Mac OS Sequoia Beta

Donux

Hi,

Has anyone tried to enable beta downloads and try MAC OS Sequoia? I have hope that apple will have some changes applied which incorporates feedback on eye strain they have received so far (direct channels, forums, etc.). I personally kind of thinking of installing it, but maybe someone already did it, this would save some time.

JTL

Donux I hate the bearer of bad news, but unless someone involved with engineering at these "big tech companies" (not necessarily just Apple) either experiences issues themselves, or some combination of them being really bored (joke) or we have empirical "evidence" what could be wrong along with the internal connections to get the evidence in front of "the right people" (and not another customer service drone) I'm not optimistic for change in the right direction

Donux

JTL I am optimistic it will get better with time, as at the end of the day - the same people working on this technology are also using this technology.

JTL

Donux As someone else here once said regarding correlating positive reviews from "normal" people with reduced probability of a product causing eyestrain, and I feel a similar concept applies here as well.

All of those quotes from people you're quoting with VA panels espousing their virtues are not people who experience the types of severe debilitating eye strain discussed in these forums. Their perspectives are nice and all, and may hint at potential options, but really bear little relevance to us as a group.

That is to say if you really think these issues are going to be solved by virtue of engineers using the same technology they develop. I think you are mistaken. If that was true Samsung would not try to justify in continuing to utilize PWM flicker in their OLED displays of which they are the primary supplier for the industry, Apple would not be regressing eye comfort with miniLED, etc. That is to say not that change is impossible but barring the above caveats it's unlikely to come from the engineers themselves.

Donux

JTL Good point. But I still refuse to internalize learned hopelessness, I like macs a lot, and some solution will be found I believe - either external or software based. Also, just to make sure we are not stuck in constant complaining, I have contacted notebookcheck.com to ask if they could share some more details about temporal dithering testing. Even without finding a solution, just good product testing would be enough. The big confusion now is - people read reviews and think that device A and device B are absolutely fine only to find that it is not. This can make someone really mad. So testing is too poor and could be improved.

autobot

JTL I agree that these issues won't be solved by engineers at most companies.

I think that a company needs to view this as a niche, a profitable niche, with an option for growth.

And a small company is better, because this niche would be more meaningful for them.

And it needs to require the minimal amount of work/change/risk from that company.

And maybe, once this exists from a smaller company, and becomes somewhat popular, it would convince bigger companies to add that too.

What do you think ?

Donux

Anyone did update already ? I know it is available for me, but I did not update yet. I am interested to know if it gets better or worse.

degen

Donux For me, Sequoia is exactly the same as Sonoma, which is not good. They did not fix the problems introduced in Sonoma. Just my experience though.

Donux

autobot Someone in the other posts mentioned new parameters introduced in the Sequoia related to display/rendering, also there are new UI features to reduce potential causes. Something is clearly happening, at least that is how I see it. Also taking away font smoothing and not using those variables anymore also maybe relates to the fact that maybe apple silicon was rushed a bit, and old software code needed to be replaced by new implementations, instead of going incremental way. But this is just a speculation. From marketing point of view having people this apple official dicussions forum post flagged almost 500 times is a big deal I think (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254774275). This is top of a range device, and if apple has such a high amount of people complaining, then obviously it means they driffted away from extreme customer focus company closer to the Microsoft type of organisation, which as general purpose OS maker, can not please everyone as it is simply stread to thin in all the directions.

Donux

I have tested Ventura and Sequoia on macbook air m2 and I can see that Sequoia now defaults on my external moinitor BENQ PD2705Q to YcBcR 10bit color mode, rather than equivalent of RGB color mode. This is assuming betterDisplay does show it correctly. Also, it is hard to say, bet there might have been slight reduction in eye strain on Sequoia for external monitor use as well as built in panel (only setting - disable dithering on betterDisplay app, and color profile always sRGB, other settings defaults).

I take it back, it was because I was running USB 2.0, rather USB 3.1 interface. So it is no change here.

Donux

Another Interesting thing I have found - Sequoia (btw we I am not refering anymore to BETA, rather 15.2 version) now has much better non-integer scalling performance for the external monitor. E.g. for monitor BENQ PD2705Q which is native QHD/2k/WQHD monitor, running 1080p used to be very laggy as it was non integer scalling, but now 1080p runs super smooth. I was expecting 720p to be only option for performant scalled option on this monitor, but this is not a case anymore. So there is definitely something goinging in the backend.

macsforme

I installed Sequoia 15.5 on a 2015 MacBook Pro 15" with Intel graphics using OpenCore (granted, not an officially supported configuration). Just staring at the desktop wallpaper, it was probably among the worst dithering I've ever seen in my life. The standard dithering was there, where I got a sensation that everything was moving and got a seasick/dizzy sensation. However, beyond that if I fixated on one point I could see intense flashes/speckles all over the place in my peripheral vision.

I do not understand why Apple makes the dithering so aggressive in their processing. It seems to go beyond the purpose of displaying an in-between color (which should be subtle), to almost like the whole image is first reduced in color depth and then aggressively processed back up in a super noisy way. Perhaps this is the outcome of multiple layers of image processing, hardware, driver, and software, all clashing with each other. Granted, this MacBook model never had a perfectly still desktop wallpaper (even back on El Capitan 10.11), but it subjectively seems incredibly worse now.

AshX

macsforme

I’m curious how much of this is because of how old the computer is? In theory they’re creating an OS and testing it on a limited number of devices. One would assume newer tech would have less difficulty displaying graphics that older (we know the M-series MacBook Airs are atrocious).

I also wonder how much anything other than the MiniLED MBP is an afterthought when it comes to the consequences of dithering.

Can you revert and then test older OS and Sequoia on this Mac to see if there’s any visual evidence of more aggressive dithering via capture card?

macsforme

AshX It's a valid question, but based on the greater context, I believe it is possible but unlikely that the OpenCore/unsupported Mac factor is a primary cause of the flickering. My understanding is that OpenCore primarily reinserts and/or patches older drivers into the newer system to bring back support, so this should not significantly affect the overall macOS graphics pipeline (although I would concede some possible impact). Also, the flickering was fairly consistent with what I have personally seen from at least Sonoma on a newer Mac, as well as reports from other users of increased strain on Sonoma and Sequoia. Monterey and Ventura had some some flickering, but it seemed far less pervasive than this.

I did run Monterey (the last officially supported OS) on this same machine briefly, and it behaved similarly to other machines of this model running Monterey which I've used in the past.

AshX

macsforme other users of increased strain on Sonoma and Sequoia. Monterey and Ventura had some some flickering, but it seemed far less pervasive than this.

I did run Monterey (the last officially supported OS) on this same machine briefly, and it behaved similarly to other machines of this model running Monterey which I've used in the past.

Yeah, I wasn’t meaning to imply OpenCore was the cause but rather that as Apple has phased out older edgelit Retina LCD screens and the MBP’s all have MiniLED XDR Retina screens that the newer OS’s (Sonoma and on) are built to utilize these display technologies as they are flagship products.

My reasoning largely stemming from the fact that iPhone SE and iPhone 11 users basically cannot use the last 2 generations of iOS comfortably, and it probably has something to do with the insane brightness levels of the new OLED’s as well as the fact that LCD iPhones no longer exist as new products. The MacBook Airs despite having the new Liquid Retina screens also seem to flicker like crazy. So I was wondering if anything Sonoma and on basically just is not built for older LCD types, or at the very least relies on more dithering to operate the newer OS’s.

This can only be proven by capture card and microscope or oscilloscope comparisons of different versions of MacOS on the same machine, of course.