No, the Studio Display only works over Thunderbolt.
Thunderbolt 4 Dock | TS4 | CalDigit – CalDigit
www.caldigit.com
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- Thread starter decafjava
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No, the Studio Display only works over Thunderbolt.
www.caldigit.com
OK, so I'll try and explain the problem rather than throwing insults...
What effectively happens in the sort of "scaled" screen mode you're using is:
1. Mac OS renders the screen to an internal buffer at the full 5120x2880 resolution you'd get on a real 5k display
2. That 5k buffer is then "downsampled" to the actual physical resolution of your screen - in your case 2560x1440 - and the effect is similar to the "full screen anti-aliasing" that some games offer.
Now, when you take a screenshot in MacOS what you actually get is a copy of that internal 5120x2880 buffer, not the downsampled 2560x1440 image that goes to the screen. So your screenshot is representative of what you would see if you had a proper 5k display and really not at all representative of what is actually on your screen.
If you say that it matches your perception of the quality then we'll have to take your word for it. That depends on your eyesight, preferred viewing distance and how much your Gear Acquisition Syndrome is pushing you to justify buying a shiny new 5k display
- but unfortunately the screenshot doesn't help.I remember blagging a ~2010 27" Cinema Display at work and drooling at how clear the 2560x1440p was compared to the poor souls with 1080p or 1200p screens... Unfortunately, ~Mojave, Apple started optimising their display rendering and font smoothing for 220ppi displays, so quality on 110ppi screens may have backtracked a bit, and they chose not to enable 220ppi to 110ppi scaling. So I can believe that apps like BetterDisplay and SwitchResX which enable that do offer a slightly better result on standard-def displays. I guess that when "retina" displays first came out and the scaling options appeared, the extra GPU horsepower was a bigger deal - esp. when many Macs used fairly feeble Intel integrated GPUs. A modern Apple Silicon GPU shouldn't break a sweat though.
@theluggage, that was very helpful, thanks a lot. I'm fairly new to macOS and its scaling concept.
I need to revisit my claim, to make sure I'm not imagining things, possibly by taking a photo of the screen.
If you say that it matches your perception of the quality then we'll have to take your word for it. That depends on your eyesight, preferred viewing distance and how much your Gear Acquisition Syndrome is pushing you to justify buying a shiny new 5k display
I need to revisit my claim, to make sure I'm not imagining things, possibly by taking a photo of the screen.
The reason games use AA is because it looks better, giving a perception of higher resolution and as you say, you're getting a similar effect here. I don't know why you'd discount it as being more harm than good.
I think there was on old advert for a TV set along the lines of "we can't show you how good the picture on an Acme Supertron TV looks because, unless you are already watching this on an Acme Supertron you wouldn't appreciate it!"
Taking a picture is likely to introduce a bunch of other artefacts, moire patterns etc.
Below I've tried to simulate (note: simulate i.e. fake - this is not a hill I plan to die on!) what you'd actually get onscreen, by downsampling your "5k" image to half-size in Affinity Photo - this does proper bicubic resampling, it doesn't just take every other pixel, and I'd hope that MacOS' resampling does something similar. You can zoom in and see that the pixels are much larger than in your original but it still looks pretty good - just with a slight "soft focus" c.f. the crisp 5k version.
As I say - large pinch of salt, this was resampled in Affinity Photo - but I'd say it's clearly better than the "native" 1440p and if you examine it you'll see it is half the linear resolution of your original.
This might be a very dumb question…… so, coming from a 2019 iMac 27, I was all set to buy an Apple Studio Display for my new Mini. Then I noticed that I have always kept my display settings at “Default”, which is only 2560x1440. I can set it as high as 3200x1800, but everything is too small for my old eyes. Am I buying too much monitor in the Apple Studio Display since I don’t seem to use the highest resolutions, and if so, what’s a good monitor for the resolution I’m used to?
TIA!
TIA!
You're perfectly using the 5K display as Apple intended.
The 5K Studio Display is intended to work like the old 27" iMac 2560x1440 display as far as applications are concerned when laying out their UI elements. This makes them maintain their UI element sizes, instead of becoming microscopic when the display resolution increases. The actual drawing of the UI elements and text uses the extra pixels, giving you sharper and clearer results than if the monitor really was 2560x1440.
You might find an old application drawing an image that isn't "Retina-aware", and ends up showing low-resolution output, but I'd say that would be rare... Retina displays using this technique have been a thing for well over 10 years now.
Thanks for your explanation, I'm in the same boat as dcpmark and wringing my hands over the type of display I should get for the mini. You've taken me a long way to settling my indecision.
mark writes in #56 above:
"Am I buying too much monitor in the Apple Studio Display since I don’t seem to use the highest resolutions, and if so, what’s a good monitor for the resolution I’m used to?"
I believe the "default" settings are the same for the 27" iMac AND for the Studio Display --- 2560x1440 (or... "looks like 1440p"). I'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong. Of course, the displays are actually 5k, so they are in "HiDPI mode" with pixels "doubled" in both directions. The result is a very sharp display for text and graphics.
But...
Like you, I'm old with "old eyes".
For me, even 1440p on a 27" display is a bit too small these days.
It's not "the clarity".
It's THE SIZE (of the text, etc.) that makes the difference.
I use a 27" 4k display, running in [Apple's] default mode of 1920x1080 (or, "looks like 1080p").
Dell Ultrasharp works for me, for now.
Some in this forum will wail that this is inappropriate for Mac use, that the text is "too large", blah blah blah.
But for me... it's just fine. I normally sit a good distance from the display (around 30-32 inches).
"Am I buying too much monitor in the Apple Studio Display since I don’t seem to use the highest resolutions, and if so, what’s a good monitor for the resolution I’m used to?"
I believe the "default" settings are the same for the 27" iMac AND for the Studio Display --- 2560x1440 (or... "looks like 1440p"). I'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong. Of course, the displays are actually 5k, so they are in "HiDPI mode" with pixels "doubled" in both directions. The result is a very sharp display for text and graphics.
But...
Like you, I'm old with "old eyes".
For me, even 1440p on a 27" display is a bit too small these days.
It's not "the clarity".
It's THE SIZE (of the text, etc.) that makes the difference.
I use a 27" 4k display, running in [Apple's] default mode of 1920x1080 (or, "looks like 1080p").
Dell Ultrasharp works for me, for now.
Some in this forum will wail that this is inappropriate for Mac use, that the text is "too large", blah blah blah.
But for me... it's just fine. I normally sit a good distance from the display (around 30-32 inches).
Some comments on the INNOCN 27M2U-D, for anyone following it:
The SDR handling is poor. Looking at a contrast test page ( http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php ), everything from 28 up looks the same... ie: highlights are crushed. As I'd noted earlier, changing to a custom white balance I was able to restore more detail. Using this page while updating the settings I can see I need to drop R,G, and B down to about 23 in order to see each individual color bar as distinct. You'll then want to increase the brightness. Note, this doesn't re-crush the highlights. Whatever is handling the SDR tone-mapping just doesn't have the right number of bits.
When looking at a gradient test, there's a clear color shift as you move from shadows to normal brightness levels.
Rtings had reported that it lost your settings when changing inputs, then later said it kept them when using HDMI. I can tell you, it doesn't remember settings per input as you'd like/want/expect. On PC, with HDR enabled, my windows are dim, not white, and the mouse cursor is glowing pure bright white. It's idiotic. So I want to keep the PC in SDR state. Surely, I can have one input set to HDR and another to SDR, right? No. When switching between HDMI2 (Mac where I want HDR) and HDMI1 (PC where I want SDR), it leaves HDR enabled. Turning it off causes all the non-HDR settings values reset, so I have to manually choose to use my user white balance again to not crush the highlights... thankfully those settings remained, it just wasn't set to use them. This will make switching inputs an annoying chore.
These issues could, hopefully, be updated via some sort of firmware update, but as it is now... It's far from ideal. I do not recommend.
The SDR handling is poor. Looking at a contrast test page ( http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php ), everything from 28 up looks the same... ie: highlights are crushed. As I'd noted earlier, changing to a custom white balance I was able to restore more detail. Using this page while updating the settings I can see I need to drop R,G, and B down to about 23 in order to see each individual color bar as distinct. You'll then want to increase the brightness. Note, this doesn't re-crush the highlights. Whatever is handling the SDR tone-mapping just doesn't have the right number of bits.
When looking at a gradient test, there's a clear color shift as you move from shadows to normal brightness levels.
Rtings had reported that it lost your settings when changing inputs, then later said it kept them when using HDMI. I can tell you, it doesn't remember settings per input as you'd like/want/expect. On PC, with HDR enabled, my windows are dim, not white, and the mouse cursor is glowing pure bright white. It's idiotic. So I want to keep the PC in SDR state. Surely, I can have one input set to HDR and another to SDR, right? No. When switching between HDMI2 (Mac where I want HDR) and HDMI1 (PC where I want SDR), it leaves HDR enabled. Turning it off causes all the non-HDR settings values reset, so I have to manually choose to use my user white balance again to not crush the highlights... thankfully those settings remained, it just wasn't set to use them. This will make switching inputs an annoying chore.
These issues could, hopefully, be updated via some sort of firmware update, but as it is now... It's far from ideal. I do not recommend.
I have mine hooked up to my new Mac Mini now and I am sticking with SDR. HDR is still too yellow for me with no way to adjust anything in that mode. Looking at your page you linked, I see individual colors from 28 to 32 (from 1 to 32 actually). I have brighness set to 30 in my dimly lit room after having it at 50 for a long time. I am really pleased with mine for the $200+tax I paid for it.
Has Asus announced the price for it s new 6k monitor? If priced around 1500 it will be a no brainer as to what to choose.
One annoying thing in all 3rd party monitors is the matte screen without any other configuration. Am I the only having the monitor not facing a window?
One annoying thing in all 3rd party monitors is the matte screen without any other configuration. Am I the only having the monitor not facing a window?
Well.. I went ahead and bought a used 24 inch 4K monitor (yes, very hard to find), but it's really impressed me. It's very close to the 24inch iMac screen IMO and a HUGE jump up from the 27 inch, 1440p monitor I was using previously.
I wish the likes of LG, Samsung, BenQ, etc. would manufacture 24 inch 4k screens again, so we could buy these things new.
What BenQ 27" 5k is there now? I've seen rumblings of one to come, and am signed up via BenQ's "Notify Me", but haven't seen one, heard of a date it's dropping or seen price rumors. I'd love to see even an early review or get a hint on date drop, as we're trying to figure out if we should wait and see or just go ahead and purchase from what's out there now. Can you spill any tea?
My 2017 Samsung 1080P 27" monitor is starting to show signs of failure. It is on 27/7 for all of those years. I am one that never shuts down my computer I let them handle their power state. So is has a lot of hours on it. I want a 5K and I am going to stick with something that will work on the existing VESA Monitor arm. I am really in a quandary. The Apple Studio looks so good but so expensive. I look at the other choices and it is like watching a stage full of “hoochie coochie” dancers they all look good but which "G" string do you slip your monetary contribution into. I can see why people just take the easy way out and get the Studio Monitor.
Yep. My UltraSharp 1440 is circa 2018. As I’m replacing my I/O (pretty much complete), my computer (passed on the M4 Pro mini due to thermals, waiting for the M4 Studio) I figured why not replace the Dell with a 5k. I have all of the Asus and the Studio on the list. No matter how low they go on the Samsung, it’s not a contender. I've yet to find a glowing review for the LG. The BenQ is vaporware. The Studio is not only the easy way out, it’s about the only proven one out there.
That is the way I see it. I purposely purchased a mini PC that has a USB video output so having Thunderbolt I/O only is not going to be an issue.
I have an operational question. I know you can daisy chain Thunderbolt connections on the Studio monitor. can you input 2 different computers one coming in via Thunderbolt and the other, a PC, coming in with a USB video feed? I am going to go all Apple with my system. As I understand it the Studio Display is sorta an iPad minus the OS. I have learned to love the way Apple stuff interconnects.
Just got off the phone with Apple sales I had a question about its VESA mount. That is how I have the Samsung mounted on a swing arm using a VESA mount. The Studio Display uses the standard VESA mount that was my question, and getting it this way is the cheapest way to get one.
Just got off the phone with Apple sales I had a question about its VESA mount. That is how I have the Samsung mounted on a swing arm using a VESA mount. The Studio Display uses the standard VESA mount that was my question, and getting it this way is the cheapest way to get one.
I’m not qualified to answer. Only one input so you need a KVM switch upstream??? For Thunderbolt, those don’t come cheap. And why would we expect otherwise? Old thread, I haven’t read all of it, does not sound promising. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/two-computers-and-one-studio-display.2337419/page-9
2 cables and your hand may be the simplest approach.
2 cables and your hand may be the simplest approach.
I have come up with a solution. Instead of trying to get the Mini PC to work with the Apple Studio monitor I will just get a second monitor for it. It both will still work through the Yamaha AVR.
For my Mac mini 10C/10C GPU/16GB Unified Memory/256GB SSD, I opted for a budget-friednly LG 24MS530B FHD 100Hz display with 65W USB-C PD and 2x HDMI.
www.lg.com
Happy with what I went for-not the fanciest of monitors res-wise but suits me and my workspace to a T.
24” IPS Full HD monitor with USB-C - 24MS530B-B | LG AU
Discover LG 24MS530B-B. Click for pictures, reviews, and tech specs for the LG 24” IPS Full HD monitor with USB-C.
www.lg.com
Happy with what I went for-not the fanciest of monitors res-wise but suits me and my workspace to a T.