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CallMyBookie

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 14, 2019
17
24
Hi, I've played with EasyRes, and SwitchResX, but they don't let me set the screen to use 1920*1200 in Retina mode, only standard 1x mode. Has anyone managed to do this, maybe editing a system file? The screen is so much sharper than my 2012 MBP that I like it in 1680 (1.5), but I want to try one level higher to keep the menu and toolbars from using much space.
 
The actual resolution of the panel is 2560x1600 so you will lose an immense about of sharpness in the display quality if you go higher then the 2:1 resolution of 1280x800, even though it ships with a default of 1440x900. I'm curious how you can even read the display running 1680x1050 at 13.3"!
 
1920x1200 works fine on my 2020 Air. On Catalina. Apparently some brave soul tried Big Sur beta and didn't work, since they couldn't find a way to overwrite the file in the nested folder even with the Catalina terminal code that allows for that to happen (look at one of the last pages for this trick)

I personally like having the choice between it and 1680x1050, accessible in stock Settings pane. Dont really ever use 1280x800 or 1440x900, too many years on non-retina Air 1440x900 and non-retina 13" Pro before that @ actual 1280x800. Theyre a thing of the past for me scaling wise, especially the latter where it feels like tonka toy DPI.


Dont like to plug my own thread, but this is a good one to go to to make it all happen

The tl;dr is you look up some values, change the affected plist in the right nested folder, and overwrite the original with new values in an array tag within the file (after disabling SIP in recovery mode). Then for safekeeping, re-enable SIP in recovery mode and enjoy.
 
Thanks thadoggfather, I was successful. These steps are from memory:
I restarted in recovery mode (Cmd-R), csrutil disable, reboot
Opened terminal, sudo mount -uw / , killall Finder
Got my monitor from System Preferences->Displays->Profiles->Color LCD->Open profile->Line 17
Added <data>AAAPAAAACWAAAAAB</data>(for 1920x1200) to the proper file in /System/Library/Displays/Overrides/. The OS was still complaining about not wanting to edit or copy files in there, but it turned out it would replace a file with one that had the same name after a little playing around.
Reboot, tested System Prefs, I'm in! They should have put this in the first place, there's no choppiness or slowdowns at all. I did decide to increase the font size on some of my content to save eyestrain, but the window controls use less space and that's what I was hoping for.

Screen Shot 2020-07-26 at 10.42.56 AM.png
 
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