4K Display and Retina MacBook Pro 13"

[superper28]

No. Without switchresx, you can get 4k-30hz only via hdmi (as it is said in apple support page about 4k). Macosx detects the display via dp like a 1440p screen. I am always talking about mac mini, but I insist, the setup is the same.
For you it should work. If you check the answer 217 in this thread, the user has the same setup (rmbp 13, p2415q, el capitan), and for him it is working. For mac mini, I guess apple doesn't want to let people to have a cheaper alternative to imac 5k and they are banning us...
Is the same message that I told you, you have this setup, but googling, you will find several (and more accurate, since you can get almost 52hz and the user is using less than 50, I can remember... Actually, you just need to modify the clock speed to 450mhz (to limit of your graphics card) and put the resolution to 3840x2160...the rest of the parameters I think you can leave them as default. But check through the forums, I can't take a screenshot right now, since I don't know where to upload it to.
You are welcome! Have a nice day!

Hey just bought the monitor last week and its been perfect so far! just wanted to say thanks for all your help!

 

[superper28]

I'm still on Yosemite, seems great to me, my eyes cant seem to tell the dif between ~51hz vs 60hz.

Only thing is I'd love to be able to scale to 1.5x or something similar to "more space" on the macbooks

Yeah 1.5x would be nice. right now i set all my icons smaller and some of the finder text as well to maximise the screen real estate.

 

[ginol]

Hey just bought the monitor last week and its been perfect so far! just wanted to say thanks for all your help!

Which monitor? P2415Q? Or anything else? Can you try the 1440p resolution?

 

[superper28]

Which monitor? P2415Q? Or anything else? Can you try the 1440p resolution?

Yup the P2415Q. So far ive been reading and no one seems to be able to do it at 1440p which is quite sad. I think the screen is perfect for 1440p HiPDI. So what I did was just to make everything smaller manually (dock icon, desktop icon and text, finder text, default zoom in browser, thumbnails in phtotos, ect.) which makes things much better but not as good as 1440p of course. Like the menu bar is a little to big in opinion. Also I think this set up might be pushing the rMBP 13 to the limit as the fan gets quite loud when a lot (mDP, USB upstream) is connected.

 

[Bifff]

Just stopping by to say that this works.

Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina running El Capitan version 10.11.1 using the ViewSonic VX2475SMHL-4K.

I followed the instructions - took me about 20 minutes to figure out that you needed to reboot the system in order for a custom resolution to save in switchresx. After rebooting, 1920x1080 HiDPI at 52Hz was available. Looks fantastic.

 

[mguisande]

Hi Guys!
I just bought an acer S27 4k, I changed the resolution with switchrex to 3840 at 52hz as recommended and works perfect. but now all the fonts especially the upper bar(not sure if its called that way!) seems way too small, how can I adjust the sizes so it looks as it was in 1920x1080?
thanks!!

 

[yenoach]

Hi, I have a similar setting as described above, but slightly different.
I have a 13" RMBP (late 2014, Intel Iris 5100) and got the Samsung U28E590D (successor of the U28D590D) yesterday. I agree with you that 30 Hz is awful as the cursor appears quite laggy.
I did not try to run 52 Hz with SwitchResX yet but even if that works, 28" is in my opinion way too big for 1080p (HiDPI). Even my old 24" screen had 1920x1200 so I would effectively loose space.
Did anyone get something like 1440p HiDPI (that means on native 3840x2160 with smooth fonts, right?) to run on 52Hz successfully and/or do you know how to achieve that?
I am very disappointed by Apple that a 1.5 year old 2000$ laptop seems already that outdated that it does not support a decent screen. :-(

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[JTToft]

I am very disappointed by Apple that a 1.5 year old 2000$ laptop seems already that outdated that it does not support a decent screen. :-(

- Honestly, you shouldn't have bought it then. It's no secret that it can't do 4K properly. 4K monitors are still a relatively new thing, and the integrated graphics on 13" machines are just now becoming capable of utilising them.

 

[Bifff]

Did anyone get something like 1440p HiDPI (that means on native 3840x2160 with smooth fonts, right?) to run on 52Hz successfully and/or do you know how to achieve that?

I hope this helps - I attached a screenshot of all the resolutions I have available with switchresx on my 4k monitor with a 2013 13" MBP.

 

[BenTrovato]

I hope this helps - I attached a screenshot of all the resolutions I have available with switchresx on my 4k monitor with a 2013 13" MBP.

Do you guys actually notice a difference? I notice zero performance increase on El Cap using 52Hz compared to 30Hz. It's just as bad in both configs. The only thing is that my laptop runs smoking hot the entire time it's on 52Hz.

 

[Bifff]

Do you guys actually notice a difference? I notice zero performance increase on El Cap using 52Hz compared to 30Hz. It's just as bad in both configs. The only thing is that my laptop runs smoking hot the entire time it's on 52Hz.

I notice a HUGE difference between 52Hz and 30Hz. A few times, switchresx messed up and set me back to 30Hz when I plugged the monitor to my machine, and I noticed immediately that it wasn't right. After restarted my machine and all was well.

My laptop does run a bit warm... I wouldn't describe it as smoking hot. But that could be a difference in the applications being used.

 

[yenoach]

I hope this helps - I attached a screenshot of all the resolutions I have available with switchresx on my 4k monitor with a 2013 13" MBP.

Thanks! It seems there is indeed nothing between 1080p and 2160p available on either frequency, 30 or 52Hz. :-(

 

[yenoach]

Btw: The hacks for 52Hz seemed not to work on the U28E590D. I tried different custom resolution configurations I found on this board and on the web. But every time that I selected one of them, my Macbook just froze on a black screen and did not even react when I unplugged the display. I will return the display today and get an 2560x1440 IPS screen instead.

 

[JTToft]

I will return the display today and get an 2560x1440 IPS screen instead.

- May I suggest the UltraSharp U2515H? Or U2715H if you feel like paying for the same monitor 2 inches larger.

 

[yenoach]

Thanks for the hint. In the meantime I already ordered exactly that one (the U2715H). Everybody seems quite convinced by that monitor.

 

[BenTrovato]

Thanks for the hint. In the meantime I already ordered exactly that one (the U2715H). Everybody seems quite convinced by that monitor.

I returned that monitor. The Dell p2415q at 30Hz is far better than the Ultrasharp monitors. I couldn't handle the fuzzy text.

 

[sebgiles]

I just "wasted" the most part of this weekend testing all different combinations of resolutions with switchresx, I learned a few things about how screens work etc...
I find 1080p on 27.5" is wasted space and non hidpi 1440p is wasted money.
So I want 1440p hidpi and to get it I have to scale to 5120 x 2880, but this is always rejected. (this is exactly the resolution of the 5k iMac)

I was however able to set a 2880 x 5120 scaled resolution (the same, only rotated). This made a rotated hidpi 1440p setting available, resulting in narrow image at the middle of the screen with supersharp UI etc.
This seems to be proof that the little MacBooks can deliver all the pixels for a retina 5K Desktop environment and fit them on a 4k display at ~52Hz via DP.

The problem is inverting rows and columns.

Messing around I was able to even scale up to 3834 x 6816 with analogous results...

Also when I rotate 90° from standard OSX system prefs I get a retina 1152 x 2048 default resolution which is still more than a rotated 1080p and I get the "pretty" UI scaling menu.

There seems to be much more freedom in setting 9:16 aspect ratio resolutions than the more obvious 16:9, this makes no sense at all, maybe it's some sort of marketing scheme to make me buy an iMac.
I wish this feature was unlocked soon or otherwise hacked out.

Hope this info is useful to someone, I'll just keep on working on my huge 1080p UI now...

System:
Late 2013 256GB 13" rMPB (ie. 1536MB Iris)
Samsung U28E590

 

[BreadLover]

Hi,
With the 2013 13-inch Haswell rMBP it is possible to run at 3840x2160 or 1080P HiDPI over DisplayPort at 52Hz. This is because the max clock rate for the 13-inch over thunderbolt 2 is 450 MHz.

To get this resolution, use the settings in the screenshot I've made with switchresx (attached).

If you want 60Hz or even higher HiDPI settings, you can do this via picture by picture mode with a DP and a HDMI connector. There's an extensive thread on this in this forum.



Edit.. And yes, I did this with the same monitor you're using!

I plan on buying the Dell Ultra HD 4K Monitor P2415Q 24-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor for my macbook pro retina 13inch. I know it can't run @60 mhz 4k. I was wondering what the settings would be on SwitchResX to get it at 52 mhz. Is that possible ? And dose it have any long term damage to the computer or display. Thank in advance. Im a newbie, so pardon my stupid question.

 

[salivan]

I plan on buying the Dell Ultra HD 4K Monitor P2415Q 24-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor for my macbook pro retina 13inch. I know it can't run @60 mhz 4k. I was wondering what the settings would be on SwitchResX to get it at 52 mhz. Is that possible ? And dose it have any long term damage to the computer or display. Thank in advance. Im a newbie, so pardon my stupid question.

I purchased P2415Q for mbpr13. Using SwitchResX it works fine at 51.6hz, at 30 its unusable.

You can find SwitchResX settings attached in one of the replies: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...a-macbook-pro-13.1741440/page-6#post-20790013

I also wanted to ask original discussion authors: did you find some other settings that work better maybe?

 

[BenTrovato]

I purchased P2415Q for mbpr13. Using SwitchResX it works fine at 51.6hz, at 30 its unusable.

You can find SwitchResX settings attached in one of the replies: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...a-macbook-pro-13.1741440/page-6#post-20790013

I also wanted to ask original discussion authors: did you find some other settings that work better maybe?

I don't notice a difference between 52hz and 30.

 

[salivan]

I don't notice a difference between 52hz and 30.

I do notice, are you sure its working for you? what HZ does monitor report when you open settings on the right bottom side?

 

[BenTrovato]

I do notice, are you sure its working for you? what HZ does monitor report when you open settings on the right bottom side?

It reports 52. I just find it performs exactly the same way as on 30hz. The only thing I notice is that my laptop gets really hot.

 

[salivan]

It reports 52. I just find it performs exactly the same way as on 30hz. The only thing I notice is that my laptop gets really hot.

that doesn't sound right, did you use exact numbers?

Mine doesn't get hot at all, not more than usual really. and I feel difference when I drag around mouse on screen: @30hz it skips, @52hz its not perfect but bothers me less.

I also had to switch from safari back to chrome - I was seeing graphical glitches in safari all around UI. I guess because we are pushing intel gpu to its limit.

 

[BenTrovato]

that doesn't sound right, did you use exact numbers?

Mine doesn't get hot at all, not more than usual really. and I feel difference when I drag around mouse on screen: @30hz it skips, @52hz its not perfect but bothers me less.

I also had to switch from safari back to chrome - I was seeing graphical glitches in safari all around UI. I guess because we are pushing intel gpu to its limit.

Hmmm. It does sound weird to me too. It might be that my 30hz setup is pretty good. I mean it's not 60 but I don't see any glitches at all. It's just not buttery smooth like it is without the external monitor.

 

[salivan]

Hmmm. It does sound weird to me too. It might be that my 30hz setup is pretty good. I mean it's not 60 but I don't see any glitches at all. It's just not buttery smooth like it is without the external monitor.

If you don't notice diff, frankly enjoy the screen I'm a web developer and spend around 10+h a day on screen, little issues get exaggerated over time for me to the point that I go mad...