Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

355922

Cancelled
Original poster
Aug 30, 2009
322
112
Is it just plug and play? Any special settings needed for optimal performance?
 

Dominic Perry

macrumors newbie
Apr 14, 2020
3
0
Not a Dell U4919DW, but a Samsung C49RG90. Doesn't work at native 5120x1440, (but looks nice at 3840x1080!).
Same result with MBP 2019 16" with 5500M 8GB and MBP 2015 15" Retina with R9 M370X 2 GB.
 

redmac

macrumors regular
Apr 7, 2008
215
239
San Francisco
Not a Dell U4919DW, but a Samsung C49RG90. Doesn't work at native 5120x1440, (but looks nice at 3840x1080!).
Same result with MBP 2019 16" with 5500M 8GB and MBP 2015 15" Retina with R9 M370X 2 GB.

That shouldn’t happen. Any Mac that has been manufactured since early 2010’s should work with 5120x1440 with no manual setup needed. That resolution is basically two of those old Apple Cinema/Thunderbolt displays, or half of a 5k display. Even the ancient MacBook Airs can handle that.

If that happened with more than one Mac, you are probably using an old HDMI cable. I believe, nothing older than HDMI 1.4 can support that resolution. Or, maybe there is something wrong with your monitor.
 

Dominic Perry

macrumors newbie
Apr 14, 2020
3
0
That is, sadly, not correct. There's a long thread (about 34+ pages) on the Apple forums about Mac Mini 2018 and Dell U4919DW not working properly at 5120x1440 - in MacOS. Restart the same machine into Bootcamp and Win10, and it works at full resolution. Lots of people have spoken to Apple (and Dell) and it's still not fixed over a year on - clearly the hardware can cope but the OS cannot. There's something about it being half of 5K (i.e. a height of 1440 rather than 2880) that upsets MacOS. People have tried a lot of things and end up either giving up, buying an external GPU or running two cables and using PBP/PIP - basically pretending it's two 27" monitors.

I'm sure I have suitable cables and adapters - I checked displayport.org for approved manufacturers and bought 8K capable cables and adapters where possible, DP1.4 where that was pertinent. The screen came with an HDMI cable which will be compatible (of course). I also used HDMI with the 2015 MBP I have (which I wasn't expecting to work) and tried both HDMI and DP with the MBP 2019. No dice.

The Dell was the first of the 32:9 ultra wide 5K 49" monitors - and if Apple haven't got that one working then there's probably no hope for the Samsung - LG might be different just because Apple have a close association with them.

There's stuff on the Dell forums too....

Dominic
 

Dominic Perry

macrumors newbie
Apr 14, 2020
3
0
Do you notice any heat and noise issue as described in this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an-external-monitor.2211747 with your MB 16 inch?
The MBP 2019 was ok with the external monitor at 3840 x 1080, as long as I didn't do much. As soon as I started to scroll around (no gaming, just web pages and documents) it began to warm up. Room temp is 20deg Celsius here.
My MBP 2015 is better behaved with the same monitor at the same resolution although the screen is less snappy - pretty frustrating if I'm honest.
I read that thread before I bought the MBP2019 , which is why I was cautious. There were other problems with it too (USB audio was patchy with an RME interface which is perfect on the MBP 2015) so I sent it back.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.