Flickering on MacBook Air M4

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

mirrormystic aiaf is the developer that made the Stillcolor app that reduces dithering on M1 Mac. they joined here to post about the app but have been pretty inactive since then

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

AshX lol yeah i totally gave up on using Macs too, both laptops and desktops, I've found that external monitors also look totally different in a worse way when Macs are connected (perceiving more motion blur on my monitor is one thing that was pretty obvious to me, even with Stillcolor, it felt like every moving object had this blue glow around it that isn't usually there)

To use the macOS apps I need, I just use RealVNC Viewer or NoMachine to remotely control a Mac on the local network — can still use my apps from a different device that has good display output

NoMachine has low enough latency to be used for apps that would require quick inputs, it does have the tradeoff of some JPEG-like compression in the video but my eyes are fine with this, the compression doesn't cause me issues like direct Mac video output does

For audio I'd just have the Mac nearby connected to your audio, but always keep the lid closed and never use the Mac screen or HDMI output — i.e. direct audio + remotely viewed screen

BTW i use Apple Logic Pro very frequently and i've been able to make it work great for me with this method. i don't feel like my work is slowed down or limited by it

This is the only way I can use Mac apps today since macOS's display issues are thankfully not sent at all over remote desktop connections — you get a pure image (as long as the other device you're viewing it from is good)

AshX

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

I’ve read your posts and taken notes from your journey on these forums and I had hope from the Stillcolor thread that things were workable. I don’t know why for some Stillcolor is enough on the Airs and for others, it’s not. Although I’ve heard crickets as to the M4 MBA’s working out around these parts. I’m half considering hunting down a used 13” MBP M2 Touchbar but I’ll be honest, this experience has been quite physically challenging and frankly painful, as I’m sure it has been for many of you.

I’m not tied to Mac. Luckily I use Pro Tools and Ableton Live which are cross platform unlike Logic Pro which is Apple only. My hesitancy is that I have over a dozen hard drives formatted for Macs with backups and catalogues of a decade worth of Pro Tools sessions and master files. So I’m not sure how I’d even make that transition. The other truth is that I’ve looked at the PC laptops and desktops + monitors on display at Best Buy and Micro Center and a lot of them are just as painful to me as the Macs. It’s the same problem as the Mac Mini: what external display is usable?

aiaf told me he only scratched the surface and the amount of time needed to dissect this is quite a lot. I would never expect him or anyone else to spend all their time trying to fix this, when really Apple should be the ones providing Accessibility options to disable whatever they’re doing with the GPU.

I think my only remaining question for you and others reading this thread is whether this is purely a software control problem at this point or if these laptops are applying their own hardware processing that is being sent to external displays whether you like it or not. I can’t imagine the latter is the case. If it were, then the Mac Mini would be usable. But if it’s chip or OS based then like with the iPhones, you’re stuck finding a used model with the old OS on it.

I wonder if your remote viewing solution might provide some sort of possible solution within MacOS itself. It’s interesting that the remote session is fine but a direct connection is not.

I’m half ready to move to a desert island or become a monk in the mountains, far away from tech at this point! 😂

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

AshX Did the 13” M2 Pro Touchbar ultimately not work for you

Yeah it didn't work for me, even without having the gray flicker. It was better than other M1 and later Macs but that's only relative, it was still way too uncomfortable for me to be productive on it

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

AshX The other truth is that I’ve looked at the PC laptops and desktops + monitors on display at Best Buy and Micro Center and a lot of them are just as painful to me as the Macs.

Same for me. Seems like the only "easy" option for you then would be an e-ink laptop (Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4 is from 2023, can be used entirely on it's integrated e-ink display, runs latest Windows 11, and is amazing for me -- no strain, brain fog, or discomfort at all on the laptop's e-ink panel -- even though I usually have issues with other Windows 10 and 11 computers!) It's usually sold for $1899, but if you're patient it can sometimes be found refurbished for $1299.

There are also other LCD laptop/monitor/projector setups I have that are comfy but they were VERY customized in order to get them actually comfortable for me, lots of very unique configurations in terms of how the OS is booted, what drivers are loaded, specific LCD panel swaps. hard to talk about on the forum, but I can message you about these if the e-ink laptop is too expensive for your budget etc.

if you need something quick that will 100% work out of the box though get the e-ink laptop / ThinkBook Plus Gen 4. FYI you have to use the laptop's secondary oled panel to set the device up, but after that, you can switch to the e-ink panel and use it entirely in e-ink mode the whole time!

mirrormystic

don't give up bro, except from the screens macs are the best, i think the issue is with the panels themselves, thats how we got the flicker, I'm thinking that MBP m4 wont have this problem cuz they might have true 10 bit colors

btw did u test out the apple XDR display?

did u try to get specificly that one because of the pixel ratio?

AshX

mirrormystic

I can’t give up! But I definitely need to take a break after looking at all these bad screens the last 3 days.

I asked to plug the MBA I had with Stillcolor installed into the Pro Display XDR but they wouldn’t let me. Every time I go to the Apple Store I have to explain dithering and PWM to them and I end up being there for an hour with their badly flickering LED overhead lights so it would probably be a waste anyway. Apple advertises the Pro Display XDR as “true 10-bit” so I’d be curious. Unfortunately I don’t have $6,000 to buy it to try!

I guess where I’m at is I want to know whether there’s a difference in the M1-M4 in terms of how the GPU dithers and whether MacOS Monterey all the way to Sequoia has made dithering worse similar to how iOS has after iOS 15. Because there’s no point in me buying a Mac Mini M4 and trying to find an external monitor that isn’t horrible it if MacOS Sequoia is just going to do the same thing to an external monitor.

I’d honestly probably have better luck with the MBP M4 computers if they don’t do this grey screen strobing BS. I think I’m less sensitive to rolling PWM like on my iPhone 13 as long as it’s not super fast. This strobing flicker is the same as bad LED lights and I personally believe for my situation, I’m most sensitive to whatever that is. I wonder if anyone else with a MBA could figure out what frequency and modulation depth this flicker is. I’d love to know and then I can compare to my iPhone and maybe even an iPad.

You’re probably right about PPI but I also feel like the tech used in OLED iPhones unlike OLED monitors probably because of PPI and smaller screen size emits less light than an IPS LCD monitor, especially if it is strobing like all Apple’s LCD’s seem to. I may try to find a used M2 MBP or some older Mini if it’s sealed and use Monterey or Ventura to test things, too. But I need to wait for my refund to go through from Apple, lol!

mirrormystic

lol, can u just test the MBA, MBP M4's in the store?

fuck 6k$ is way too expensive, i think there are some 8k displays out there that cheaper then that

AshX

mirrormystic

Often they’re not even the actual units they’re selling (I was told that even if system information says it’s M4; the regional managers aren’t even sure they’re actually that). TL;DR it’s a completely different crop of computers and displays on display compared to what you get shipped.

Until we can fully access the TCON dithering I don’t know that I trust any Apple screen from the Retina era to present.

Donux

You will never have a chance to test the actual unit you are getting 🙂 Unless of course you are buying the last one from retail store, i.e. display unit 🙂 But, this is still actually not bad idea. I have been offered by one apple premium reseller to work with display unit full day in store if I wish. In 2 hours, I should have a very good idea how good it is. But again, I would be testing display unit, not the actual thing in the lottery draw 🙂

AshX

Donux

This is correct. The guy in charge of the Apple dept at Micro Center said unlike PC manufacturers Apple sends specific units for display - they don’t even sell them once they’re phased out because they’re not sure they’re even the actual computers and displays that they’re supposed to be. Believe me, I’ve asked to buy display units I found comfortable and was told no by multiple different stores.

This is a good offer from the reseller. The question is would they let you buy the display unit? I don’t trust anything would be good unless it’s in a dark room I can rest away from fluorescent and LED store lights that influence the experience (100% brightness doesn’t help).

I feel like the only option is if someone here is rich and can blow $10k on different Macs and compare 😂

AshX

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

I’d 100% try e-ink but Pro Tools is the only reason I even need a computer. To my understanding e-Ink is basically very slow and mostly for reading? Pro Tools, Premiere Pro, and Photoshop are the programs I need to use.

The fact that I can use an OLED iPhone gives me hope that something is workable. I still want to know what this flicker that is most visible on grey actually is. It doesn’t seem like anyone has any idea what might be causing it, how to measure its frequency and modulation depth, and whether it might be the missing link as to why so many of us can’t use the MacBook Airs.

The fact that you and others proved that the 13” M2 Touchbar MBP did not have this makes me think I’m not making a mountain out of a molehill and that this is NOT just a normal refresh rate flicker for IPS LCD. I’ve also seen windows laptops that don’t have this flicker. Am I wrong?

Is it TCON dither? Some weird GPU power saving mechanism? It’s present on multiple Apple laptops and desktops going back to 2015. Some have it some dont. Why is it still present even in Safe Mode? Is it hardware? Poor screen calibration on a massive scale? What gives?

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

AshX To my understanding e-Ink is basically very slow and mostly for reading?

This is outdated, for today's modern e-ink, although not entirely smooth (feels like 25fps instead of 60fps) is still very much usable for computer tasks, especially on the Thinkbook Plus Gen 4 which is the best e-ink experience yet IMO with lowest input latency I've seen on any e-ink device so far. The Thinkbook Plus also has color eink too, the colors are very washed out and grainy but it still gets the job done with zero strain.

BTW, even though the touch bar m2 does not have the gray flicker, I still am unable to use it. What I said in the other threads is just that it was more tolerable than other apple silicon Macs, but that doesn't mean it's a good screen. Far from it, I still had a lot of brain fog and disoriented feel when trying to do anything productive on the touch bar m2. And that was the "better" 000000 panel ID model. The FMX panel ID variant was even worse, and despite not having any gray flicker either, was actually just as bad as the Airs for me.

(I'm curious to know, what PC laptops have been comfortable for you in the past?)

It was easy for me to get used to the slightly choppy scrolling on the Thinkbook Plus e-ink and I don't mind it at all now, and moving the mouse cursor feels totally in sync with my hand movements so the screen feels very responsive on that front.

I've already ran some music production apps on my Thinkbook Plus, both Reaper and Ableton natively and Logic Pro through a VNC connection to a Mac, and they all work great for me.

Let me know if you want me to send a video of how responsive a DAW is on my Thinkbook Plus.

If "Pro Tools is the only reason you need a computer" as you said, IMO the Thinkbook Plus 4 will work great for it after some getting used to the very different screen. I actually prefer doing all my music production on my Thinkbook now even though I have a few usable LCD devices, it is so nice to fully focus on producing with the backlight turned entirely off yet still able to see the e-ink screen in natural light, e.g. getting fully in the flow while recording my keyboard without a bright screen distracting me

Photoshop and graphic design apps have actually still been somewhat usable for me performance and UI-wise, although of course it's obviously not the ideal device for those as you will be be getting a very grainy and non-color-accurate preview so I'd suggest connecting another screen "exclusively for previewing your work" and glancing at it for only a few seconds at a time, but doing all the work and interacting with the UI on the Thinkbook screen. I still use those apps on my Thinkbook Plus though since sometimes I am simply looking for the most comfortable possible experience instead of the "best" experience, and I have a good intuition at this point for how colors will look once transfered to other screens (although the graphic designs and album covers I work on are more oriented around typography/contrast/shape rather than photos).

Premiere pro would be a similar situation although would need a second screen for previewing even more since the e-ink panel has a limited framerate.

AshX

DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs

Wow, I had no idea E-Ink had come so far. That’s amazing you ran Reaper and Ableton. I will absolutely take you up on your offer to record a video of you using a DAW on your Thinkbook Plus. My music production is almost entirely “in-the-box” so to speak, with vocals and acoustic guitar being the only thing I record analog (electric guitars are recorded direct via amp sim plugins within Pro Tools). So this is definitely a nightmare scenario…too bad I wasn’t born a few decades earlier - I’d just be recording to analog tape!

That’s really unfortunate that the MacBook Pro M2 Touchbar didn’t end up working out. I’m still curious why it didn’t have that grey flicker. Someone on Reddit said they observed the same flicker on the iPad Air. The only commonality being the current crop of MacBook Airs and the iPad Airs both use a Liquid Retina Display. I don’t have much faith in any of the Apple laptops. I wonder if an older Mac Mini with an older OS would at least provide a stopgap for me because I will need some sort of Mac computer to at least transition files to PC. I’m open to moving to a desktop PC setup - I just have no idea where to even begin.

I'm curious to know, what PC laptops have been comfortable for you in the past?)

I haven’t used a PC laptop as my main computer since high school (2011). I got a late 2011 13” MacBook Pro for college that year and then exclusively used 21.5” iMacs for music production from 2012-2024 (I think I went through 3 total over that time). I used a very budget Acer laptop for light gaming in 2017/2018 which was fine. Didn’t have any issues but this was before I started having any trouble with screens before COVID in 2022. My mom has a Dell Latitude 5300 laptop for work that I was able to actually use a few months ago no problem, though it was brief. Maybe I can ask to try it out and see if it’s still usable. I used a Dell PC at a hotel back in December and it was brutal, as bad as any Mac.

After that infection my left eye will forcibly shut when exposed to bright light, especially LED’s. It’s interesting because if I look directly at an LED streetlight it shuts but the old reddish-yellow streetlights I can stare at without my eye closing. It’s actually how I first noticed there was a problem - I got an iPhone 15 Pro and it started closing when I looked at it and I felt like I couldn’t focus on the text, but my iPhone 13 was fine. Strangely my MiniLED iPad Pro 12.9” M2 (or was it M1?) at the time was mostly fine. I also had a 14” MBP M1 during the first few months after my COVID infection and it was mostly fine. But my iMac 21.5” 4K would make it shut. I used SwitchResX which helped for a while, but looking back I think that computer was triggering long COVID neurological crashes and fatigue. But yeah, the eye closing shut is usually a good indicator a screen is no good for me.

I’ve been to neurologists, eye doctors, hematologists, ENTs, and on and on and on. My vision is allegedly 20/20 with a mild astigmatism in one eye not even worth correcting. Interestingly the last optometrist I saw put some different strength corrective lenses on during the test and my eye shut and brain went wild. It seems like my brain is so used to the correction it has made that any change causes a massive reaction. I also can’t do polarized sunglasses at all, which is interesting. I have a lot of health issues: POTS (postural Orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), inappropriate sinus tachycardia, dysautonomia, MCAS, long COVID, and am currently in the process of being evaluated for mixed connective tissues disease, an autoimmune disease. I also get myoclonic spasms, but no one knows if it’s a consequence of dysautonomia or a seizure disorder. So yeah…Im definitely not one of the sensitive folks here who is healthy 😂

Apologies for the wall of text, but maybe someone else here will be helped by this. A lot of us with long COVID have developed issues with screens, TV’s, and lights. My only hope at this point, for me personally, is that given my tolerance of the iPhone 13, I wonder if it’s a matter or matching a similar frequency or a type of modulation depth that isn’t the same violent strobing that I’ve noticed with the gray backlight flicker and MacOS’s GPU dithering. I know nothing of Windows, but I do know you have more options and control, at least on the desktop level. Obviously I’d prefer flicker free, but is that even possible? This gray flicker thing has freaked me out, to be honest. I’m worried this is just the normal function of LCD screens because of how present it seems to be on Macs.

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