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M1 Mac External Display - Fuzzy Fonts & Colors - YPBPR vs RGB

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
hardwickj said:
Dell's UP3218K 8K monitor has worked on Windows for nearly 6 years already. Have fun getting that to work at all on most Macs. Even if you do, there will be significant caveats.
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Why would I want to run a $5000, sorry $4000 monitor? 😄

Yeesh! 87 watt power consumption for the monitor alone.
 
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scgf said:
I have the brightness set at 5 and the contrast at 83, lol, so to answer your question about the display being dim, I can confidently say 'no'! I have a Mac Mini so this is my only monitor.

I bought an arm from Amazon for not much money which attaches to the monitor VESA mounting plate and allows me to have the screen in virtually any position I like.

View attachment 1720861

The arm is pretty amazing, given the price! This is the UK link: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08D66SNVQ I can see that there are many variants on the US Amazon site too at around $35. Here's a link to one that looks the same as mine: https://smile.amazon.com/Single-Monitor-Mount-Articulating-Adjustable/dp/B07T3KCQ94

I originally bought the monitor to use with Windows 10, but it was so good I bought a new M1 Mac Mini to replace my Windows NUC.

I 'calibrated' it using the Mac utility in System Preferences/Disply/Colour. I find it perfectly acceptable, especially with that arm 🙂
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Really nice desk setup! Keen to hear what changes you made in the Mac display colour calibration...
 
Folks, I'm reading the whole thread (I'm bored and interested, don't @ me), I see that people force RGB mode using an app and some magic, now, recently I bought a 32 inch 1440p gaming monitor, I use a USB C to DP (an Amazon branded one, pretty good!) and I can use all the bells and whistles of my monitor, including VRR, however I want to revamp my workdesk and I want to buy a cheap 43 inch 4K TV to use as a monitor, I did my research and aided by rtings, I decided to go for a Hisense A6H TV once I sell my monitor, as it supports the 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, looks good in person and it's really cheap, great!

Hoooowever, I see that using HDMI, a lot of people can only get at most 4:2:2 (10 bit), now, I don't care about HDR, so I have no issue by sticking at 8 bit color, so, Can I use this trick with the app, to get 4:4:4 via HDMI? Does it matter if it goes thru as RGB or as YPBPR? I have a Macbook Air M2, if that's important.

Cheers!
 
How do I actually know what my M1 is outputting? I have a Corsair Xenon 32UHD144, but the monitor's OSD doesn't report color input format. If I look at the Mac's System Report, in the Graphics/Displays section at the end it says "Television: Yes".

Connected via USB-C.

Any help with this?
 
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Hi there. Is there a list of compatible monitors with Mac M chip? I recently purchased a Mac mini M2 (2023) which I connected to my BENQ EX2510 monitor. My display is set to 1920 x 1080 at a 60 Hertz refresh rate. Unfortunately, the text rendering is far from ideal. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance!
 
meletkis said:
Hi there. Is there a list of compatible monitors with Mac M chip? I recently purchased a Mac mini M2 (2023) which I connected to my BENQ EX2510 monitor. My display is set to 1920 x 1080 at a 60 Hertz refresh rate. Unfortunately, the text rendering is far from ideal. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance!
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All monitors are compatible with M chips. That’s how MacOS renders text on non Retina display. Nothing can be done about it, except buying at least 4K monitor and running it in Retina mode.
 
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AlphaCentauri said:
All monitors are compatible with M chips. That’s how MacOS renders text on non Retina display. Nothing can be done about it, except buying at least 4K monitor and running it in Retina mode.
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This is right unfortunately. There are people who say that even 4K isn't good enough. This isn't my experience. 4K does the job well, but anything less is disappointing.
There were incompatibilities with M1 and some Dell monitors. I don't know if that persists. I have a 4K 27” LG and it's fantastic.
 
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tornado99 said:
Lots of people overlook the LG Ultrafine 24 inch 4K. This is the cheapest route to a display that renders text sharply with excellent contrast on Macs. Especially if you pick one up second hand.
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For me LG Ultrafine 24 inch 4K is the best for the price and performance, now waiting, when it's be agen back to stock in Amazon. I want another one, because Thunderbolt daisy-chain allow up to two connect to Macbook Pro M2 Pro with one cable.
 
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tornado99 said:
Lots of people overlook the LG Ultrafine 24 inch 4K. This is the cheapest route to a display that renders text sharply with excellent contrast on Macs. Especially if you pick one up second hand.
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EzisAA said:
For me LG Ultrafine 24 inch 4K is the best for the price and performance, now waiting, when it's be agen back to stock in Amazon. I want another one, because Thunderbolt daisy-chain allow up to two connect to Macbook Pro M2 Pro with one cable.
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Are you talking about this specific model? I’m looking for a 27” version.

 
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Is this still happening with newer macs?

I have a m3 max mbp16" connected to a G34WQC thru usb-c to dp1.4 and I'm using betterdisplay to just 2x the res back to 3440x1440 (native) as the default native without upscaling looks blurry, in betterdisplay it shows next to the resolution, 144hz, 10bit.

In Display Settings, the OS picked up G34WQC color profile automatically, apparently it was already in Apple's database? How can I be sure it's running in RGB?
 
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September 2024.

Mac Mini M2, the basic one with 8Gb RAM and 256Gb SSD.

Monitor: LG 27MP400 Monitor 27" Full HD LED IPS, 1920x1080, 5ms, AMD FreeSync 75Hz, VGA, HDMI 1.4 (HDCP 1.4), Flicker Safe.

Connecting the M2 with the monitor (HDMI to HDMI) and returning to work from standby the monitor turns on with white background and black/coloured dots (like ants running across the video).

Using connection from thunderbolt (M2) to HDMI (monitor) is OK. But in that case I “loose” a thunderbolt exit.

Same issue with MacOS Sonoma and Sequoia.

Excuse me for my “basic” (bad) english.
 
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