Default vs scaled resolutions

[tthomson]

Hello all, I'm a new Mac user. Just got my 2020 MBP and I have a question about the resolutions available on my MacBook. The default 2560 resolution was too small for my eyes so under scaled resolutions I chose 1280 by 800 which makes everything look just right. Is there any downside to using a scaled resolution? Will it decrease battery life or anything? So far it's been fine but just wanted to know what the consensus is. Thanks.

 

[casperes1996]

Just to be clear, the default is also scaled and is not a desktop space of 2560x1600. Unless you explicitly override it, which I still don’t believe you can easily do on the laptops from System Preferences, the whole display resolution of 2560x1600 will be used in all the scaled resolutions, default included.

The Retina Macs used to default to what we call 2:1, which would be 1280x800 effective screen space. Since if you multiply both horizontally and vertically with 2 you get the actual resolution, so you have 4 pixels per desktop pixel. Content like images, video, etc. can still use all the pixels, and everything is just sharper.

The newer computers default to a bit higher effective desktop resolution. But actually, 2:1 (AKA @2x) is actually both sharper looking since it’s a clear integer scaling and you don’t have some pixels requiring more or less screen pixels compared to others; and it’s also less work on the GPU since it’s a straight up scaling, rendering “only” at 2560x1600 scaled. If you theoretically set the effective screen space resolution to 1920x1200, the GPU will actually render 3840x2400 scale it to 1920x1200 and then scale it to display resolution of 2560x1600.

So in short, it would actually be more likely to improve battery life, but it’s unlikely to be a really noticeable difference

 

[tthomson]

Just to be clear, the default is also scaled and is not a desktop space of 2560x1600. Unless you explicitly override it, which I still don’t believe you can easily do on the laptops from System Preferences, the whole display resolution of 2560x1600 will be used in all the scaled resolutions, default included.

The Retina Macs used to default to what we call 2:1, which would be 1280x800 effective screen space. Since if you multiply both horizontally and vertically with 2 you get the actual resolution, so you have 4 pixels per desktop pixel. Content like images, video, etc. can still use all the pixels, and everything is just sharper.

The newer computers default to a bit higher effective desktop resolution. But actually, 2:1 (AKA @2x) is actually both sharper looking since it’s a clear integer scaling and you don’t have some pixels requiring more or less screen pixels compared to others; and it’s also less work on the GPU since it’s a straight up scaling, rendering “only” at 2560x1600 scaled. If you theoretically set the effective screen space resolution to 1920x1200, the GPU will actually render 3840x2400 scale it to 1920x1200 and then scale it to display resolution of 2560x1600.

So in short, it would actually be more likely to improve battery life, but it’s unlikely to be a really noticeable difference

Thanks for the detailed answer! I think I will leave it on the scaled 1280/800.

 

[casperes1996]

Thanks for the detailed answer! I think I will leave it on the scaled 1280/800.

You’re very welcome. I highly recommend just using whatever scaling factor is nice to use for you. So if you like the 1280x800 scaling then there’s no reason not to use that 🙂.

 

[Billiejoe87]

Hi guys,

I bought the 16 inch Macbook Pro and was having so much trouble adjusting to the screen when I realised the default scaling was actually what was so difficult for me to get used to and causing me eye strain. The writing was too small.

As soon as I changed the scaling to looks like 1536x960 everything improved. I understand this is exactly 2x the Macbook Pro 16 inch native resolution. Should I expect slowdowns or decreased performance using this scaling?

 

[casperes1996]

As soon as I changed the scaling to looks like 1536x960 everything improved. I understand this is exactly 2x the Macbook Pro 16 inch native resolution. Should I expect slowdowns or decreased performance using this scaling?

I think what you mean is that it's exactly /2 on each axis. But as I explained earlier, nope. On the contrary, it's actually slightly easier for the GPU to run what we call @2x scaling

Read my post number 2 for more information. The numbers are different but all the principles are the same. Post 2 was written based around the 13" Mac since that's the most common Pro, but it really doesn't make much of a difference. All the numbers are just higher with the 16".

 

[Billiejoe87]

I think what you mean is that it's exactly /2 on each axis. But as I explained earlier, nope. On the contrary, it's actually slightly easier for the GPU to run what we call @2x scaling

Read my post number 2 for more information. The numbers are different but all the principles are the same. Post 2 was written based around the 13" Mac since that's the most common Pro, but it really doesn't make much of a difference. All the numbers are just higher with the 16".

Thank you. I think it's the fact Apple tells you that scaling may affect performance in display settings that makes me think about the impact it might have.

 

[casperes1996]

Thank you. I think it's the fact Apple tells you that scaling may affect performance in display settings that makes me think about the impact it might have.

Well it might affect performance indeed. And the scale factor that is 1536x960 on the 16" Pro is technically the one that should run the fastest of the lot. But it's a minor difference. On the original Retina devices Apple defaulted to the @2x scaling factor.
Thing is that with all Retina resolutions it will render the actual image at twice what the screen space resolution is, and then if necessary downsample it to fit the display; Actually, slight simplification, some resolutions will render internally @3x before being scaled to fit but let's leave that aside fro now. - So with 1536x960 the GPU power needed is the same as if you were just running the display at 1:1 screen-space and pixel space. I.e. no scaling. With anything else you're effectively rendering a higher resolution image and then scaling it back down to fit the screen's pixels, and since it won't match the pixels perfectly it might also not look as sharp (I am not sure if it's a default, but anti-aliasing can be used to blend in the values from the rendered parts that sit between screen pixels, smoothing things out but still not retaining sharpness the same way as an integer scaling factor. It's a balance where a 2:1 scaling will give the Sharpes image, but to some the less usable desktop space might not be worth the perhaps imperceptible to them difference in sharpness.
Also as noted earlier, media content that has its own rendered resolution will just use the display pixels "directly" anyway, so video and images aren't affected, only UI. It's not a huge deal, pick a setting you like to look at and work with 🙂

 

[Billiejoe87]

Well it might affect performance indeed. And the scale factor that is 1536x960 on the 16" Pro is technically the one that should run the fastest of the lot. But it's a minor difference. On the original Retina devices Apple defaulted to the @2x scaling factor.
Thing is that with all Retina resolutions it will render the actual image at twice what the screen space resolution is, and then if necessary downsample it to fit the display; Actually, slight simplification, some resolutions will render internally @3x before being scaled to fit but let's leave that aside fro now. - So with 1536x960 the GPU power needed is the same as if you were just running the display at 1:1 screen-space and pixel space. I.e. no scaling. With anything else you're effectively rendering a higher resolution image and then scaling it back down to fit the screen's pixels, and since it won't match the pixels perfectly it might also not look as sharp (I am not sure if it's a default, but anti-aliasing can be used to blend in the values from the rendered parts that sit between screen pixels, smoothing things out but still not retaining sharpness the same way as an integer scaling factor. It's a balance where a 2:1 scaling will give the Sharpes image, but to some the less usable desktop space might not be worth the perhaps imperceptible to them difference in sharpness.
Also as noted earlier, media content that has its own rendered resolution will just use the display pixels "directly" anyway, so video and images aren't affected, only UI. It's not a huge deal, pick a setting you like to look at and work with 🙂

Thanks so much for your fantastic and thorough explanations.

I am not a pro user in the sense that I need multiple windows open at one time on the desktop and my eyesight is not the best, so I've been driving myself crazy with the smaller UI writing and eyestrain and this has made me not regret buying the 16 inch Macbook Pro anymore. In fact I'm loving this mac now 🙂

I love the fact I can boot into Windows and enjoy a game of Forza and then come back to Mac OS for my general day to day usage now.

 

[casperes1996]

Thanks so much for your fantastic and thorough explanations.

I am not a pro user in the sense that I need multiple windows open at one time on the desktop and my eyesight is not the best, so I've been driving myself crazy with the smaller UI writing and eyestrain and this has made me not regret buying the 16 inch Macbook Pro anymore. In fact I'm loving this mac now 🙂

I love the fact I can boot into Windows and enjoy a game of Forza and then come back to Mac OS for my general day to day usage now.

Glad it's nicer to use for you now 🙂.

I have a very weird usage myself. I have really bad eyesight; Decent central vision but terrible in the rest of my sphere of vision.
I used to run my 15" at @2x scaling. But then I found myself always changing it to smaller whenever I was writing code or editing video to get more room for everything. 2x looks a little nicer, but to me there are just too many usability benefits to a larger desktop - I eventually just stopped switching and just stayed on the effective 1680x1050 desktop resolution. But I also have zoom enabled so just holding control and dragging with two fingers on the trackpad will zoom anywhere in macOS making it a nice way of having both the ability to make things a bit larger really quickly for an easier overview, since as mentioned, quite bad eyesight, but also having the room to work with

But in the end having multiple scaling options is great, because different people will want things to be a different size, and the way retina scaling works you don't have to severely sacrifice the sharpness and quality of the image to get that different size of elements on screen. Before the days of retina scaling, changing the resolution to anything other than what the display was made for, had a severe negative impact on image quality. The retina scaling system fixed that, and that does sometimes mean the GPU will have to render an image at a much higher resolution than the display's resolution but in most cases it's a negligible difference in power usage and performance and the benefits of the scaling system far outweigh the tiny drawback in having to render a larger image.

I'm happy it makes using your Mac a nicer experience
Cheers

 

[FuNGi]

Glad I found this thread. I replaced my 2013 15" rMBP with a 2020 13" MBP and was surprised the default resolution (1440*900) rendered so small. I've scaled down to 1280*800, a value /2 native resolution (2560*1600), if I understand correctly. I do remember folks talking about how the scaling can affect performance - I don't think its an issue but the /2 native is the sweet spot for me personally. If I need space I plug in an external 4k.

 

[casperes1996]

Glad I found this thread. I replaced my 2013 15" rMBP with a 2020 13" MBP and was surprised the default resolution (1440*900) rendered so small. I've scaled down to 1280*800, a value /2 native resolution (2560*1600), if I understand correctly. I do remember folks talking about how the scaling can affect performance - I don't think its an issue but the /2 native is the sweet spot for me personally. If I need space I plug in an external 4k.

Scaling can affect performance slightly, but @2x is actually the scaling factor that performance wise is the best. - Many people just prefer having more content on screen. 🙂

Also note that the performance difference isn't really that big generally speaking

 

[petvas]

Well it might affect performance indeed. And the scale factor that is 1536x960 on the 16" Pro is technically the one that should run the fastest of the lot. But it's a minor difference. On the original Retina devices Apple defaulted to the @2x scaling factor.
Thing is that with all Retina resolutions it will render the actual image at twice what the screen space resolution is, and then if necessary downsample it to fit the display; Actually, slight simplification, some resolutions will render internally @3x before being scaled to fit but let's leave that aside fro now. - So with 1536x960 the GPU power needed is the same as if you were just running the display at 1:1 screen-space and pixel space. I.e. no scaling. With anything else you're effectively rendering a higher resolution image and then scaling it back down to fit the screen's pixels, and since it won't match the pixels perfectly it might also not look as sharp (I am not sure if it's a default, but anti-aliasing can be used to blend in the values from the rendered parts that sit between screen pixels, smoothing things out but still not retaining sharpness the same way as an integer scaling factor. It's a balance where a 2:1 scaling will give the Sharpes image, but to some the less usable desktop space might not be worth the perhaps imperceptible to them difference in sharpness.
Also as noted earlier, media content that has its own rendered resolution will just use the display pixels "directly" anyway, so video and images aren't affected, only UI. It's not a huge deal, pick a setting you like to look at and work with 🙂

I agree with most of the things you said but performance is affected in ways that make using the MacBook Pro not as fun as with 2x scaling. Scrolling in Safari is much smoother with 2x scaling. Battery is also better with 2x scaling. I understand the need for more screen real estate, but I prefer to use the 2x scaling most of the time. The laptop just feels better and smoother with it. Maybe when the Apple Silicon version of the 16" comes out, we will get a higher resolution display or scaling will not cause any performance issues..

 

[Apple_Robert]

This would be a good question for the new M1 MBA / MBP, in regards to if there is any significant battery use or performance declined with using default setting versus scaled.

 

[casperes1996]

I agree with most of the things you said but performance is affected in ways that make using the MacBook Pro not as fun as with 2x scaling. Scrolling in Safari is much smoother with 2x scaling. Battery is also better with 2x scaling. I understand the need for more screen real estate, but I prefer to use the 2x scaling most of the time. The laptop just feels better and smoother with it. Maybe when the Apple Silicon version of the 16" comes out, we will get a higher resolution display or scaling will not cause any performance issues..

Hm. Have a theory as well that while the dGPUs have improved tremendously on newer Macs, the iGPU actually got a bit worse after the Crystal Well chips that had significant L4 SDRAM on-die.
And since regular day-to-day stuff just works on the iGPU; perhaps the scaled performance actually got worse after Crystal Well?
In any case scrolling is smooth for me in Safari in scaled mode too

 

[ght56]

Hm. Have a theory as well that while the dGPUs have improved tremendously on newer Macs, the iGPU actually got a bit worse after the Crystal Well chips that had significant L4 SDRAM on-die.
And since regular day-to-day stuff just works on the iGPU; perhaps the scaled performance actually got worse after Crystal Well?
In any case scrolling is smooth for me in Safari in scaled mode too

iGPU performance on my Haswell-era 15-inch is substantially better in practice than the iGPU performance on my 16-inch with respect to the fluidity of the UI (still not perfect...when scrolling you will still sometimes see stuttering). The 16-inch has a more substantial microstutter than the 15-inch when on the iGPU. I believe this may in part have to do with it as well as asking the iGPU on the 16-inch to push the additional pixels...the 2019 15-inch, with the same iGPU, does not have nearly as bad a UI stutter as the 16-inch. And further it seems to be more of an issue when the iGPU is at an idle state. Strangely, the issue is mostly resolved when logged into two user accounts, which (inexplicably) seems to operate both the iGPU and dGPU simultaneously, with a constant 2-3 watt power draw from the dGPU while the iGPU is still shown as the GPU being used.

I am willing to bet that Intel's poor iGPU performance was a driving factor behind Apple moving towards Apple Silicon as the UI experience is something Apple seems to highly prioritize. The M1's iGPU yields a UI experience that is smooth as glass.

 

[petvas]

When using the 2x scaled resolution on my 16" MBP performance is great. Text is sharp and everything looks really good. I hope that the Apple Silicon based 16" MacBook Pro will be as impressive as the M1 13" MBP..

 

[rpmeg]

Just to be clear, the default is also scaled and is not a desktop space of 2560x1600. Unless you explicitly override it, which I still don’t believe you can easily do on the laptops from System Preferences, the whole display resolution of 2560x1600 will be used in all the scaled resolutions, default included.

The Retina Macs used to default to what we call 2:1, which would be 1280x800 effective screen space. Since if you multiply both horizontally and vertically with 2 you get the actual resolution, so you have 4 pixels per desktop pixel. Content like images, video, etc. can still use all the pixels, and everything is just sharper.

The newer computers default to a bit higher effective desktop resolution. But actually, 2:1 (AKA @2x) is actually both sharper looking since it’s a clear integer scaling and you don’t have some pixels requiring more or less screen pixels compared to others; and it’s also less work on the GPU since it’s a straight up scaling, rendering “only” at 2560x1600 scaled. If you theoretically set the effective screen space resolution to 1920x1200, the GPU will actually render 3840x2400 scale it to 1920x1200 and then scale it to display resolution of 2560x1600.

So in short, it would actually be more likely to improve battery life, but it’s unlikely to be a really noticeable difference

I stumbled across this answer from searching the internet and created an account just to reply here.

I think this answered my question, but just want to confirm - so the "default for display" is essentially just a zoom setting but the display's full resolution is still utilized?

I think the "default" is 1920x1080p, which results in comfortable viewing sizes. When I switch to the full 4k resolution of my monitor, everything is teensy. Just want to make sure I am using the full juice of my monitor without having to make everything tiny. Thanks!

 

[casperes1996]

I think this answered my question, but just want to confirm - so the "default for display" is essentially just a zoom setting but the display's full resolution is still utilized?

I think the "default" is 1920x1080p, which results in comfortable viewing sizes. When I switch to the full 4k resolution of my monitor, everything is teensy. Just want to make sure I am using the full juice of my monitor without having to make everything tiny. Thanks!

Correct, yes. In your case, the default is "1920x1080@2x" as Apple refers to it. The @2x indicating 2x scale factor.
If you option-click the scale button you should get a list of resolutions. There should be a checkbox to enable low resolutions. Now you can toggle between the low resolution 1080p and the one just labeled 1080p. That should make the difference really clear. 1080p (low resolution) just sends a 1080p signal to the monitor, whereas the scaled "default for display" or just "1080p" in the list sends a 4K signal to the monitor, using the effective UI sizing of 1080p

 

[casperes1996]

Correct, yes. In your case, the default is "1920x1080@2x" as Apple refers to it. The @2x indicating 2x scale factor.
If you option-click the scale button you should get a list of resolutions. There should be a checkbox to enable low resolutions. Now you can toggle between the low resolution 1080p and the one just labeled 1080p. That should make the difference really clear. 1080p (low resolution) just sends a 1080p signal to the monitor, whereas the scaled "default for display" or just "1080p" in the list sends a 4K signal to the monitor, using the effective UI sizing of 1080p

Addendum; You can pick any resolution not marked (low resolution) and it will use the full display power. Picking anything other than an integer division (so in your case 4K/2 = 1080) will however potentially require more GPU power than just 4K and might also look a tiny bit less sharp since UI elements will require interpolation since some elements may be virtually rendered between screen pixels.
As an example, if you pick the resolution 3200x1800, the GPU will render 2x that resolution, namely 6400x3600 and downsample that to 4K to give optimal sharpness.

 

[MBproRetinaEarly2013]

Thanks for that explanations!!
So I got a few question for the external display, f.e. 24 and 25" wqhd 2560x1440 users (for me Dell U2515H) as I'm feeling every month somebody is asking, for the past ten years, why his native resolution is so small (windows scaling 125%) and all the other settings unbearable blurry.

We need to create a resolution of 4k 3840x2160 with a third party application like switchresx, which allows us to select a 1920x1080hiDPI. If I understand you right this means a non-integer scaling factor of 1.333?

Is that reason enough to ban the resolution, instead of a warning, as I can't see badly negative effects?
(GitHub p00ya/displaymode "! indicates modes, that are not usable for desktop")

Is it because Apple prefers DPI above maybe 110 and 1920x1080 is just 88@25" while native resolution is 137.

And am I right that this way of downscaling is regularly used in Apples internal, but higher DPI screens?

I'm a little bit afraid that this workaround just works under Catalina. I also need to shortly unplug the external display when switching between clamshell mode, because everytime one of the screens (internal/external) shows a black image, I think it's a negative effect that the resolution is tagged as not usable. I also think we had to look for monitors which work well with integer scaling or native resolution.

 

[Amethyst1]

Is that reason enough to ban the resolution, instead of a warning, as I can't see badly negative effects?

If you think it's fine, then just use it.

And am I right that this way of downscaling is regularly used in Apples internal, but higher DPI screens?

Yes.