Now that we have no PWM on MBA M2 what to do with FRC/Dithering?

[ghanwani]

This is consistent with what I wrote above, in post #60--that the eyestrain seen in Mac LCD screens is due to FRC rather than PWM.

FRC is a form of temporal dithering MacOS uses to increase the effective color depth of its 8-bit panels to 10 bits. The only native 10-bit panel used by Apple, and that thus doesn't employ FRC, is that on the Pro Display XDR.

Did the fix work for you?

 

[theorist9]

Did the fix work for you?

I never said I tried the fix. I don't have an issue with FRC on the Macs I use. I was simply saying that, to the extent users experience eyestrain due to flicker, it's far more likely due to FRC than PWM, and the post about the fix is consistent with that.

 

[G3Blue]

Possible breakthrough!

This tool is supposed to disable GPU dithering on Apple Silicon Macs:

I disabled dithering on Apple silicon + Introducing Stillcolor macOS M1/M2/M3

tl;dr disable temporal dithering on your M1/M2/M3 with Stillcolor. I got 16” M3 Max MBP about a month ago and it’s been absolute hell. By far the worst scre...

ledstrain.org

This has not worked on my MacBook Pro M1 16”. I recorded ‘timeblend’ videos as described after each change.

1. No settings changed, default Apple settings (60Hz and 120Hz)
2. Same as test 1 but set to SRGB
3. Default but with dithering disabled
4. Same as test 3 but set to SRGB
5. Installed Betterdisplay (I’ve tried this in the past but made no different then). Tried multiple different settings.
6. Uninstalled Betterdisplay. Now tested with dithering disabled and with f.lux.

This absolutely destroyed my eyes yesterday.

 

[DisplaysShouldntBeTVs]

This has not worked on my MacBook Pro M1 16”. I recorded ‘timeblend’ videos as described after each change.

1. No settings changed, default Apple settings (60Hz and 120Hz)
2. Same as test 1 but set to SRGB
3. Default but with dithering disabled
4. Same as test 3 but set to SRGB
5. Installed Betterdisplay (I’ve tried this in the past but made no different then). Tried multiple different settings.
6. Uninstalled Betterdisplay. Now tested with dithering disabled and with f.lux.

This absolutely destroyed my eyes yesterday.

According to the finding so far in the thread the Stillcolor app is not currently compatible with the MacBook Pros with miniLED displays such as your M1 16".

This is because there's a lot more complications regarding extra color calibration these displays do (for example, using "hardware reference modes" instead of just color profiles), PWM, the complexity of the miniLED local dimming system and how the display compensates for differences in backlight zones etc.

For the Pros, it will only truly improve external monitor output. (as long as your external monitor doesn't have its own FRC built into the monitor itself, which is unfortunately pretty common)

However, people have reported that the software actually does work on the M2 Air's internal display.

It will also probably work on the M1 Air and the "Touch Bar low-end 13" M1/M2 Pros without the notch", given that they all use traditional LCD displays instead of miniLED.

(P.S. be aware that despite using a standard LCD for the main display, those Touch Bar devices use OLED with super strong PWM for the Touch Bar display strip. If testing on those models, also find a way to black out the Touch Bar.)