They added it around when the T2 security chip launched as I've seen this black fringing around text in M1 Macs, 2018 MBA, and 2020 Intel MBP when not running at native res — however, I don't see it in anything from 2016 or earlier.

If you are running at native res, I don't know where it's coming from.

async

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs Ah, yea I see now that most of it comes from there. Hate it. Wonder if there is a way to kill it off.

It's mildly present on native res as well, but not nearly as much. Interested in where these things are actually applied.

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