Users Report Loss of HiDPI Scaling on External Displays in macOS Sierra

[morgn]

This. This is exactly what happened to me.
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Which cable/dongle are you using? Mine did the thing that it would never show me the scaled resolutions after I unplugged the display for the first time, but I'm using that USB-C AV HDMI Adapter dongle from Apple.

I got a CableCreation USB C to DisplayPort adapter from Amazon, and also a standard DisplayPort cable there as well. I tried using HDMI through Apple's dongle and it just never worked consistently for me. This is the dongle I bought. This is the DisplayPort Cable.

Hope that helps!

 

[daveedjackson]

Wonder if anyone has a similar issue to this. I have the nMP with top spec d700 AMD's. Since changing from my old school Apple Cinema Display (30 inch) I've had nothing but bother. Now on my second display (brand ) and 4th replacement in total. When connecting my Dell UP2715k to my Mac if I run in any scaled resolution, I get flickering constantly. Even when the system is sitting idle. If I run I full 5k (using option on scaled) I can see the full resolution all be it super tiny on the screen which is impractical. Similarly if I run it in the recommended it's all just massive. but any of the in between just don't work.

Managed to find a middle ground, and run via 1 cable in 4k, and used it at it's highest resolution which was usable. However just done an update to Sierra 10.12.2 and the function of press ion option on scaled, no longer works, and doesn't give me the drop down resolutions. So annoying.

Has anyone else found the flickering issue?
Cheers
David

 

[Wolvehunter]

Can confirm this is absolutely a software issue, but of course talking to the Apple advisors as someone who actually knows what they're talking about, you only get ignored when you tell them you've nailed it down by troubleshooting yourself. My ultrawide 2560x1080 will not run above 1920x1080 on sierra on my Mac mini but it works just fine on the boot camp partition. It's connected to the thunderbolt port so there should be no issue. They gave me the "let's escalate this to our engineers" jargon, which means nothing will get done about it

 

[ggallin]

Wonder if anyone has a similar issue to this. I have the nMP with top spec d700 AMD's. Since changing from my old school Apple Cinema Display (30 inch) I've had nothing but bother. Now on my second display (brand ) and 4th replacement in total. When connecting my Dell UP2715k to my Mac if I run in any scaled resolution, I get flickering constantly. Even when the system is sitting idle. If I run I full 5k (using option on scaled) I can see the full resolution all be it super tiny on the screen which is impractical. Similarly if I run it in the recommended it's all just massive. but any of the in between just don't work.

Managed to find a middle ground, and run via 1 cable in 4k, and used it at it's highest resolution which was usable. However just done an update to Sierra 10.12.2 and the function of press ion option on scaled, no longer works, and doesn't give me the drop down resolutions. So annoying.

Has anyone else found the flickering issue?
Cheers
David

Hi David,

I also have a maxed out new Mac Pro and the Dell UP2715K. When running it with OS X El Capitan, it was possible to get 5K with 2 cables. After updating to Sierra, I got issues with the 2 cable connection. Until now, it was not possible for me to get a usable connection with 2 cables, therefore it is not possible for me to use 5K (because the Dell does not support 5K with the single cable connection). I got flickers and a weird screen. Please look at my Facebook conversation which I had with another Dell UP2715K owner. Here is the link to the thread:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/VintageMacPro/permalink/981647308647980/

I also posted a video which shows the issue.

 

[daveedjackson]

I got a CableCreation USB C to DisplayPort adapter from Amazon, and also a standard DisplayPort cable there as well. I tried using HDMI through Apple's dongle and it just never worked consistently for me. This is the dongle I bought. This is the DisplayPort Cable.

Hope that helps!

Exactly the same problem. I can use the other software to force the screen into 5k with two cables no problem. No glitches. But can't so the same for 4K via one cable. Anything in-between glitches.

 

[HDFan]

Can confirm this is absolutely a software issue, but of course talking to the Apple advisors as someone who actually knows what they're talking about, you only get ignored when you tell them you've nailed it down by troubleshooting yourself. My ultrawide 2560x1080 will not run above 1920x1080 on sierra on my Mac mini but it works just fine on the boot camp partition. It's connected to the thunderbolt port so there should be no issue. They gave me the "let's escalate this to our engineers" jargon, which means nothing will get done about it

I've had issues escalated to the engineering team and they have always gotten back to me as long as I kept the case open. Depending upon the issue it may take weeks, but they have always responded.

 

[MuggeGHQ]

Hi



What worked for me was this.



I bought a Thunderbolt/Mini Displayport to Displayport cable v1.2 (4k compatible)

I also used the http://embdev.net/topic/284710 but i'm not sure it was even necessary

in my situation.

I'm on the latest Sierra 10.12.3 so maybe it is fixed now.

But everything looks fine now on my Dell U2723HM and Macbook Pro 15" Retina.

Hope this helps. I was also in the same situation as everybody else with only Full HD

resolution but now i have 2560x1440 and it looks great.

 

[Whitfield]

Hey MuggeGHQ, thanks for the tip. What year MBP do you have?

And can anyone else vouch for a setup like this? Seems like an awfully simple solution for no one else to have attempted it, but maybe he's right that Sierra 10.12.3 finally fixed the problem?

Hi
What worked for me was this.

I bought a Thunderbolt/Mini Displayport to Displayport cable v1.2 (4k compatible)

I also used the http://embdev.net/topic/284710 but i'm not sure it was even necessary

in my situation.

I'm on the latest Sierra 10.12.3 so maybe it is fixed now.

But everything looks fine now on my Dell U2723HM and Macbook Pro 15" Retina.

Hope this helps. I was also in the same situation as everybody else with only Full HD

resolution but now i have 2560x1440 and it looks great.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

I'm using El Cap and I don't have the ability to hold the option key and get other aspect ratios like 2560x1440. I just got an LG 4K monitor and I seem to be viewing it in 4K but if I open the "About this Mac" window it says my display is 1920x1080 and 30" when it's a 27". Weird.

 

[Whitfield]

I'm using El Cap and I don't have the ability to hold the option key and get other aspect ratios like 2560x1440. I just got an LG 4K monitor and I seem to be viewing it in 4K but if I open the "About this Mac" window it says my display is 1920x1080 and 30" when it's a 27". Weird.

That is weird, but personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it if you are indeed working in 4k (which I believe people still aren't able to do consistently in Sierra). I can't tell from your wording if you're sure that's the case, but it should be fairly obvious - a 30"/4k display should show things like printed documents and live website text looking really crisp (though not as crisp as that of a rMBP screen or an iDevice). The only reason I'd be worried about the system not fully understanding the setup is if behaviors or UI elements become erratic because of that.

 

[itdk92]

I'm using El Cap and I don't have the ability to hold the option key and get other aspect ratios like 2560x1440. I just got an LG 4K monitor and I seem to be viewing it in 4K but if I open the "About this Mac" window it says my display is 1920x1080 and 30" when it's a 27". Weird.

Which LG do you have?
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That is weird, but personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it if you are indeed working in 4k (which I believe people still aren't able to do consistently in Sierra).

...

I am not sure what you mean?

We can totally drive multiple 4K monitors and work with media content in 4K, 6K and 8K on e.g. Mac Pro's 5.1 systems.
You just need the right GPU(s) for the job.

Apple laptop's GPUs are unbelievably underpowered, hence the struggle to even drive a 4K monitor.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

That is weird, but personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it if you are indeed working in 4k (which I believe people still aren't able to do consistently in Sierra). I can't tell from your wording if you're sure that's the case, but it should be fairly obvious - a 30"/4k display should show things like printed documents and live website text looking really crisp (though not as crisp as that of a rMBP screen or an iDevice). The only reason I'd be worried about the system not fully understanding the setup is if behaviors or UI elements become erratic because of that.

Well I'm running El Cap on a 13" rMBP (2014). Yeah the image seems very clear and the text is crisp. Just that it's at a 1920x1080 screen real estate. I can't select anything higher. I don't mind it perse but it would be nice to go even to 2560x1440.

Which LG do you have?

I have the LG 27UD58.

This is what I get in my display preferences.

 

[Whitfield]

Which LG do you have?
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I am not sure what you mean?

We can totally drive multiple 4K monitors and work with media content in 4K, 6K and 8K on e.g. Mac Pro's 5.1 systems.
You just need the right GPU(s) for the job.

Apple laptop's GPUs are unbelievably underpowered, hence the struggle to even drive a 4K monitor.

Whoops! Somehow this response flew past me, sorry about that. For clarification, I drive a 4K monitor with my "ancient" mid-2012 MBP every day with no problem other than a slight mouse lag that I've (surprisingly) gotten used to. I have two different 4K screens - a Samsung 28" (working out of the HDMI port - the display port doesn't work worth a crap) and a Dell 26" (working out of the display port).

The real reason I came back to this thread was to ask if anyone has tried running in HiDPI mode using High Sierra. I'm still stuck in El Cap until I feel confident that this issue has been resolved (I'm not sure if any of the aforementioned "this worked for me" messages above apply to my situation yet).

 

[itdk92]

Yes, I am running a LG 31mu97z through DP at HiDpi (3008 x something HiDpi)

The monitor resolution is cinema 4K (17:9)

I have to use SwitchResX though

 

[Whitfield]

Ah, okay. But this is in reference to your Mac Pro, right? Have you tried driving that display with a MBP on High Sierra?

My own setup/settings seem pretty strange, see attached. It's been awhile since I got this dialed in, but I do recall not having HiDPI working when I first plugged this monitor in (it was 4K, but with a tiny UI). I remember monkeying with SwitchResX (I just downloaded it again, it wasn't installed), but I'm not sure if that was necessary to make the UI work correctly.

 

[itdk92]

Ah, okay. But this is in reference to your Mac Pro, right? Have you tried driving that display with a MBP on High Sierra?

My own setup/settings seem pretty strange, see attached. It's been awhile since I got this dialed in, but I do recall not having HiDPI working when I first plugged this monitor in (it was 4K, but with a tiny UI). I remember monkeying with SwitchResX (I just downloaded it again, it wasn't installed), but I'm not sure if that was necessary to make the UI work correctly.

Most MacBook don’t have the graphical power to drive an external 4k screen in HiDpi.

This was Apple’s answer to me when I was trying to use a maxed out 2015 15” rMBP with the 31mu97z, and it wasn’t working.

Now I have a 2017 rMBP but I haven’t tried to connect anything, because I am still in AdapterLand, trying to figure out what I’ll need

 

[Whitfield]

Most MacBook don’t have the graphical power to drive an external 4k screen in HiDpi.

This was Apple’s answer to me when I was trying to use a maxed out 2015 15” rMBP with the 31mu97z, and it wasn’t working.

Now I have a 2017 rMBP but I haven’t tried to connect anything, because I am still in AdapterLand, trying to figure out what I’ll need

Seriously?? What a load of crap! I assume that the above response was after you had upgraded to Sierra? If so, then I assume that either you were talking to someone who didn't know what they were talking about or that was their official excuse for not fixing this problem. :[

And yeah, the USB-C-only setup in the current MBPs has me and most creatives I know extremely pissed. I'm not really in the market because my 2012 is still doing the job commendably, but if I was then I'd be looking for a pre-USB-C refurb for that reason.

 

[Whitfield]

Well I'll be damned. I decided to (gulp!) try upgrading to High Sierra to see what happened (first verifying that I would be able to downgrade to El Cap and making the proper preparations), and my UHD monitors... worked perfectly!

No changes even necessary, they both behave exactly as they did before. For reference, I'm on a 2012 rMBP/16GB and driving a Samsung U28D590 with HDMI at my office and a Dell 26" screen (not sure of the model right now) via Thunderbolt at home. I've had a few hiccups in my system since the upgrade (including a handful of hard crashes that I'm hoping were just due to outdated software), but otherwise I'm fairly happy with the upgrade.

 

[Whitfield]

UPDATE 11-06-17: Looks like I just needed to do an SMC update!
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/259430/macbook-hangs-when-when-unplugging-external-monitor

After taking that simple step, my remaining High Sierra issues appear to have been solved, now everything is working as well as it did in El Cap.

---

UPDATE 11-03-17: The 10.13.1 update appears to have fixed this problem! Or at least converted it into something a bit more manageable - I still seem to experience periods of crippling slowness for about five minutes after unplugging a monitor, but that's better than the flat-out crashes.

---

Okay, begrudging update here for anyone who's using this thread to make a decision about the upgrade: that "handful of hard crashes" has wound up being a handful of such crashes every... single... day. I've scoured my system for culprits, but I've already made sure that all of my software is up to date, and the one factor that really seems to affect the likelihood of crashes is a plugged-in 4K monitor.

I have seen a crash or two without the external display, but I've also had my machine running for many hours and nary a glitch without an external monitor, and crashes have happened frequently right after plugging one in or unplugging from it. Scouring the Console hasn't told me much, and I'm not loving that the Sierra update of the Console stopped giving you access to pre-crash logs (at least as I understand it - that's not really my forte).

When the crashes happen, I can usually continue moving my mouse and iTunes continues to play in the background, but I can't get the computer to do anything else, including bringing up the Force Quit window. I'm not sure what else to report here, at this point I'm just dealing with it and hoping that an OS update solves the problem. :/

 

[Jaw3000]

I just purchased my first 4k monitor, a Samsung 28" U28E510, and I'm trying to figure out how this works with HiDPI and scaling. Native resolution can run at 3849x2160/52hz on my system over DisplayPort using SwitchResX (MacBook Pro 13" Late 2013). Of course, everything is too small to read/use at the native resolution. Is there a preferred scaled resolution for HiDPI on a native 3849x2160 display? I'm using 1920x1080 scaled now, which seems to be the highest offered, and text is not especially sharp.

 

[Whitfield]

I just purchased my first 4k monitor, a Samsung 28" U28E510, and I'm trying to figure out how this works with HiDPI and scaling. Native resolution can run at 3849x2160/52hz on my system over DisplayPort using SwitchResX (MacBook Pro 13" Late 2013). Of course, everything is too small to read/use at the native resolution. Is there a preferred scaled resolution for HiDPI on a native 3849x2160 display? I'm using 1920x1080 scaled now, which seems to be the highest offered, and text is not especially sharp.

I don't totally remember how I finally landed on the right HiDPI scaling for my 4K monitors, but I do know that SystemPrefs: Displays shows them both as "Resolution: Default for display," not Scaled. I no longer have SwitchResX on my machine, but I believe it did show my monitors as 1920x1080 even though they're both running the full 4K resolution (with correct font sizes). Probably not terribly helpful, hopefully someone else will chime in.

 

[Jaw3000]

I don't totally remember how I finally landed on the right HiDPI scaling for my 4K monitors, but I do know that SystemPrefs: Displays shows them both as "Resolution: Default for display," not Scaled. I no longer have SwitchResX on my machine, but I believe it did show my monitors as 1920x1080 even though they're both running the full 4K resolution (with correct font sizes). Probably not terribly helpful, hopefully someone else will chime in.

Any help would be appreciated. Without SwitchResX, I couldn't even get a 4k signal output over DisplayPort, yet I could over HDMI. I got the display working with SwitchResX. SystemPrefs indicates the "default for display" as native, which isn't scaled,

 

[Whitfield]

Without SwitchResX, I couldn't even get a 4k signal output over DisplayPort, yet I could over HDMI.

Yeah, I think that matches my experience on my Samsung, though I am able to use DisplayPort with my Dell 4k monitor. That doesn't solve the HiDPI issue, though - wish I had a better suggestion there than to keep trying different SwitchResX profiles/options.