I think I found the machine the works for me

mirrormystic

So i bought an M4 MBP 14" without the nano texture + still color + sRGB color profile + refresh rate set to 48H (This helped a lot too) + The font smoothing set to 3

It seems like it's 95% great, there still is a tiny bit of stinging on the eyes but it's very tolerable.

Panel serial number is | | "raw-panel-serial-number" = <"FP1HFE00BNJ0000FQX+A+5APJ4Z0239B1AC+PROD+Y501450325042+PR22S0213Y61450205+506C09GFM452446F52G000H5155294C806490J2B53F0975+525127122513220851322751322551322751322025132245">

| | "coverglass-serial-number" = <"FP1HFE00BNJ0000FQX">

Pls let me know if there are other settings i should try!

BTW i turned off true color on iPhone 16 pro max, cuz switching between them when the mac has true color off causes nausia

Gluck to everyone!

Donux

mirrormystic I like to use my machines with standard settings. Could you let me know what is a feeling when you run it out of a box with zero tinkering ? Could you handle it 8 hours straight, or there would be a quick knockdown ?

Also you said before this:
"I just got a M3 MBA, and it's kinda okish after i turned of truetone, also had to turn it off on my iphone pro max 16 cuz changing screens gave me nausea.

| |     "raw-panel-serial-number" = <"FP1HAH000CG00000CN+A+5ARP490068A3EG+PROD+Y436543714381+PA24R0802Y90140806+436T2427GF89900M46N427H41F48547N8110AJ7B4037761+E24402226441711144171Q44171A44172W441720A44172E4">

| |     "coverglass-serial-number" = <"FP1HAH000CG00000CN">

Currently I find that it gives me a little nausea and tingle in the mornings, in the eves it's totally fine.

M1 Air was 95% great for me.

What laptops or LCDs did you guys end up buying?"

So is it better for you than Air or on the same 95 percent level?

Hopefully this is not curve that describes you and many of us:

randomboolean

mirrormystic Congratulations! How did you turn of true color on iPhone pro max?

ladytr0n

mirrormystic That sounds great, happy this works for you! How do you set the refresh rate to 48H?

mirrormystic

Also big thanks to the guy that told me to try a MBP M4 14" 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

AshX

Very curious how you would respond to the older 13” Touchbar MAcBook Pros. Also curious if you have discovered the gray color flicker on the M4 Pro?

shuzwa

I would not play around too much with something that works ok. Don't update or install Zoom, Adobe premiere, after effects or media encoder.

I have this machine for work and it was also great with just a little bit of strain that was tolerable. Also fine on external displays.

I installed those apps and it is no longer good at all. I think the Mac OS Sequoia version the M4 ships with does not have dithering or some GPU processing enabled. Once I install those apps it switches it instantly, then I want to throw the whole laptop out the window.

I asked chatGPT what could be going on:

After Installing/Opening Adobe Premiere:

Premiere Pro (and other Adobe apps like Photoshop/Lightroom) can trigger system-wide color profile changes or GPU color management behavior:
- Switches macOS to different color depth or color profiles for more accurate color grading.
- Might enable GPU dithering for smoother gradients → often without telling you.
Premiere also engages Metal acceleration (macOS GPU layer), which can cause the GPU to apply dithering globally, especially when high-color-accuracy workspaces are detected.
Sometimes it may “stick” after the app closes, especially if color profiles were altered.

AshX

shuzwa

It’s possible that HDR is stuck on on your MacBook Pro. The XDR Pros are very different than the other LCD Macs.

Sequoia does have dithering, so that’s not it.

Metal is a possibility, but you should be able to confirm whether dither is enabled or not with the terminal command and capture card. There is a way to verify this instead of guessing. According to @DisplaysShouldNotBeTVs it’s possible for dither to be re-enabled which is why BetterDisplay sends the command intermittently to ensure it remains disabled. Perhaps this is why this is happening on your MBP?

The P3 - 500nits color profile is allegedly helpful in limiting HDR. One way or the other or should be possible to verify via several techniques, including microscope, to determine whether dithering is enabled. An OS reinstall could potentially solve this.

Donux

AshX I think it is forced dithering. Apple is obsessed of showing exactly the same image whatever you plug into it. It differs as standard, even if you plug brand new shiny apple display, it will still dither. They have brutal forced it, and dither flag for some folks solves it (or we assume so), but for others it does not. I would probably say it does not, as there is a chance of placebo. Now Mac mini M4 would be a machine that could give us some clues, and it does have a lot of eye strain reports. We just do not know, if this is because HDMI use, which is known to causes issues there. Someone needs to test it with usb-c / display port and see how it does. This should uncover a lot. And I assume the graphics part should be the same as all pro models, when Air models have some additional stripping of capability. I believe its not artificially induced limitations, such as monitor limits, or others.

mirrormystic

@Donux the m4 pro is way better then the mba m3, currently not noticing any problems at all. I did notice tingle and notisa at default settings

@randomboolean just search for true tone in the settings

@AshX there is no gray flicker, and I don't have access to an old MBP, btw the speed on that machine is the same as MBA M1

NewDwarf

mirrormystic there is no gray flicker

Yes, I confirm too, there is no gray flickering.

Rikl

Must be the QD panel.

lukeb

Is this the m4, m4 pro, or m4 max model?

radfaraf

Donux

Before I was using a m1 mini over HDMI causing lots of eye strain. Switched to a m4 mini a few days ago same monitor and HDMI. Still just as bad no difference, then switched to usb-c / display port per your comment and still no improvement. Turned off dithering with BetterDisplay also no improvement.

I went to a developmental optometrist that diagnosed me with BVD last month, and my eyes also bounce around a lot more than they should be when I stare directly at something, or when moving my eyes quickly from one thing to another, or when scanning something more slowly like text. Those all correspond to feeling muscles in my eyes tighten, but also in my face, neck, and torso. Also get tired looking at a display and feel very strange in the head and get very light sensitive if I do it for way too long. I get a similar response to reading books now, but nowhere as bad as with displays. My iPad and pixel 9a are much less bad than my AOC 34inch IPS 144hz monitor, maybe just due to size different and less light perhaps? Also noticed symptoms from a kindle. Also same monitor hooked up to a PC instead doesn't improve it for me. They recommend vision therapy, so far I haven't signed up in part because of how expensive it is and doing an at home app I found. Only a few days into it so too early to tell if it will help.

Hunter20

@mirrormystic try this program, it will run your MBP screen at 120hz (in default display setttings its not possible to choose 120hz, the default adaptive setting always switches back to 60hz when there is no movement)

https://github.com/abinabdc/flickeringMacFix