MacBook Air M3

mirrormystic

Just got an M3 air after returning the M4 air,

* i still kinda feel the tingle in the cheeks only when im looking at a white page
* i used stilled color and betterdisplay to turn off dithering
* the tingle is way more subtle then the m4 one
* i recored a gray screen in slow mo 240 fps and i can see a flicker

Anyone have any recommendations about what to do, felt the same with these specific devices?
I really want to have a mac laptop lol

NewDwarf

I just got rid of MacBook Air m3.

Now, I use MBP M4 14'' which is much better than MBA's. But I would recommend to choose 16''.

Hunter20

NewDwarf

Doesnt the macbook pro model have constant 15 kHz pwm flicker?

The macbook air 15 does not have pwm, shouldnt it be more eye friendly because of this?

mirrormystic

that's weird i tried the MBP 16" M4, and I could immediately feel the effect when looking at a white page, did u change any settings?

NewDwarf

mirrormystic I use the BetterDisplay tool to disable dithering, changed default resolution from 1512x982 to 1352x878, disabled auto brightness (I manually set 8-9 brightness bars which is pretty fit to me. More bars activates PWM). That's it. I already use MBP M4 more than a month.

NewDwarf

mirrormystic Also, please pay attention on https://ledstrain.org/d/3250-macbook-air-m2-interesting-finding

MBA's have permanent weird low frequency flickering which definitely affects sensitive people.

ladytr0n

NewDwarf
How do you disable dithering in BetterDisplay? I just downloaded it and couldn't find the option in the menu. I just bought an MBA M4, 15 and am facing eye strain and brain fog issues for the first time ever.

mirrormystic

just tested it (MBA M3 15"), it still flickers on 7-8 bars.
did u test the MBP 4M for flickering on those bars? I guess WPM should flicker, no?

NewDwarf

mirrormystic

mirrormystic just tested it (MBA M3 15"), it still flickers on 7-8 bars.

What do you use to test flickering?

mirrormystic did u test the MBP 4M for flickering on those bars? I guess WPM should flicker, no?

MBP M4 has only PWM related flickering 15 kHz. I believe it is safe flickering. But, at the same time, MBP M4 has large PWM magnitude only from 10+ bars. So I use "safe" level.

languidicity

NewDwarf

Am I mistaken or are you saying that you don’t see the low frequency gray flicker on your M4 Pro that can be seen on other IPS MacBooks?

mirrormystic

I measured it with an iphone 16pro max 240 fps slomo vid

NewDwarf

mirrormystic What exactly RGB code of the gray colour you use to test flickering?

NewDwarf

languidicity I usually measure with an oscilloscope and a photodiode. There is no "special" flickering on the gray colour. Moreover, PWM for the gray colour has better parameters in compare with the white colour. BTW, miniLED screens, like OLED screen, have individual control of PWM for the specific pixel (depending of the colour and brightness).

languidicity

NewDwarf

This sounds promising, thanks. I cannot use a MacBook Air but need a portable Mac. The only screens I can use right now are my iPhone 15 and a LG OLED TV. I tried an iPad Pro M4 thinking that I could use it as a remote ‘terminal’ for a Mac Mini but it gave me migraines. LED LCD’s are seemingly unusable for me but I might try a mini-LED MacBook Pro.

Not sure what you mean by individual pixels having their own PWM on mini-LED displays? Surely such finely grained control is impossible and would at most be limited to the lighting zones?

simplex

NewDwarf

You can pick color in MS Paint

NewDwarf

languidicity

languidicity Not sure what you mean by individual pixels having their own PWM on mini-LED displays? Surely such finely grained control is impossible and would at most be limited to the lighting zones?

I used a colour bar table for testing. Moving the photodiode over the border of two different colours immediatelly changes PWM pattern. Maybe it is not an individual pixel control PWM implementation but very close to this.

Each colour has its own PWM pattern like on OLED screen.

languidicity

NewDwarf

Ok interesting. That sounds like some sort of pixel processing/dithering if each colour is flickering at a different rate. Electrical control of the lighting of individual pixels is not possible on a backlit LED display such as with the M4 MacBook Pro. MiniLED displays have at best thousands of individual backlights. The 14” M4 Pro has 5.94 million pixels.

NewDwarf

languidicity not exactly. It is better to say PWM flickering begins on different brightness level for the specific colour. PWM is 15 kHz for each colour.

languidicity

NewDwarf

Ok I think I understand now. Thanks.

mirrormystic

https://www.eizo.be/monitor-test/ - i use the uniformity test here for the gray

mirrormystic

but like my neusia is only when im looking at a white page, like this website, i turned color tune off

NewDwarf

ladytr0n Colour mode -> GPU dithering.

To verify result, use ioreg -lw0 | grep -i enableDither

Expected result is

| | | | "enableDither" = No

| | | | "enableDither" = Yes